Directly contradicting an assessment in 2008 — which found the most important wild resource of the New England groundfishery was recovering rapidly from chronic overfishing — the 2011 assessment concluded that the cod stock is so weak that nearly all fishing for it should be halted.

But the assessment, a product of the NOAA Science Center in Woods Hole, has been received with doubts about its accuracy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's science itself has come under intense criticism.

In the furor, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, Gov. Deval Patrick and the co-chairmen of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute have written to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco and top Obama administration fisheries officials, advising them that a "new cod assessment, undertaken with industry and 'local scientific experts'" was essential to gain the "trust and support of fishermen."

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