goldin, r

<div>=</div><div>see entine GLP</div><div>STATS</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/statistical-assessment-service">https://www.desmogblog.com/statistical-assessment-service</a></div><div>=</div><div>opioids: (wayback thus pulled? motive?)</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.stats.org/stories/2012/attack_painkillers_misusing_statistics_jan31_12.html">https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.stats.org/stories/2012/attack_painkillers_misusing_statistics_jan31_12.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>ProPublica fumbles painkiller story; Seattle Times scores touchdown
Rebecca Goldin, Ph.D and Cindy Merrick. Jan 31, 2012
ProPublica leads attack on painkillers by misusing statistics; But Seattle Times investigation uncovers really shocking numbersLast November, the CDC’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6043a4.htm?s_cid=mm6043a4_w" style="font-weight: lighter; text-decoration-line: none;">Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report</a> (MMWR) included data on the sharp increase between 1999 and 2008 in deaths attributable to overdose of prescription opioid pain relievers (OPRs). These increased OPR-related deaths correspond to an <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5605a1.htm#tab2" style="font-weight: lighter; text-decoration-line: none;">overall increase in accidental drug poisoning deaths</a> – accounting for far more deaths than any decreases seen in fatal overdoses of other drugs.  In 2008, roughly 40 Americans died every day from overdose involving OPRs.
Although the new data was widely reported – <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/11/01/141914150/cdc-calls-for-action-to-curb-shocking-epidemic-of-narcotics-overdoses" style="text-decoration-line: none;">NPR</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://abcnews.go.com/Health/prescription-painkiller-overdose-deaths-rise/story?id=14858375#.Trha2bKwVGc" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ABC News</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-cdc-deaths-from-painkiller-abuse-more-than-tripled-in-decade-20111101,0,7842090.story" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Chicago Tribune</a>,<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/cdc-fatal-overdoses-from-painkillers-triple-in-decade-5-percent-of-americans-report-abuse/2011/11/01/gIQA5EIgcM_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> The Washington Post</a>, and more all covered it – somehow, the splash at first seemed muted. Until, that is the non-profit investigative journalism outfit ProPublica decided to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.propublica.org/article/the-champion-of-painkillers" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lambast prescription opioid use</a> and administration with a shocking but misleading statistic. “The news about narcotic painkillers is increasingly dire,” said ProPublica. “Overdoses now kill nearly 15,000 people a year — more than heroin and cocaine combined.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/patient-advocacy-group-funded-by-success-of-painkiller-drugs-probe-finds/2011/12/20/gIQAgvczDP_story.html?hpid=z3" style="text-decoration-line: none;">A version</a> of the ProPublica story was published in the Washington Post.
ProPublica quotes the CDC’s director, Dr. Thomas Frieden saying, “Right now, the system is awash in opioids, dangerous drugs that got people hooked and keep them hooked.”But neither ProPublica or, for that matter, Dr. Frieden report what the actual CDC’s data says.There is a subtle but misleading switch from the CDC noting deaths “involving” OPRs to claiming that only OPRs were responsible for the deaths. The CDC data do not distinguish among those who died of overdoses with OPRs alone and those who died of overdoses of a cocktail of drugs including OPRs and either other prescription medications or illicit drugs. The distinction here means the difference between someone who has become accidentally addicted through legitimately prescribed medicine and someone who is abusing painkillers along with other drugs; in other words, a drug addict.
The CDC reports deaths attributed to drug overdose at 36,450 per year, with OPRs involved in 14,800 of these deaths. Yet the method for collecting data – statements on death certificates, leave room for enormous confusion about what substance, and whom, to blame for these deaths.
ProPublica, like many news sources, confuses the use of opioids under the supervision of a doctor, and their use more generally. In a large community sample coming from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health data (NSDUH) on people 18 and over in 2006-2008, a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21670373" style="font-weight: lighter; text-decoration-line: none;">study published last year</a> in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that 69 percent of those who use OPRs for nonmedical purposes had no physician source at all.
A full 80 percent of those who misused OPRs had a source other than a physician. While too much free-wheeling prescription is feeding a black market on these drugs, the widespread use of OPRs is clearly not a result of doctors casually prescribing them, but rather that people who want OPRs can find them outside the medical world, or through prescriptions intended for other people. In fact, this study found that opioid analgesic “abuse or dependence” (which consists of patients taking the drugs for the fun/feeling of the drug) was associated with having a prescribing doctor only in people 50 and over, and even among users in this group, 48.5 percent did not have a physician who prescribed it to them.
In furthering the idea of doctors going wild, ProPublica cites the example of “Dr. William Hurwitz, a pain doctor in Virginia who had been convicted on 50 counts of drug trafficking… [and was] accused of prescribing a single patient as many as 1,600 Roxicodone pain pills in one day. Hurwitz allegedly had prescribed that patient alone more than 500,000 pills between July 1999 and October 2002.”
It claims the pharma-backed American Pain Foundation filed a friend-of-the court brief supporting Dr. Hurwitz, which suggests that pharma has a more-than-medicinal interest in this kind of prescribing, which seems, on the face of it, medically implausible. 
What ProPublica doesn’t note is a remark made by the presiding judge in Dr. Hurwitz’s appeal. “‘The amount of drugs Dr. Hurwitz prescribed struck me as absolutely crazy,’ U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/a-win-for-dr-hurwitz-a-loss-for-the-pill-counters/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told</a> the AP. But after hearing testimony from both sides, ‘I totally turned around on that issue… The mere prescription of huge quantities of opioids doesn’t mean anything.’”
Who is overdosing?
The questions of who is overdosing on OPRs, and why, are central to interpreting these data. But this is not a question that ProPublica is particularly interested in, given what it sees as evidence of carelessness and corruption on the part of physicians and the pain med companies. ProPublica points to the profits to be had by companies making OPRs, as if their profits alone indict the drug. It may be the case, of course, that profits are driving pharmaceutical fat cats into setting up <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.painfoundation.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">informational websites</a> that are merely fronts to cover “Big Pharma” interests. Money being made, however, is a separate issue from whether patients have a medical need for the product.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, just about every drug sold with a brand name in the United States has an informational website funded directly or indirectly by a company that stands to profit from health consumers choosing their products. It only seems natural that pharmaceutical companies would want to advocate for patients who want their products, and that those advocating for patients would ask these companies to foot the bill. It’s not a hard pill to swallow.
More relevant to the public interest is a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21467284" style="text-decoration-line: none;">study last year</a> published in Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) which found that, among people who are given prescriptions, the risk of overdose was directly related to the maximum prescribed daily dose of opioids. These ratios varied among different groups, reaching as high as HR=11.00 (95% CI, 4.42-32.56) for cancer patients, and as low as HR = 4.54 (95% CO, 2.46-8.37) in substance use disorder patients. But this study was not about the majority of overdose deaths: those without a prescription.  As the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) notes, many overdoses result from people taking the pills in non-prescribed ways, such as crushing and snorting them.
But are there, underneath the surface, a large number of addicts dying from the opiates distributed in the legal market? According to the JAMA study, approximately 0.04 percent of patients (i.e. 2 in 5,000) overdosed from their prescriptions in 2004-2008. While small, the death rate is high enough to merit some concern. This may be a messy, uninspired story of mostly white, middle-of-their-lives Americans, to whom “addiction” used to mean something a whole world away, not medically endorsed pain relief, turning into a slow slide ending with unconsciousness in an emergency room.
What about teen users?
Typically, a pronounced increase in abuse of a specific drug can be measured by an acute effect on the youngest users. But in the case of OPRs, the increase in deaths related to overdoses has left kids less harmed than older adults. According to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://oas.samhsa.gov/NSDUH/2k10NSDUH/2k10Results.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)</a>, the average age for first-time use of OxyContin is 22.8 years old among people ages 12-49. 
Bolstering the view that kids don’t have the problems that adults do, the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/mtf-vol1_2010.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2010 Monitoring the Future Survey</a> reported that the use of Vicodin (hydrocodone/paracetamol) has gone down from last year’s 9.7 percent of 12th graders reporting having used the drug in a nonmedical situation in the past 12 months, to 8 percent reporting the same for 2010. However, reported abuse of OxyContin has remained constant, at about 5 percent of kids reporting use of this drug in the past year. OxyContin’s use has remained roughly constant since 2001.  The overall proportion of 12th graders who tried any illicit drug other than marijuana was 17 percent in 2010, and continues a period of decline since about 2001, when it was about 20 percent.
Who is at fault?
The problem with tackling prescription opioid abuse is that there isn’t a single culprit. Doctors may be partially at fault. States regulate prescription drugs inconsistently, and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.cwci.org/document.php?file=1438.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">one study</a> (Swedlow, et al.) found that, among a group of Californian doctors in Oakland, CA, “3% of physicians account for 62% of OPR prescribed.” At the same time, however, the DEA’s crackdown and prosecution of doctors who prescribed pain medication may be the root cause of this skewed statistic, causing patients in pain to search for doctors willing to prescribe.
One extraordinary <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/specialreports/methadone/methadoneandthepoliticsofpain.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">three-part journalistic investigation</a> that has shed new light on the problem appeared recently in the Seattle Times, which looked at how Washington State pushed people who had state-subsidized health care (e.g., Medicaid) towards methadone instead of much more expensive painkillers like OxyContin. Even though methadone accounts for less than 10 percent of the narcotics prescribed, the drug, says the paper, was responsible for more than half of painkiller overdose deaths in the state. Unlike OxyContin, which has a short half-life, methadone does not quickly dissipate from the body; and depending on how much is taken, and whether it is taken with other medication, it can depress the respiratory system. Patients can fall asleep and never wake up. As the paper notes, the state has repeatedly downplayed this risk while saving millions of dollars.
With $72.5 billion per year in health care costs being attributed to the abuse of OPRs, and in light of the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5842a1.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;">CDC research</a> showing that “Medicaid populations are at greater risk of OPR overdose than non-Medicaid populations,” the Seattle Times investigation has national significance.
But anyone who wants to understand pain treatment in the U.S. today needs to understand the way law enforcement and the media have often acted to create a feedback loop in the promotion of drug “epidemics,” especially with regard to the previous OxyContin “epidemic” in the early part of the last decade. The science and information that gets omitted in these panics is itself a source of alarm, as noted in <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://reason.com/archives/2004/08/01/dr-feelscared" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Reason</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17pain-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&oref=login" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The New York Times Magazine</a>, by the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://proxy.baremetal.com/csdp.org/research/cato_libby_pain_analysis.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Cato Institute</a> – and by STATS. For anyone who might believe that there hasn’t been extraordinary injustice committed in the fight against painkiller abuse, the case of paraplegic and multiple sclerosis sufferer Richard Paey, (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/25/60minutes/main1238202.shtml" style="text-decoration-line: none;">CBS 60 Minutes</a>) now fully pardoned, (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://reason.com/archives/2007/11/20/richard-paey-speaks/singlepage" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Reason</a>) is a warning.
There are also serious problems with data collection. Deaths from OPRs are almost certainly underreported, because many certificates in drug deaths do not specify the type of drug, and respondents to health surveys are likely to underreport nonmedical (unprescribed) OPR use.
It can be argued that our population will always maintain a certain percentage of drug abusers, which remains relatively steady among the vicissitudes of specific substances being abused in any particular era. However, the CDC report brings to light a serious and growing problem above and beyond those “usual suspects.” Despite the good news regarding high school students, as a percentage of the population, more Americans are dying than ever before due to drug poisoning. In 1999, the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5605a1.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;">rate of drug overdose deaths</a> was 4 in 100,000 Americans. By 2004 this number had risen to 6.7 in 100,000, and by 2008 to 12 in 100,000.As reported by the MMWR, the tripling of overdose deaths in this time period, from 1999-2008, tracks closely with the period of nearly quadrupled growth of OPR sales. By 2008, the annual overdose death rate from just prescription drugs had quadrupled from 1999. By 2009, the abuse treatment rate was nearly six times that of 1999. On the other hand, the NSDUH <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k8/newUseDepend/newUseDepend.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">found in 2008</a> that among people who used opioids for nonmedical purposes, only about 3 percent are dependent a year later.Unfortunately, this sad, messy, uncomfortable problem is the new addiction reality – and we need the media to reflect this lest more harm be done by crackdown on physicians and pain treatment than good. In this, the Seattle Times series has made a truly vital contribution.</div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project">https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project</a></div><div>
</div><div>GLP Executive Director <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jon_Entine" title="Jon Entine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jon Entine</a> is a former journalist. The Huffington Post released Entine's emails with <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kevin_Folta" title="Kevin Folta" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Kevin Folta</a> where they discussed funding from Monsanto and ways to discredit GMO critics. Folta was later discovered to be acting as a third party scientist for Monsanto.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project#cite_note-HuffPo-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a> When Folta's emails became public, showing he was being funded by Monsanto, he contacted <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Keith_Kloor" title="Keith Kloor" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Keith Kloor</a> to preemptively release the emails, "but selectively." After Kloor wrote the story for Nature, he then warned <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jon_Entine" title="Jon Entine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jon Entine</a> of the <a class="mw-selflink selflink" style="text-decoration: inherit; background: none; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold;">Genetic Literacy Project</a>: "You and I should also talk," <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Keith_Kloor" title="Keith Kloor" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Keith Kloor</a> wrote to <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jon_Entine" title="Jon Entine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jon Entine</a>. "You are in the emails."<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project#cite_note-HuffPo-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a>The website for the Genetic Literacy Project also has several pages where <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin" title="Rebecca Goldin" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Rebecca Goldin</a> is called "Research Director for the Genetic Literacy Project and Director of Research for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University," adding, "She holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Mathematics, and a B.A., cum laude from Harvard University."<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a>Archived pages of the website for <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Statistical_Assessment_Service" title="Statistical Assessment Service" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Statistical Assessment Service</a> (STATS) carry an emblem for the Genetic Literacy Project in the upper left corner.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a>One of the Genetic Literacy Project's writers is <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Stephan_Neidenbach" title="Stephan Neidenbach" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Stephan Neidenbach</a>.<h2 linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177);">Contact Information</h2><ul data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%23222%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Genetic Literacy Project/ CMPA/STATS</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">933 N. Kenmore St., Suite 405</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Arlington, VA 22201</li></ul></div><div></div><div>Rebecca Goldin was the director of research at both <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Statistical_Assessment_Service" title="Statistical Assessment Service" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Statistical Assessment Service</a> (STATS) and the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Genetic_Literacy_Project" title="Genetic Literacy Project" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Genetic Literacy Project</a> and Associate Professor of Mathematical Sciences at <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_Mason_University" title="George Mason University" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">George Mason University</a>, who is now affliated with <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sense_About_Science_USA" title="Sense About Science USA" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Sense About Science USA</a>.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-Goldin-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> She joined STATS in September 2004.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a> In a review of a book written by STATS authors, Salon noted that it was filled with "disingenuous maneuvers”. The review added, "It’s clear that while the authors are good at looking up articles in Lexis-Nexis, they aren’t playing straight with their readers . . . Their analyses and conclusions inevitably stack up in favor of the view that there are few environmental problems that less government spending won’t fix and that social dilemmas like racial discrimination are figments of overactive imagination. A fair review of the state of science journalism is always welcome, but this cleverly disguised example of corporate propaganda isn’t it."<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a> 
In the New York Review of Books, Michael Massing wrote "the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Media_and_Public_Affairs" title="Center for Media and Public Affairs" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Center for Media and Public Affairs</a> was set up with conservative foundation money in the mid-1980s as part of a growing effort by the right to portray the American press as liberal and out of touch with mainstream America."<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a>Reporters with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Statistical_Assessment_Service" title="Statistical Assessment Service" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Statistical Assessment Service</a> was a stealth defender of the chemical industry that did not disclose funders and was associated with <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Media_and_Public_Affairs" title="Center for Media and Public Affairs" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Center for Media and Public Affairs</a> (CMPA) which had contracted with tobacco companies.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> The <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Genetic_Literacy_Project" title="Genetic Literacy Project" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Genetic Literacy Project</a> has been noted for its attacks on reporters and for hosting conferences secretly funded by industry to promote GMO agriculture and the safety of glyphosate.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-6" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">[</a><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-6" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">6]</a>In an investigation of <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sense_About_Science_USA" title="Sense About Science USA" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Sense About Science USA</a>, Liza Gross with The Intercept wrote, "Sense About Science does not always disclose when its sources on controversial matters are scientists with ties to the industries under examination."<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a> Gross continued, "And the group is known to take positions that buck scientific consensus or dismiss emerging evidence of harm. When journalists rightly ask who sponsors research into the risks of, say, asbestos, or synthetic chemicals, they’d be well advised to question the evidence Sense About Science presents in these debates as well."<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#Work_for_the_Statistical_Assessment_Service" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">1Work for the Statistical Assessment Service</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#Research_Director_for_the_Genetic_Literacy_Project" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2Research Director for the Genetic Literacy Project</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#Other_Information" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3Other Information</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#Articles_and_resources" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4Articles and resources</a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#Related_SourceWatch_articles" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.1Related SourceWatch articles</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.2References</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#External_resources" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.3External resources</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#External_articles" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.4External articles</a></li></ul></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Work for the Statistical Assessment Service</h2>Goldin edited The <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Statistical_Assessment_Service" title="Statistical Assessment Service" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Statistical Assessment Service</a> webpage devoted to undermining the science linking sodas with obesity while attacking the benefits of taxing soda.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> Research from UCLA has found a direct link between soda and obesity.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a> NPR has reported that the World Health Organization urged countries to tax sodas. Dr. Douglas Bettcher, director of the WHO's Department for the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases, says that "consumption of free sugars, including products like sugary drinks, is a major factor in the global increase of people suffering from obesity and diabetes." Blecher stated, "If governments tax products like sugary drinks, they can reduce suffering and save lives. They can also cut healthcare costs and increase revenues to invest in health services."<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a> Researchers at UCLA later confirmed the importance of a soda tax, writing, "Educating people to drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages only works to a point. After that, taxation on an unhealthy product — along with putting those taxes toward public health programs — would help far more.”<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a>Writing for the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Statistical_Assessment_Service" title="Statistical Assessment Service" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Statistical Assessment Service</a> Goldin critiqued a story by ProPublica’s Charles Ornstein on opoids. The story also appeared in the Washington Post.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a> Goldin wrote, “the non-profit investigative journalism outfit ProPublica decided to lambast prescription opioid use and administration with a shocking but misleading statistic. ‘The news about narcotic painkillers is increasingly dire,’ said ProPublica. ‘Overdoses now kill nearly 15,000 people a year — more than heroin and cocaine combined.’” Goldin also criticized CDC’s director, Dr. Thomas Frieden for stating that America is “awash” in opioids.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a> Multiple media outlets later reported how payments to drug makers helped to fuel the opioid crisis.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a> Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin, later announced it would stop marketing opioids to doctors.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Research Director for the Genetic Literacy Project</h2>At an archived page of the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Genetic_Literacy_Project" title="Genetic Literacy Project" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Genetic Literacy Project</a><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a> and on several pages where she contributed, Goldin is cited as the Research Director for the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Genetic_Literacy_Project" title="Genetic Literacy Project" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Genetic Literacy Project</a> and Director of Research for the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Statistical_Assessment_Service" title="Statistical Assessment Service" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Statistical Assessment Service</a>.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a>The <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Genetic_Literacy_Project" title="Genetic Literacy Project" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Genetic Literacy Project</a> is operated by <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jon_Entine" title="Jon Entine" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Jon Entine</a> to promote GMOs. Bloomberg and The Progressive have reported that lawyers suing Monsanto state in court documents that companies funnel money to the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Genetic_Literacy_Project" title="Genetic Literacy Project" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Genetic Literacy Project</a> in order to "shame scientists and highlight information helpful to Monsanto and other chemical producers.” <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[22]</a> In a report that examined corporate attacks on science, Congress found that to discredit the World Health Organization (WHO), Monsanto "turned to industry trade groups, such as CropLife and industry front groups, such as Genetic Literacy Project and Academics Review as platforms of support for industry spokespersons."<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[23]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Other Information</h2>An August 2008 biographical note stated that "this fall, I am involved with running on a conference on Menopause and the Media, joint with the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hormone_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Hormone Foundation (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Hormone Foundation</a>".<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-Goldin-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a>Dr. Goldin was the 2007 recipient of the American Women in Mathematics (AWM) Michler award in 2007 for outstanding young women mathematicians.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-24" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[24]</a> In August of 2008 she delivered the Falconer Lecture, the keynote address, at AWM’s annual conference in Madison Wisconsin. In 2008 Dr. Goldin was elected to the Council of the American Mathematical Society and serves on it Science and Policy Committee.<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-Goldin-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Articles and resources</h2>U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Space & Technology: "Spinning Science & Silencing Scientists: A Case Study in How the Chemical Industry Attempts to Influence Science"<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-25" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[25]</a>
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Space & Technology: "Spinning Science & Silencing Scientists: A Case Study in How the Chemical Industry Attempts to Influence Science" February 2018 <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://democrats-science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.house.gov/files/documents/02.06.18%20-%20Spinning%20Science%20and%20Silencing%20Scientists_0.pdf" style="background-image: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" background-position="background-position" right="right" center="center" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">https://democrats-science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.house.gov/files/documents/02.06.18%20-%20Spinning%20Science%20and%20Silencing%20Scientists_0.pdf</a>
Desmog Blog, page on Statistical Assessment Service<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-26" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[26]</a>Trevor Butterworth and Sense About Science Spin Science for Industry<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rebecca_Goldin#cite_note-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[27]</a><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;">Related SourceWatch articles</h3><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%23222%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Statistical_Assessment_Service" title="Statistical Assessment Service" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Statistical Assessment Service</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sense_About_Science_USA" title="Sense About Science USA" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Sense About Science USA</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Genetic_Literacy_Project" title="Genetic Literacy Project" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Genetic Literacy Project</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Trevor_Butterworth" title="Trevor Butterworth" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Trevor Butterworth</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jon_Entine" title="Jon Entine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jon Entine</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Maia_Szavalitz&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Maia Szavalitz (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Maia Szavalitz</a></li></ul><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;">References</h3></div><div>
</div><div>==</div><div>2/18 house</div><div>
</div><div>key Players. The individuals listed below are some

of the key players mentioned in the internal Monsanto emails and records cited in this report. Brief descriptions

of their affiliation with Monsanto and their activities

surrounding glyphosate are summarized below.

 John Acquavella: Former Monsanto Company Scientist, Paid Monsanto Consultant.

Currently works as a Consultant/Professor Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University.

 Bruce Chassy: Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois Department of Food Science

and Human Nutrition and Monsanto grant recipient. Chassy helped organize writing campaigns

to scientific journals criticizing studies on glyphosate at Monsanto’s request and runs a nonprofit called Academics Review that Monsanto reportedly helped to establish to provide an

“independent” voice supporting glyphosate and other issues of interest to Monsanto.

 Donna R. Farmer: Monsanto’s lead toxicologist and a Monsanto employee since 1991.

 A. Wallace (“Wally”) Hayes: Former Editor-in-Chief for Vision and Strategy at Food and

Chemical Toxicology journal, which, during his tenure, published and retracted the Seralini

rat study. Reportedly was paid $16,000 by Monsanto in a consulting contract.

 William F. Heydens: Currently Monsanto’s Product Safety Assessment Strategy Lead.

 Larry Kier: Former Monsanto toxicologist. Authored, “Review of genotoxicity studies of

glyphosate and glyphosate-based formulations,” which found glyphosate posed no risk to humans.

 David J. Kirkland: Monsanto contractor who was a co-author with Larry Kier on the study

“Review of genotoxicity studies of glyphosate and glyphosate-based formulations.”

 Henry Miller: Stanford Hoover Institution fellow and former contributor to Forbes. In 2015,

Miller published a Forbes article critical of IARC that was solicited–and largely ghostwritten

–by Monsanto. Forbes cut ties with Miller and retracted his articles when they discovered his

failure to disclose ties with Monsanto.

 Dr. James Parry was a Geneticist at Swansea University in the United Kingdom who was

hired by Monsanto in 1999 to evaluate the genotoxicity of glyphosate. Monsanto refused to

conduct additional tests at his request and attempted to “move him from his position.”

 Eric Sachs: Monsanto Science and Policy lead since 2005; botanist and plant geneticist.

 David A. Saltmiras: Former Monsanto Company Toxicology Manager and author on the socalled Greim Study that refuted animal data indicating glyphosate’s carcinogenicity.

 Gilles-Éric Séralini. French molecular biologist who conducted a study that found rats fed

glyphosate-tolerant corn treated with Roundup had an increased risk of developing tumors.

The study, published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, was retracted by journal

editor and Monsanto contractor A. Wallace Hayes.</div><div>...</div><div>By February 2015, a battle plan to confront what they

suspected would be bad news for glyphosate was already

underway.6

“We should assume and prepare for the outcome

of a 2B rating (possible human carcinogen); a 2A rating

(probable human carcinogen) is possible but less likely.”

Glyphosate received the 2A rating by IARC. According to

several key records unsealed in the multi-district litigation

against Monsanto, including the company’s “Preparedness and Engagement Plan for IARC

Carcinogen Rating of Glyphosate,” dated February 17, 2015, Monsanto was ready for a fullborne defense of glyphosate when IARC released its Monograph on glyphosate in March 2015.7

The Monsanto attack plan included efforts to “amplify” their message that glyphosate was safe

pointing to industry-sponsored studies and industry-placed news stories. They sought to generate

industry “outrage” over what they thought would be a 2B rating. They had plans to address these

“new allegations” regarding the potential hazard of glyphosate and to “neutralize” the impact.

They also sought to “amplify” the “positive” message about glyphosate’s safety via social media

platforms including Twitter and Facebook. They turned to industry trade groups, such as

CropLife and industry front groups, such as Genetic Literacy Project and Academics Review as

platforms of support for industry spokespersons. They also sought third-party experts to “blog,

op/ed, tweet and/or link, repost, retweet, etc.” They were planning an onslaught of actions to help

undermine IARC and to embolden their justifications to dismiss IARC’s scientific findings. They

have carried out that battle plan in a consistent and very aggressive manner ever since.

Separately from Monsanto’s attacks on IARC they have also tried to wield their influence at the

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well. In some instances, they have objected to key

scientists sitting on EPA science panels reviewing glyphosate’s safety. There have also been

questions about other tactics. In May 2017 the EPA’s Office of Inspector General opened “an

investigation into reports that an EPA employee may have colluded with Monsanto to conduct a

biased review of glyphosate,” according to the IG’s letter announcing the investigation.8 </div><div>
</div><div>Hiring journalists to discredit IARC. </div><div>
</div><div>In Monsanto’s effort to discredit IARC, they sought to recruit writers to publish pieces echoing

their criticisms of IARC’s process. In February 2015, one month before IARC published their

glyphosate monograph that found glyphosate to be a “probable human carcinogen,” Monsanto

scientist Eric Sachs reached out to Henry Miller, a Forbes contributor and a Medical Doctor and

Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public Policy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, a

conservative think tank. Sachs prompted Miller on the desired content of the article, writing,

“Ideally, your article would precede the IARC decision. Why not set the table with the weight of

scientific evidence before IARC convenes? Then, regardless of what they do, your article will set

the state for a science-based response.”18 Miller agreed – and, after a follow-up email, requested

a “high quality draft” from Monsanto.

19</div><div>
</div><div> Officials at the company quickly got to work and

provided Miller with a draft that was posted on the Forbes website largely unchanged. The

article was published on March 17, 2015, with the title: “March Madness from the United

Nations.”20

When this ghostwriting was discovered, Miller was fired by Forbes. In a statement to Retraction

Watch, a Forbes representative said: “All contributors to Forbes.com sign a contract requiring

them to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and only publish content that is their own

original writing. When it came to our attention that Mr. Miller violated these terms, we removed

all of his posts from Forbes.com and ended our relationship with him.”21 ...</div><div></div><div><a href="https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/">https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/</a></div><div>
</div><div><div class="col-md-9 col-article col-blog" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; padding-right: 60px; padding-left: 15px; float: left; width: 727.5px; padding-top: 20px;"><main id="main" class="site-main" role="main" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><article id="post-2254" class="post-2254 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-food-for-thought category-our-investigations tag-sense-about-science tag-trevor-butterworth" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px;"><a href="https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/" title="9:44 pm" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">January 22, 2018</a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://usrtk.org/author/stacymalkan/" title="View all posts by Stacy Malkan" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Stacy Malkan</a></div></header><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Trevor Butterworth and his colleagues at Sense About Science/STATS have written for prominent news outlets and been quoted as independent experts on science and media. This fact sheet provides evidence that these groups and writers have long histories of using tobacco tactics to manufacture doubt about science and push for deregulation of products important to the chemical, drug and junk food industries.Related groups: <a href="https://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/jon-entine-the-chemical-industrys-master-messenger/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Jon Entine/Genetic Literacy Project</a>, <a href="https://usrtk.org/our-investigations/science-media-centre/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Science Media Center</a>, <a href="https://theecologist.org/2016/jan/22/why-cornell-university-hosting-gmo-propaganda-campaign" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Cornell Alliance for Science</a><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Overview</h4><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/72-Document-Details-Monsantos-Strategy-Regarding-IARC.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">This Monsanto document</a> describes Sense About Science as a “Tier 2 Industry Partner” in Monsanto’s <a href="https://usrtk.org/pesticides/how-monsanto-manufactured-outrage-at-iarc-over-cancer-classification/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">PR plan to discredit</a> the World Health Organization’s cancer panel, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The Monsanto plan proposes Sense About Science for “leads industry response and provides platform for IARC observers and industry spokesperson.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/statistical-assessment-service" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Statistical Assessment Service</a> (STATS) <a href="http://senseaboutscienceusa.org/stats/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">merged with</a> Sense About Science USA in 2014. Journalists have reported STATS is a “<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2018/01/30/pharmaceutical-industry-fake-news-tobacco/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">disinformation campaign</a>” that <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">tips the scales toward industry</a> and plays a key role for the chemical industry in the  “<a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195297.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">hardball politics of chemical regulation</a>.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;">Sense About Science, STATS and its former parent group, the Center for Media and Public Affairs, have <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">roots in the tobacco industry PR wars</a> and have received funding from anti-regulatory foundations, dark money channels and industries they have defended.</li></ul><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Intercept Exposé on Sense About Science: Reporters Be Wary</h4><a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">A November 2016 exposé in The Intercept,</a> “Seeding Doubt: How Self Appointed Guardians of ‘Sound Science’ Tip the Scales Toward Industry,” details the tobacco ties and industry connections of Sense About Science.“Sense About Science claims to champion transparency” but “does not always disclose when its sources on controversial matters are scientists with ties to the industries under examination,” wrote Liza Gross. “When journalists rightly ask who sponsors research into the risks of, say, asbestos, or synthetic chemicals, they’d be well advised to question the evidence Sense About Science presents in these debates as well.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">History of Defending Chemicals, Junk Food and Drugs </h4>Sense About Science was founded as a lobby group in the UK in 2002 by Dick Taverne, an English politician and businessman with <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">ties to the tobacco industry</a> and other industries Sense About Science has defended.<a href="http://www.senseaboutscienceusa.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The US version of the group</a> launched in 2014 in Brooklyn under the directorship of Trevor Butterworth. From 2003 to 2014, Butterworth was an editor at <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/statistical-assessment-service" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">STATS,</a> which is now <a href="http://senseaboutscienceusa.org/stats/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">merged with Sense About Science USA.</a>  Over his career, Butterworth has amassed a large body of work arguing for deregulation and attacking scientists and journalists who raise concerns about products important to the chemical, junk food and drug industries — for example <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/18/plastic-gender-study-media-opinions-contributors-trevor-butterworth.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">phthalates</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2014/04/09/bpa-the-scientists-the-scare-the-100-million-dollar-surge/#23693c3163c3" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">BPA</a>, <a href="http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20081005/news/810050333" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">vinyl plastic</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisprandoni/2015/03/05/when-the-left-peddles-bad-science/#46b570db425d" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">fracking</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/fashion/28skin.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">lead in lipstick</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/fashion/28skinside.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">formaldehyde in baby soaps</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2014/02/06/sweet-and-sour-the-media-decided-fructose-was-bad-for-america-but-science-had-second-thoughts/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">corn syrup</a>, <a href="http://www.theawl.com/2012/10/the-sugar-wars" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">sugary sodas,</a> <a href="http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/sweetener-sucralose-probably-doesnt-cause-leukaemia/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">artificial sweeteners</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2012/12/13/is-the-era-of-oxycontin-abuse-over/#48877cb773a8" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Oxycontin.</a>Butterworth is also a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-butterworth-522b5048/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">visiting fellow</a> at Cornell University Alliance for Science, a communications campaign housed at Cornell University that is funded by the Gates Foundation to <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986952/why_is_cornell_university_hosting_a_gmo_propaganda_campaign.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">promote GMOs.</a> Butterworth runs <a href="http://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/qa-sense-about-science-usa-partnership" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">a workshop at Cornell</a> to teach his brand of media relations to students and young scientists.Rebecca Goldin, a professor of mathematics of George Mason University, is the Director of STATS and appears on the Sense About Science USA <a href="http://senseaboutscienceusa.org/who-we-are/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">staff page</a>.STATS was previously housed at George Mason University and filed joint tax returns with the Center of Media and Public Affairs (CMPA), a group that was hired by Phillip Morris in the 1990s to <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=hhyh0062" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">pick apart media reports about tobacco</a>. STATS and CMPA have been vague about their funding. The bulk of <a href="https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/#STATSfunding" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">funding for STATS</a> appears to have come from a small group of anti-regulatory foundations that are leading funders of climate change denier groups.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">OxyContin Defense </h4>The tactics of Butterworth, Goldin and STATS are evident in their work to defend Oxycontin; they wrote articles denying the problem of doctor-prescribed opioid addiction, criticized media coverage and argued against regulations to reign in prescriptions. See articles in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2012/12/13/is-the-era-of-oxycontin-abuse-over/#48877cb773a8" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2012/12/13/is-the-era-of-oxycontin-abuse-over/%2348877cb773a8&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNFZah-BIWab4bO7o94-GrBjGwpe3A" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Forbes</a> (Butterworth), <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.stats.org/stories/2012/attack_painkillers_misusing_statistics_jan31_12.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://stats.org/&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNHqzXV35UtO44M3S2tIKPQgcyP6Rw" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">STATS.org</a> (Goldin), and <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/opioid-addiction-is-a-huge-problem-but-pain-prescriptions-are-not-the-cause/?wt.mc=SA_Twitter-Share" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/opioid-addiction-is-a-huge-problem-but-pain-prescriptions-are-not-the-cause/?wt.mc%3DSA_Twitter-Share&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNHSRJ5xB5K2--C9MWv7qbj1TVZH8Q" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Scientific American</a>, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/the-medias-not-telling-th_b_48239.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/the-medias-not-telling-th_b_48239.html&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNEWehL8WSruZKadqHIsbvruor4G_A" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Huffington Post</a> and <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2004/03/the_accidental_addict.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2004/03/the_accidental_addict.html&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNFiEVzeBM1CryeMsl6AMOp_LNT86w" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Slate</a> (former STATS Fellow Maia Szavalitz). A new analysis by <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/11/health/prescription-opioid-payments-eprise/index.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/11/health/prescription-opioid-payments-eprise/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNGGfYtmEmYxcMYmPf8-uDDerOCJyA" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Harvard researchers and CNN</a> found that doctor opioid prescriptions are indeed a problem: “opioid manufacturers are paying physicians huge sums of money, and the more opioids a doctor prescribes, the more money he or she makes.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Climate Science Denial</h4>A 2002 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Aint-Necessarily-So-Picture-Reality/dp/0142001465" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">book</a> by STATS/CMPA founder Robert Lichter, David Murray of STATS and Joel Schwartz of the Hudson Institute denied climate science, among other science stories, and employed many “disingenuous maneuvers” to attack the media, including omitting findings that didn’t fit their agenda and using shallow statistical analyses, according to a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170313025504/http://www.salon.com:80/2001/07/02/murray_4" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">review in Salon by David Appell</a>. Paraphrasing the book, Appell wrote: “Are you worried about species dying out as a result of global warming? Don’t. Those scare stories are the doing of green scribblers who cherry-pick the scientific journals for alarming factoids and who work in cahoots with Volvo-driving scientists who skew their results in an effort to oppose progress and capitalism.” See below for more information about <a href="https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/#STATSfunding" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">STATS’ funding</a> from the climate change denial dark money network.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Chemical Industry Public Relations Writer</h4>Sense About Science USA Director Trevor Butterworth played a key role in the chemical industry’s propaganda campaign to discredit health concerns about the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) when he was at STATS, according to a 2009 <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195297.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">investigation</a> by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.Journalists Meg Kissinger and Susanne Rust described Butterworth as an example of “chemical industry public relations writers” who do not explain their allegiances. They described the stealth role he played in industry’s “unprecedented public relations blitz that uses many of the same tactics – and people – the tobacco industry used in its decades-long fight against regulation”:“The most impassioned defense of BPA on the blogs comes from Trevor Butterworth… He regularly combs the Internet for stories about BPA and offers comments without revealing his ties to industry.”In companion article, Kissinger and Rust <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195302.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">described STATS</a> as “a major player in the public relations campaign to discredit concerns” about BPA. Although the group, “claims to be an independent media watchdog,” they wrote:“a review of its finances and its Web site shows that STATS is funded by public policy organizations that promote deregulation. The Journal Sentinel found documents that show that its parent organization, the Center for Media and Public Affairs, was paid in the 1990s by Philip Morris, the tobacco company, to pick apart stories critical of smoking.”They noted that Butterworth’s 27,000-word STATS report criticizing media coverage of BPA – which was widely featured on plastic industry websites – “echoed the approach used in the tobacco analysis.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">“Friend” of Coke</h4>In 2014, a Coca-Cola executive described Butterworth as “our friend” to members of a Coke-funded front group, and pitched him as a person who could help fulfill their “need for good scientific journalists,” according to emails <a href="https://usrtk.org/gmo/our-investigation-of-big-food-and-its-front-groups/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">obtained by U.S. Right to Know</a>.The email exchanges involved Rhona Applebaum, then-chief science and health officer for Coca-Cola, and the leaders of the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), which was exposed by <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The New York Times</a> and <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/11/24/apnewsbreak-emails-reveal-cokes-role-in-anti-obesity-group" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Associated Press</a> as a Coca-Cola front group that worked closely with Coke executives to shift blame for obesity away from sugary drinks. Applebaum <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-24/coca-cola-s-chief-science-officer-retires-after-obesity-outcry" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">resigned her position</a> at Coke and <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/research-group-funded-by-coca-cola-to-disband/?r=0" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">GEBN closed down</a> after the scandal broke in 2015.In a <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/GEBN-Butterworth-march-2014.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">March 2014 email</a>, Applebaum forwarded the GEBN leaders a Harvard Business Review <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/03/when-research-should-come-with-a-warning-label" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">article by Butterworth</a> that attempts to discredit research linking sugar to weight gain, and described him as “our friend.” In a <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/GEBN-Butterworth-Nov-2014.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">November 2014 email chain</a>, Applebaum and the GEBN leaders discussed the need to recruit scientific institutions and get more scientists “on the circuit.” Applebaum recommended “the need for good scientific journalists as part of GEBN who focus on the evidence. Presenting for consideration Trevor Butterworth. Need that type of cross-fertilization.”GEBN vice president Steven Blair wrote, “I agree with Rhona about Trevor. I am pretty sure he is on my list of potential members.” Applebaum replied, “He’s ready and able.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Ally of Many Industry Groups</h4>Butterworth’s extensive writings defending chemicals, sugar and sugar substitutes have attracted the praise of many industry groups over the years.Trade groups that have promoted Butterworth’s work include the <a href="http://www.ameribev.org/blog/tag/trevor-butterworth/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">American Beverage Association</a>, the <a href="https://phthalates.americanchemistry.com/Research-Phthalates/Reproductive-Studies/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">American Chemistry Council</a>, the <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131010006601/en/Journalistic-Imbalance-USA-Today-Continues-Report-Selectively" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">North American Metal Packaging Alliance</a>, the <a href="http://www.bottledwater.org/health/container-safety/what-is-bpa" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">International Bottled Water Association</a>, the <a href="http://sucralose-org.co.uk/2011-international-sweeteners-association-conference-consensus-experts-recommend-low-calorie-sweeteners-such-as-sucralose-to-help-manage-weight/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">International Sweeteners Association,</a> the <a href="http://spotidoc.com/doc/355374/2014-food-packaging-summit---society-of-the-plastics-indu..." style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Plastics Industry Trade Association</a>, the <a href="http://www.ctpa.org.uk/content.aspx?pageid=273" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">cosmetics industry trade association</a>, the chemical industry’s <a href="http://www.safechemicalpolicy.org/suggests/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">policy website</a>, the <a href="https://cei.org/search/node/trevor%20butterworth" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Competitive Enterprises Institute</a>, the <a href="https://www.cato.org/events/cato-connects-trevor-butterworth-director-sense-about-science-usa" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Cato Institute</a> and the <a href="https://www.consumerfreedom.com/2014/04/anti-bpa-crusaders-baseless-fearmongering/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Center for Consumer Freedom</a>.The <a href="https://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/why-you-cant-trust-the-american-council-on-science-and-health/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">American Council on Science and Health</a>, an industry front group that <a href="http://acsh.org/search?search_api_views_fulltext=butterworth" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">frequently promotes</a> Butterworth’s work, has described him as “a master junk science debunker” and also “our friend.”Butterworth is also listed as <a href="http://nationalpress.org/about-npf/funders/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">a friend</a> of National Press Foundation. The chair of Sense About Science USA, <a href="http://www.senseaboutscienceusa.org/about/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Heather Dahl</a>, is “<a href="http://nationalpress.org/board/heather-dahl/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">immediate past chair</a>” of the National Press Foundation, and sits on NPF’s executive committee.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Sucralose Echo Chamber</h4>Butterworth is a prominent defender of artificial sweeteners whose safety is questionable. In 2011, Butterworth spoke at the International Sweeteners Association Conference and was featured in their <a href="http://sucralose-org.co.uk/2011-international-sweeteners-association-conference-consensus-experts-recommend-low-calorie-sweeteners-such-as-sucralose-to-help-manage-weight/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">press release</a> titled, “Experts Recommend Low-Calorie Sweeteners such as Sucralose to Help Manage Weight.”Identified as a journalist who regularly contributes to the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, Butterworth said about sucralose, “The weight of considered scientific evidence, the result of careful, independent, expert scrutiny, again and again shows that there is no evidence of a risk to health.”As an example of how the industry echo chamber works to spin reporters: In 2012, Butterworth <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2012/04/24/controversial-italian-scientist-says-splenda-causes-cancer/#6188ef4856cc" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">wrote an article for Forbes</a> attacking a study that raised concerns about sucralose by Dr. Morando Soffritti, director of the Ramazzini Institute, which he described as “something of a joke.”In a 2016 <a href="http://www.foodinsight.org/splenda-sucralose-ramazzini-soffritti-safety-cancer-study" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">press release</a>, in response to another Soffritti study, the food industry front group <a href="http://webiva-downton.s3.amazonaws.com/877/fe/a/6001/FOE_Top11FrontGroups_1.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">International Food Information Council</a> featured Butterworth’s 2012 piece and attack quotes, and they were picked up by reporters at the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/splenda-sucralose-sweeteners-linked-to-leukemia-in-new-study-a6930556.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The Independent</a>, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3491310/Could-artificial-sweeteners-Splenda-trigger-cancer-Experts-warn-s-no-safe-dose.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The Daily Mail</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/12192163/Low-calorie-sweetener-linked-with-increased-risk-of-leukemia-study.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The Telegraph</a> and <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865647310/Consumer-group-sounds-new-alarm-on-Splenda.html?pg=all" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Deseret News</a>, all of whom identified Butterworth as a source from Forbes.<a id="STATSfunding" style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><a id="STATSfunding" style="box-sizing: border-box;">A Google search for the Ramazzini Institute turns up Butterworth’s 2012 Forbes hit piece as the first item.</a><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a id="STATSfunding" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Funded by Climate Change Denier Dark Money Network</a></h4><a id="STATSfunding" style="box-sizing: border-box;">While STATS claims to be nonpartisan, the bulk of funding has come from a handful of conservative, anti-regulatory foundations that have played a key role in funding organizations that try to discredit climate science.</a><a id="STATSfunding" style="box-sizing: border-box;">According to </a><a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The Intercept investigation</a>:“Between 1998 and 2014, STATS received $4.5 million, 81 percent of its donations, from the Searle Freedom Trust, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, Donors Trust (a fund largely sustained by Charles Koch), and other right-wing foundations. Searle, which <a href="http://www.searlefreedomtrust.org/daniel-c-searle-1926-2007/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">describes its mission</a> as promoting ‘economic liberties,’ gave STATS $959,000 between 2010 and 2014.Anti-regulatory foundations, including these, spent over half a billion dollars between 2003 and 2010 to ‘manipulate and mislead the public over the nature of climate science and the threat posed by climate change,’ according to a 2013 study by Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle.”In the <a href="http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2013/december/climate-change/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">press release</a> about his study, Brulle identified the Scaife and Searle foundations as among “the largest and most consistent funders of organizations orchestrating climate change denial” and foundations that “promote ultra-free-market ideas in many realms.”The Scaife Foundation and Searle Freedom Trust have been key funders of STATS, with Scaife providing nearly all funding for the group between 2005 to 2007, according to a Greenpeace <a href="http://polluterwatch.com/jon-entine" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">investigation of STATS funding</a>, and Searle stepping up with almost a million dollars in funding between 2010 and 2014.The President and CEO of Searle Freedom Trust, <a href="http://donorscapitalfund.org/AboutUs/KimberlyDennis.aspx" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Kimberly Dennis</a>, is also chairman of the board of directors of Donors Trust, the group Mother Jones called the “<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/donors-trust-donor-capital-fund-dark-money-koch-bradley-devos" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">dark-money ATM of the conservative movement</a>,” and a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/who-donors-trust" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">leading funder</a> of climate change denier and skeptic organizations. Under Dennis’s leadership, the Searle Foundation and Donors Trust sent a collective $290,000 to STATS in 2010, Greenpeace <a href="http://polluterwatch.com/jon-entine" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Koch Industries / George Mason University Foundation</h4>Charles Koch, CEO of the petrochemical conglomerate Koch Industries, gave over $100 million to 361 college campuses from 2005 to 2014, according to a Greenpeace <a href="http://polluterwatch.org/charles-koch-university-funding-database" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">analysis of IRS filings</a>. The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connor-gibson/to-charles-koch-professor_b_9100904.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">George Mason University Foundation</a>, which received $45.5 million, was by far the largest beneficiary of this largesse.Students at GMU raised concerns about Koch funding <a href="http://powershift.org/blogs/gmu-students-question-koch-funding" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">in a 2014 letter</a> to the GMU president, noting that the university has been “criticized as being a subsidiary of Koch Industries.” In response to a public records request for information about Koch funding, the students “were told that all financial donations are funneled through the GMU Foundation, which does not have to respond to our FOIA request as a distinct private entity.”The GMU Foundation funded STATS sister organization CMPA $220,990 <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/GMUF2012.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">in 2012</a>, and $75,670 <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/GMUF2013.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">in 2013</a>, according to tax records. In those years CMPA also helped finance STATS. <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/CMPA-2012.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">In 2012</a>, STATS reported a $203,611 loan from CMPA that “due to inadequate funding” has “not been reimbursed.” <a href="https://usrtk.org/sas2013-2/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">In 2013</a>, STATS reported a loan from CMPA for $163,914.Tax records for 2014 show no loans between the groups or donations from GMU Foundation. <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/CMPA2014-.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">CMPA’s 2014 tax filing </a>shows compensation of $97,512 for Butterworth and $173,100 for Jon Entine, a longtime <a href="https://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/jon-entine-the-chemical-industrys-master-messenger/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">public relations operative with deep ties to the chemical industry</a>, who runs the <a href="https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/author/trevor-butterworth/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Genetic Literacy Project</a>, an <a href="http://polluterwatch.com/jon-entine" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">agrichemical industry front group</a>.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Wholly Independent?</h4>STATS now shares a website with Sense About Science USA, and provides this <a href="http://www.stats.org/about/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">note about funding</a>:“STATS.org is run by Sense About Science USA; it is funded grants from the Searle Freedom Trust and a donation from the American Statistical Association. Sense About Science USA is funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation and donations from members of the public. Sense About Science USA does not accept industry funding or support. Sense About Science USA is wholly independent of any university, society, or other organization.”The <a href="http://www.senseaboutscienceusa.org/donate/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">website conveys</a> a sense of grassroots support, noting that its campaign calling for the registration of clinical drug trials has drawn 30,000 donors. “We don’t have fancy offices. Sense About Science USA is in the back of a bakery and cafe. We put our money into doing, and every little bit helps.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Tobacco Ties</h4>Both STATS and Sense About Science have roots in the tobacco industry PR wars.STATS and CMPA were founded by Robert Lichter, PhD, a former Fox news commentator and professor of communications at GMU. Phillip Morris contracted with CMPA and Lichter during the 1990s, according to documents from the Tobacco Institute made available by the UCSF tobacco industry documents library.In 1994, Phillip Morris sought CMPA’s help dealing with the “recent onslaught of attacks on the tobacco industry” in the media, according to an <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=hhyh0062" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">internal memo</a> proposing strategies to “refocus the media’s attention on the need for objectivity.”In an email dated February 8, 1999, Phillip Morris vice president Vic Han referred to CMPA as “a media watchdog group that we have contributed to over the last several years,” the <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195302.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</a> reported.The founder of Sense About Science, Dick Taverne, also appears in the UCSF tobacco industry files. As Liza Gross explains in <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The Intercept</a>:“According to internal documents released in litigation by cigarette manufacturers, Taverne’s consulting company, PRIMA Europe, helped British American Tobacco <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">improve relations with its investors</a> and <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=njpd0116" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">beat European regulations on cigarettes</a> in the 1990s. Taverne himself worked on the investors project: In an <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192?" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">undated memo</a>, PRIMA assured the tobacco company that ‘the work would be done personally by Dick Taverne,’ because he was well placed to interview industry opinion leaders and ‘would seek to ensure that industry’s needs are foremost in people’s minds.’During the same decade, Taverne sat on the board of the British branch of the powerhouse public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, which claimed Philip Morris as a client. The idea for a “sound science” group, made up of a network of scientists who would speak out against regulations that industrial spokespeople lacked the credibility to challenge, was a pitch Burson-Marsteller made to Philip Morris in a <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=ygjm0128" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">1994 memorandum</a>.”Taverne stepped down as chairman of Sense About Science in 2012. Sense About Science USA launched in 2014 in Brooklyn under the direction of Butterworth. The two groups are described as sister organizations with “close ties and similar aims.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Exposing ‘Bogus Science’ Through the Living Marxism Network </h4>Lord Taverne founded Sense About Science in 2002 to “expose bogus science,” according to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ghSuAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT195&lpg=PT195&dq=%22dick+taverne%22+AND+%22bogus+science%22&source=bl&ots=OZGR2OtqVb&sig=xeCz8LvmrEYtwmqnk2HrOD0_15o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQkNHXx93PAhUFwVQKHQkxBIcQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=%22dick%20taverne%22%20AND%20%22bogus%20science%22&f=false" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">his memoir</a>. As Liza Gross explained in <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The Intercept</a>, early sponsors of the group included some of Taverne’s former business clients and companies in which he owned stock.As its first projects, Sense About Science organized a letter from <a href="http://www.gmwatch.org/news/archive/2003/5134-these-are-the-scientists-who-wrote-to-blair" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">114 scientists</a> lobbying the British government to “contradict false claims” about GMOs, and <a href="http://www.chronicle.com/article/vandalism-devastates-britains/14207" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">conducted a survey</a> highlighting the problem of vandalism against GMO crops.In 2000, Taverne helped create the “<a href="http://www.sirc.org/publik/cop_guidelines_q.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Code of Practice: Guidelines on Science and Health Communication</a>,” a manifesto from the Social Institute Research Center and the Royal Institution on the procedures journalists and scientists should use to avoid unjustified “scare stories” in the media.The Guidelines were the foundational document for Sense About Science and its sister organization, the <a href="http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/science_media_centers_the_pres.php" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Science Media Centre</a>, a group that has been called <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/science-media-centre-of-attention-1.13362" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">“science’s PR agency.”</a> Partly funded by corporations, the Science Media Centre often promotes the views of scientists who downplay risk about controversial technologies and chemicals, and its earliest work involved <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2002/jun/02/gm.observersciencepages" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">defending GMOs using stealth tactics</a>.As writers <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/2003/12/09/invasion-of-the-entryists/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">George Monbiot</a>, <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/268982/sense_about_science.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Zac Goldsmith</a>, <a href="http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=151" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Jonathan Matthews</a> and others have documented, both Sense About Science and the Science Media Centre originated from and are directed by a network of people connected to the Revolutionary Communist Party, which later morphed into <a href="http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=78" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Living Marxism</a>, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20000607160440/www.informinc.co.uk/LM/LM97/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">LM magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Spiked Magazine</a> and the <a href="http://www.instituteofideas.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Institute of Ideas</a>, which promote an idealized vision of technology, extreme free-market views and <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/1998/11/01/far-left-or-far-right/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">disdain for environmentalists</a>.[// USA_]As <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/2003/12/09/invasion-of-the-entryists/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Monbiot wrote</a> in 2003, “the scientific establishment, always politically naive, appears unwittingly to have permitted its interests to be represented to the public by the members of a bizarre and cultish political network.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Further reading:</h4><a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> The Intercept</a>: How Self-Appointed Guardians of ‘Sound Science’ Tip the Scales Toward Industry<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/09/how-lobbyists-are-spinning-weak-science-to-defend-bpa/245657/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The Atlantic</a>: How Lobbyists are Spinning Weak Science to Defend BPA<a href="http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/bpa_health_and_nuance.php" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Columbia Journalism Review</a>: BPA, Health and Nuance: STATS report criticizes media coverage but has its own faults<a href="http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2009/11/industry-reacts-to-consumer-reports-bpa-report/index.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Consumer Reports</a>: Industry Reacts to Consumer Reports BPA Report<a href="http://www.cjr.org/analysis/statistical_advisory_board.php" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">CJR</a>: Meet the man who wants to help journalists with numbers<a href="https://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/jon-entine-the-chemical-industrys-master-messenger/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">USRTK</a>: Jon Entine: The Chemical Industry’s Master Messenger<a href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986952/why_is_cornell_university_hosting_a_gmo_propaganda_campaign.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">The Ecologist</a>: Why is Cornell University Hosting a GMO Propaganda Campaign?<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">More on funders:</h4><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/scaifemain050299.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Washington Post</a>: Scaife: Funding Father of the Right<a href="http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2013/december/climate-change/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Drexel University</a>: Not Just the Koch Brothers: New Drexel Study Reveals Funders Behind the Climate Change Denial Effort<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/scaife-family-foundations" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">DeSmog Blog</a>: Scaife Family Foundations<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/14789" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">DeSmog Blog</a>: Charles G. Koch; Richard Mellon Sciafe; Searle Freedom Trust; Donors Trust: Study Details Dark Money Flowing to Climate Science Denial<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/613470e79eb64a5f9a4880996e0fd7c5/george-mason-university-becomes-favorite-charles-koch" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Associated Press</a>: George Mason University Becomes a Favorite of Charles Koch<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connor-gibson/to-charles-koch-professor_b_9100904.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Huffington Post</a>: To Charles Koch, Professors are Lobbyists<div class="clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><footer class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="entry-meta-category-tag" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="categories-icon glyphicon glyphicon-th-list" title="Posted in" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; top: 1px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"> <a href="https://usrtk.org/category/food-for-thought/" rel="category tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Food For Thought</a>, <a href="https://usrtk.org/category/our-investigations/" rel="category tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Our Investigations</a>   <a href="https://usrtk.org/tag/sense-about-science/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Sense About Science</a>, <a href="https://usrtk.org/tag/trevor-butterworth/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Trevor Butterworth</a></div></footer></div></div></article></main></div><div class="col-sm-3" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; padding-right: 15px; padding-left: 15px; float: left; width: 242.5px;"><div></div></div></div>