Auchter, Thorne

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just archive of this 1996 aus site (i took out italics]<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><center times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2><div style="text-align: left;">JUNK SCIENCE AND THE ART OF SPIN-DOCTORING</div><div style="text-align: left;">(Part 3a)</div></h2><h3 style="text-align: left;">by Stewart Fist</h3></center><h2 times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Junkman and the Web of Deceit;
How the Spin-Doctors Cross-Fertilise</h2>If you want to see how carefully crafted such a web of deceit can be, check out <a href="http://www.junkscience.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">JunkScience.com</a>, run by a pseudo-science debunker with the name of Steven Milloy. He promotes this site as having "All the Junk that's fit to Debunk", and a lot of the material in these pages are just what it purports to be -- a good, and sometimes humourous attack on bad science and activist crap.Milloy promotes himself as a private crusader. He regularly leads the attack on activist groups involved in questions of public health, environmental destruction and pollution, and he proudly calls himself "The Junkman".He loaths the EPA, the FDA and the Democrats; in particular Al Gore.Milloy gives you some personal details at the site. Here's what he says:<ul times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="">Steven J. Milloy is the publisher of the Junk Science Home Page and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.Milloy's work on the Junk Science Home Page has garnered numerous awards, including: being named "One of the 50 Best Web Sites of 1998" by Popular Science; and designation as a "Hot Pick" by Science. The site has also been recommended by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Financial Times, Forbes and MSNBC.Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences from the Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center.In addition to the Junk Science Home Page, Milloy: appears frequently on radio and television; has testified on risk assessment and Superfund before the U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous organizations.Milloy's publications include:<ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li>Silencing Science, with co-author Michael Gough (Cato Institute, 1998)</li><li>Science Without Sense: The Risky Business of Public Health Research (Cato Institute, 1995)</li><li>Science-Based Risk Assessment: A Piece of the Superfund Puzzle (National Environmental Policy Institute, 1995)</li></ul>A lobbyist with a law degree is a valuable commodity in corporate America because it invokes lawyer/client-privilege if dubious deals ever get into the courts. The Biostatistics tag just tells you that he can do maths.Before Milloy moved into his present role as "JunkMan", he was employed by a number of professional PR and lobbying companies, including Multinational Business Services which was Phillip Morris's main lobbyist on the environmental tobacco issue in late 1992 (when Milloy worked there). This organisation was run by a Reagan Republican appointee who ran the OSHA for a while, Thorne Auchter. Like many top people from the Reagan administration, Auchter became a major lobbyist in Washington in the 1980s, and went into business on behalf of the tobacco industry, along with his partners Jim Tozzi (in MBS and Federal Focus) and (in HES) Dr George Carlo.Phillip Morris later funded the organisation known as TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition) through the public-relations/lobby organisation, APCO Associates, and Milloy took over as its director. [See below]. This organisation was funding by tobacco, chemical, energy and other polluting industries in the USA as a way to attack epidemiologists, toxicologists and environmentalists who claimed to have evidential science showing these companies were doing harm. In Milloy's terms, these claims are all junk-science, and he is the arbiter of such labels.Milloy is currently listed as an "adjunct fellow" at the Cato Institute, which leaves the impression that he is an independent, highly educated, science commentator funded by an independent foundation. This boost's his impied claim to be carrying on a personal crusade to clean up the science shonks -- while, in fact, he is a lacky who specialises in a subtle form of lobbying, and runs misinformation campaigns for business.He writes books for the Cato Institute sarcastically attacking the scientific expertise and ethics of any scientist who's results threaten American corporate business interests -- provided they fund him.The Cato Institute is a well-known independent "free-enterprise" think-tank run by members of the Republican Right in Washington DC. [" ....22 years of promoting public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace."]It also runs what it calls the "Cato University", which offers expensive summer courses to those with a "commitment to liberty and an interest in the world of ideas".The Cato Institute also employs the writer-humourist PJ. O'Rourke, and funds him to travel, speak, and to write his very humourous books attacking anything remotely resembling concern for the environment, consumerism, or political liberalism. That's fair enough, I guess; most humourists take a leftish line and their attack on the Republican Right are far more vicious.Behind the scenes the Cato Institute is, itself, funded by many major corporations and industry associations with vested interests, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, Amoco, ARCO, Chase Manhattan Bank, Coca-Cola, CSX Corp., Exxon, Ford Motor Co., Koch Industries, Monsanto Co., National Ammonia Co., Philip Morris, Proctor and Gamble, and Toyota Motor Sales USA.</ul></div>

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Thorne G. Auchter was a former Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety & Health at the U.S. Department of Labor circa 1982. After leaving he became director of a group called <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Federal_Focus" title="Federal Focus" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Federal Focus</a>, which received funding from <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Philip_Morris" title="Philip Morris" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Philip Morris</a>.<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/rfl38d00" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">[1]</a>

He was also the Executive Director of the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness in 1997.

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Biography</h2>

<p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thorne Auchter was born on March 6, 1945 in Jacksonville, Florida. He graduated from Jacksonville University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968, when he started as a job site construction supervisor at Auchter Company, a family-owned construction firm based in Jacksonville. Seven years later, in 1975, he became the Executive Vice President of that company. He served in President <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ronald_Reagan" title="Ronald Reagan" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Ronald Reagan</a>'s 1980 election campaign as special events director for Florida. On February 11, 1981 President Reagan announced that he would nominate the then 35-year-old Thorne G. Auchter to become the Assistant Secretary of Labor for the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Occupational_Safety_and_Health_Administration" title="Occupational Safety and Health Administration" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Occupational Safety and Health Administration</a> (OSHA). OSHA regulates smoking in working environments. <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/1000216520-6533.html?start_page=9" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">[2]</a> One of the main goals of the Administration of President Ronald Reagan was to provide industry with relief from the burden of onerous government regulation. This became Auchter's goal at OSHA. Labor unions were publicly critical of almost every move Auchter made. In September 1983 a Philadelphia-area coalition of unions called on Auchter to resign from office because of the "systematic and insidious dismantling of OSHA." <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/osha13auchter.htm" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">[3]</a>

In March 1984 Auchter left OSHA to become president of president of the B.B. Andersen Companies, a construction and development group located in Kansas. Controversy developed when it turned out that in 1981 he had dropped a proposed $12,680 penalty against one of the Andersen companies for safety violations. Critics accused him of accepting the job as a "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Quid_pro_quo" title="Quid pro quo" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">quid pro quo</a>."

In 1986 Thorne G. Auchter and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Jim_Tozzi" title="Jim Tozzi" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Jim Tozzi</a> founded the non-profit organization <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Federal_Focus" title="Federal Focus" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Federal Focus</a>, Inc. and later in 1991 he founded a subsidiary of Federal Focus called <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Regulatory_Policy" title="Institute for Regulatory Policy" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Institute for Regulatory Policy</a> (IRP). As director of this <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Philip_Morris" title="Philip Morris" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Philip Morris</a>-funded organization, Auchter and Jim Tozzi were involved in several pro-tobacco activities.

While still at IRP, Auchter wrote to Philip Morris officials on the letterhead of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wayne_Valis&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Wayne Valis (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Wayne Valis</a>' <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coalition_for_Uniform_Risk_Evaluation" title="Coalition for Uniform Risk Evaluation" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Coalition for Uniform Risk Evaluation</a> (CURE) to discuss a White House meeting that he had attended regarding the 1991 draft of the executive order.

In 1996 Jim Tozzi, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_MacRea&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="James MacRea (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">James MacRea</a> and possibly also Thorne Auchter founded the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Regulatory_Effectiveness" title="Center for Regulatory Effectiveness" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Center for Regulatory Effectiveness</a> (CRE)<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.pmdocs.com/getimg.asp?DOCID=2063589732/9734&PGNO=2063589733" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">[4]</a> as a subsidiary of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Multinational_Business_Services" title="Multinational Business Services" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Multinational Business Services</a> (MBS) and Auchter became the Executive Director of CRE. <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.house.gov/judiciary/525.htm" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">[5]</a>

Currently he is the CEO of '<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.gracenews.com/" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">Grace Digital Media</a>' owned by Cheryl Reagan, who also runs Federal News Service.<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0603/060203h1.htm" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">[6]</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://eatthestate.org/07-18/FocusOnCorporation.htm" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">[7]</a>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Other Related SourceWatch Resources</h2>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Harvard_Center_for_Risk_Analysis_and_Big_Tobacco" title="Harvard Center for Risk Analysis and Big Tobacco" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Harvard Center for Risk Analysis and Big Tobacco</a></li>

</ul>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Related Links</h2>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.auchter.com/" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">Auchter Company, Jacksonville, Florida</a>"</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1981/21181a.htm" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">Nominations and Appointments</a>," Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, February 11, 1981</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/osha13auchter.htm" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">Thorne Auchter Administration, 1981-1984: "Oh, what a (regulatory) relief</a>," Department of Labor</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Norbert Hirschhorn, Stella Aguinaga Bialous, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/10/4/375.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">Second hand smoke and risk assessment: what was in it for the tobacco industry?</a>," Tobacco Control, July 2001</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Russell Mokhiber, Robert Weissman, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alternet.org/story/15801" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC") 100% 50% no-repeat;">U.S. Hires Christian Extremists to Produce Arabic News</a>," AlterNet, May 2, 2003</li>

</ul>

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Auchter, Thorne

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