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JUNK SCIENCE AND THE ART OF SPIN-DOCTORING

(Part 3a)

by Stewart Fist

The Junkman and the Web of Deceit;

How the Spin-Doctors Cross-Fertilise

If you want to see how carefully crafted such a web of deceit can be, check out JunkScience.com, 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:

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:

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 hispartners Jim Tozzi(in MBE 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 individualliberty, 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....

Milloy is now better known in non-Internet circles as the executive director of TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition), which is run by APCO Associates, an international PR and lobbying company which specialises in "grassroots lobbying" for corporate clients.

APCO is a very large global PR and "communications strategy" organisation that keeps its head down and prefers not to be noticed. It was founded in 1984 by Arnold & Porter (the 'AP' in the APCO name) who were then the main legal council to Philip Morris, and who's representative, Murray Bring, still sits on the PM board.

APCO is now a subsidiary of Grey Advertising. Their biggest client is Philip Morris, but they also service special-interest groups like National Rural Health Association and the Coalition For Fairness In Medicare (anti Medicare).

APCO also has "alliances" with organisations like the International Management and Development Institute, they say: "APCO is available to IMDI Members to provide separate public relations, government affairs and related services," they boast.

TASSC was founded and funded by APCO, for Philip Morris. Then later when the tobacco industry joined in with the National Association of Manufacturers, it spread its interests wider. It managed to get a few hundred scientists to sign up to motherhood statement that says they support "sound science" and presumably reject junk-science. That's usually the last the legitimate scientist get to hear of the organisation, although their names and membership details are freely available, and used to support corporate lobbying.

TASSC has both Associate Members (legitimate scientists) and Advisory Members (mainly from the funding corporations, from public relations and lobby organisations, and a few science-for-sale practitioners).The real aim of the organisation, of course, is to generally discredit epidemiological and toxiocology studies that reveal evidence contrary to the funders interests.

APCO Associates keeps a low profile, but it shares a Washington DC office with a number of registered lobbyist organisations and some trade and industry associations, including the Business Roundtable and Business Executives for National Security, Inc. It seems to run these organisations, and has a finger in some more long-term and legitimate organsiations like the Washington Legal Foundation.

According to an article published by Professor Stanton Glantz and Elisa Ong in the famous UK medical journal The Lancet (April 8, 2000) entitled "Tobacco industry efforts subverting International Agency for Research on Cancer's second-hand smoke study." TASSC began as nothing more than a very clever, very subtle tobacco industry front.

It's aim was to redefine the rules of proof and standards of Epidemiology and Toxicology, to a level that made it impossible for regulators like the EPA, FDA and OSHA to ever regulate in a way that was based on the precautionary principle. Under these rules, tobacco would still be considered an 'unproven' health hazard, and escape regulatory controls on Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) etc.

Milloy and APCO have subsequenty extended the boundaries of the fake organisations activities beyond that of just supporting the tobacco industry. Papers in the Philip Morris on-line archives show that this was a deliberate project of the tobacco interests to utilise multiple attacks from different industry sectors -- all with similar regulatory problems. That's why Milloy is so obviously against any hint of a precautionary approach in regulations.

In the Lancet article the authors point out that TASSC was originally created by the Philip Morris tobacco company in order to sow seeds of scientific doubt about health risks associated with environmental tobacco smoke. And, owing to the extreme (and well-deserved) stigma associated with tobacco industry-funded science, they scrupulously disguised TASSC's links to Philip Morris.

The idea was that TASSC would spend most of its time and money talking about other so-called "junk science" issues such as Alar, global warming, radon, asbestos etc., Then Milloy could sneak in mentions of tobacco (or rather "anti-tobacco science" = junk-science) whenever he thought he could get away with it. Later he obviously found other clients who also needed the same service.

The Lancet article is available online at http://www.thelancet.com (Free guest registration) and you can also find the internal Philip Morris documents at Phillip Morris (and ask for TASSC).

In these archives of Phillip Morris (opened to the public following the tobacco settlement) you will find 199 references(some duplicates) to the tobacco industry's funding and control of TASSC. Milloy is now trying desperately to distance himself from TASSC.

SEE THIS SECTION FOR DOCUMENTED PROOF OF TASSC'S LINKS.

On the side, Milloy also ran another right-wing business-funded 'think-tank' called EPAN (Environmental Policy Analysis Network...

:{https://www.desmogblog.com/:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{2020/06:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{/25/district-columbia-fraud-lawsuit-exxon-oil-climate-disinformation:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:

Washington, D.C. is suing the four largest investor-owned oil and gas companies — BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell — for allegedly misleading consumers about climate change, including historically undermining climate science and even now using deceptive advertising about the companies’ role in leading solutions to the climate crisis.

District of Columbia Attorney General Karl A. Racine announced the consumer fraud lawsuit on Thursday, June 25. The lawsuit claims that the four oil majors violated the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act by engaging in misleading acts and practices around the marketing, promotion, and sale of fossil fuel products, which produce globe-warming pollution. The D.C. lawsuit alleges that these companies knew since at least the 1950s about the harmful consequences of burning fossil fuels and that they engaged in a campaign to deceive the public about those risks.

[twet]

For decades, these oil and gas companies spent millions to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of profits,” said Attorney General Racine. “The defendants violated the District’s consumer protection law by concealing the fact that using fossil fuels threatens the health of District residents and the environment. [The Office of Attorney General] filed this suit to end these disinformation campaigns and to hold these companies accountable for their deceptive practices.”

In particular, the D.C. Attorney General's Office called out the oil industry's use of fake grassroots groups, such as the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, which started out as a front group for tobacco giant Philip Morris in 1993. This group had transitioned to become the Advancement of Sound Science Center in 1997 and was run out of the home of climate science denier Steve Milloy, who most recently worked in public relations for coal company Murray Energy.  The group has now been phased out of existence.

The lawsuit also highlighted the role of oil and gas industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute and the now-defunct Global Climate Coalition — a fossil fuel-backed group launched in 1989 that for decades influenced the scientific process behind the United Nations climate assessments, using lobbyists and industry-funded scientists to attack climate scientists and manipulate the international UN climate negotiations.

The District of Columbia lawsuit is asking the court to order the companies to end their disinformation campaigns and pay civil penalties.

D.C. Joins Minnesota in Suing Oil Companies

The announcement from D.C. comes just one day after Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that Minnesota is suing Exxon, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute for allegedly leading a 30-year campaign undermining climate science and misleading the public about the dangers of fossil fuels.

Already over a dozen cities, counties, and states across the country have filed lawsuits against ExxonMobil and other major fossil fuel companies in an attempt to hold the industry accountable for what is now a well-documented campaign to cast doubt on climate science and delay climate policies. While these lawsuits are grounded in varying legal claims such as public nuisance, product liability theories, and consumer fraud, they all aim to hold companies like Exxon and Chevron liable for deceptive communication about their products to protect profits, much like litigation against manufacturers of tobacco, lead paint, asbestos, and opioids.

Like the Minnesota lawsuit filed the day before, the D.C. complaint explains the striking similarities between the tobacco industry’s campaign to deceive the public about the health risks of smoking, and the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to deliberately downplay the climate impacts of fossil fuels.

According to a press release from the D.C. Attorney General’s Office, “The [oil] companies not only employed the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition — a fake grassroots citizen group created by Big Tobacco as part of the industry’s misinformation campaign — they also funded and promoted some of the same scientists hired by tobacco companies. These scientists disputed the conclusions of climate researchers, despite not having any training in climate science themselves.”

The D.C. complaint also details how the fossil fuel industry’s communication tactics shifted once the climate science became indisputable

[twt vid]

More recently these oil and gas companies have tried to portray themselves as environmentally responsible companies committed to solving climate change through investments in clean energy, and misleadingly promoting the fossil fuel natural gas as “clean.” The lawsuit claims this portrayal is deceptive because the companies’ actual investments in renewable energy like wind and solar are miniscule (Shell directed just 1.2 percent towards “greener” energy, for example), and because fossil fuel products like natural gas still produce carbon emissions, and release the powerful greenhouse gas methane during production, and therefore are not actually “clean.”

“The fact of the matter is that no fossil fuel product is ‘safe,’ nor ‘clean.’ It all creates carbon emissions, and it all represents a threat to consumers,” Attorney General Racine said during a press call.

ExxonMobil is facing other lawsuits for alleged deceptive advertising and misleading consumers, including from the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, an environmental organization called Beyond Pesticides, and most recently the state of Minnesota.

Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton told DeSmog, “This lawsuit further demonstrates the ongoing coordinated, politically motivated campaign against energy companies. Legal proceedings like this waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money and do nothing to advance meaningful actions that reduce the risks of climate change.”

According to Chevron spokesperson Sean Comey, “The claims against the company are meritless. This type of litigation detracts from constructive efforts to address the important policy issues presented by climate change.”

According to D.C.’s Deputy Attorney General in the Public Advocacy Division, Kate Konopka, the District did not coordinate with Minnesota and was not even aware of Attorney General Ellison’s lawsuit until it was filed yesterday. The D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has been investigating Big Oil and ExxonMobil in particular for potential fraud for the past several years, as had attorneys general in New York and Massachusetts.

The investigations followed groundbreaking investigative reporting in 2015 revealing the extent of Exxon’s early knowledge of climate change. Over the last five years researchers and journalists have uncovered even more evidence demonstrating not only what fossil fuel companies knew about climate science and when, but how they worked to conceal that knowledge and create a false impression of scientific uncertainty.

“The remarkable thing about these cases is how much evidence we have even before we get to discovery,” Kert Davies, founder and director of the watchdog group Climate Investigations Center, told DeSmog. “We have a mountain of evidence of what they knew and what they did to deceive the public about the threat of climate change. And yet we’ve only scratched the surface.”

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smoking gun memo(s?)

Denial Industry - Global Policy Forumwww.globalpolicy.org › component › content › article

Sep 19, 2006 - By George Monbiot ... They set back action on climate change by a decade. ... It was started by the tobacco company Philip Morris. ... By May 1993, as another memo from APCO to Philip Morris shows, the fake citizens' group had a ... such as "global warming", "nuclear waste disposal" and "biotechnology".

https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/212/45267.html

By George Monbiot

:{Guardian[guk lx]

September 19, 2006}:

For years, a network of fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies has been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back action on climate change by a decade. But who funded them? Exxon's involvement is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco. In the first of three extracts from his new book, George Monbiot tells a bizarre and shocking new story.

ExxonMobil is the world's most profitable corporation. Its sales now amount to more than $1bn a day. It makes most of this money from oil, and has more to lose than any other company from efforts to tackle climate change. To safeguard its profits, ExxonMobil needs to sow doubt about whether serious action needs to be taken on climate change. But there are difficulties: it must confront a scientific consensus as strong as that which maintains that smoking causes lung cancer or that HIV causes Aids. So what's its strategy?

The website Exxonsecrets.org, using data found in the company's official documents, lists 124 organisations that have taken money from the company or work closely with those that have. These organisations take a consistent line on climate change: that the science is contradictory, the scientists are split, environmentalists are charlatans, liars or lunatics, and if governments took action to prevent global warming, they would be endangering the global economy for no good reason. The findings these organisations dislike are labelled "junk science". The findings they welcome are labelled "sound science".

Among the organisations that have been funded by Exxon are such well-known websites and lobby groups as TechCentralStation, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Some of those on the list have names that make them look like grassroots citizens' organisations or academic bodies: the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, for example. One or two of them, such as the Congress of Racial Equality, are citizens' organisations or academic bodies, but the line they take on climate change is very much like that of the other sponsored groups. While all these groups are based in America, their publications are read and cited, and their staff are interviewed and quoted, all over the world.

By funding a large number of organisations, Exxon helps to create the impression that doubt about climate change is widespread. For those who do not understand that scientific findings cannot be trusted if they have not appeared in peer-reviewed journals, the names of these institutes help to suggest that serious researchers are challenging the consensus.

This is not to claim that all the science these groups champion is bogus. On the whole, they use selection, not invention. They will find one contradictory study - such as the discovery of tropospheric cooling, which, in a garbled form, has been used by Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday - and promote it relentlessly. They will continue to do so long after it has been disproved by further work. So, for example, John Christy, the author of the troposphere paper, admitted in August 2005 that his figures were incorrect, yet his initial findings are still being circulated and championed by many of these groups, as a quick internet search will show you.

But they do not stop there. The chairman of a group called the Science and Environmental Policy Project is Frederick Seitz. Seitz is a physicist who in the 1960s was president of the US National Academy of Sciences. In 1998, he wrote a document, known as the Oregon Petition, which has been cited by almost every journalist who claims that climate change is a myth.

The document reads as follows: "We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Anyone with a degree was entitled to sign it. It was attached to a letter written by Seitz, entitled Research Review of Global Warming Evidence. The lead author of the "review" that followed Seitz's letter is a Christian fundamentalist called Arthur B Robinson. He is not a professional climate scientist. It was co-published by Robinson's organisation - the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine - and an outfit called the George C Marshall Institute, which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. The other authors were Robinson's 22-year-old son and two employees of the George C Marshall Institute. The chairman of the George C Marshall Institute was Frederick Seitz.

The paper maintained that: "We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the carbon dioxide increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution."

It was printed in the font and format of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: the journal of the organisation of which Seitz - as he had just reminded his correspondents - was once president.

Soon after the petition was published, the National Academy of Sciences released this statement: "The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal. The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy."

But it was too late. Seitz, the Oregon Institute and the George C Marshall Institute had already circulated tens of thousands of copies, and the petition had established a major presence on the internet. Some 17,000 graduates signed it, the majority of whom had no background in climate science. It has been repeatedly cited - by global-warming sceptics such as David Bellamy, Melanie Phillips and others - as a petition by climate scientists. It is promoted by the Exxon-sponsored sites as evidence that there is no scientific consensus on climate change.

All this is now well known to climate scientists and environmentalists. But what I have discovered while researching this issue is that the corporate funding of lobby groups denying that manmade climate change is taking place was initiated not by Exxon, or by any other firm directly involved in the fossil fuel industry. It was started by the tobacco company Philip Morris.

In December 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency published a 500-page report called Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking. It found that "the widespread exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in the United States presents a serious and substantial public health impact. In adults: ETS is a human lung carcinogen, responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually in US non-smokers. In children: ETS exposure is causally associated with an increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. This report estimates that 150,000 to 300,000 cases annually in infants and young children up to 18 months of age are attributable to ETS."

Had it not been for the settlement of a major class action against the tobacco companies in the US, we would never have been able to see what happened next. But in 1998 they were forced to publish their internal documents and post them on the internet.

Within two months of its publication, Philip Morris, the world's biggest tobacco firm, had devised a strategy for dealing with the passive-smoking report. In February 1993 Ellen Merlo, its senior vice-president of corporate affairs, sent a letter to William I Campbell, Philip Morris's chief executive officer and president, explaining her intentions: "Our overriding objective is to discredit the EPA report ... Concurrently, it is our objective to prevent states and cities, as well as businesses, from passive-smoking bans."

To this end, she had hired a public relations company called APCO. She had attached the advice it had given her. APCO warned that: "No matter how strong the arguments, industry spokespeople are, in and of themselves, not always credible or appropriate messengers."

So the fight against a ban on passive smoking had to be associated with other people and other issues. Philip Morris, APCO said, needed to create the impression of a "grassroots" movement - one that had been formed spontaneously by concerned citizens to fight "overregulation". It should portray the danger of tobacco smoke as just one "unfounded fear" among others, such as concerns about pesticides and cellphones.APCO proposed to set up "a national coalition intended to educate the media, public officials and the public about the dangers of 'junk science'. Coalition will address credibility of government's scientific studies, risk-assessment techniques and misuse of tax dollars ... Upon formation of Coalition, key leaders will begin media outreach, eg editorial board tours, opinion articles, and brief elected officials in selected states."

APCO would found the coalition, write its mission statements, and "prepare and place opinion articles in key markets". For this it required $150,000 for its own fees and $75,000 for the coalition's costs. By May 1993, as another memo from APCO to Philip Morris shows, the fake citizens' group had a name: the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. It was important, further letters stated, "to ensure that TASSC has a diverse group of contributors"; to "link the tobacco issue with other more 'politically correct' products"; and to associate scientific studies that cast smoking in a bad light with "broader questions about government research and regulations" - such as "global warming", "nuclear waste disposal" and "biotechnology". IN GLB HE SUGGESTS THIS WAS TO MAKE IT HARDER TO EXPOSE TASSC? EFFORT AS A TOBACCO FRONT, THUS OTHER ISSUES IN MIX] APCO would engage in the "intensive recruitment of high-profile representatives from business and industry, scientists, public officials, and other individuals interested in promoting the use of sound science".

By September 1993, APCO had produced a "Plan for the Public Launching of TASSC".The media launch would not take place in "Washington, DC or the top media markets of the country. Rather, we suggest creating a series of aggressive, decentralised launches in several targeted local and regional markets across the country. This approach ... avoids cynical reporters from major media: less reviewing/challenging of TASSC messages."

The media coverage, the public relations company hoped, would enable TASSC to "establish an image of a national grassroots coalition". In case the media asked hostile questions, APCO circulated a sheet of answers, drafted by Philip Morris. The first question was: "Isn't it true that Philip Morris created TASSC to act as a front group for it? "A: No, not at all. As a large corporation, PM belongs to many national, regional, and state business, public policy, and legislative organisations. PM has contributed to TASSC, as we have with various groups and corporations across the country."

There are clear similarities between the language used and the approaches adopted by Philip Morris and by the organisations funded by Exxon. The two lobbies use the same terms, which appear to have been invented by Philip Morris's consultants. "Junk science" meant peer-reviewed studies showing that smoking was linked to cancer and other diseases. "Sound science" meant studies sponsored by the tobacco industry suggesting that the link was inconclusive. Both lobbies recognised that their best chance of avoiding regulation was to challenge the scientific consensus. As a memo from the tobacco company Brown and Williamson noted, "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy." Both industries also sought to distance themselves from their own campaigns, creating the impression that they were spontaneous movements of professionals or ordinary citizens: the "grassroots".[--> secret sci?]

But the connection goes further than that. TASSC, the "coalition" created by Philip Morris, was the first and most important of the corporate-funded organisations denying that climate change is taking place. It has done more damage to the campaign to halt it than any other body.

TASSC did as its founders at APCO suggested, and sought funding from other sources. Between 2000 and 2002 it received $30,000 from Exxon. The website it has financed -JunkScience.com - has been the main entrepot for almost every kind of climate-change denial that has found its way into the mainstream press. It equates environmentalists with Nazis, communists and terrorists. It flings at us the accusations that could justifably be levelled against itself: the website claims, for example, that it is campaigning against "faulty scientific data and analysis used to advance special and, often, hidden agendas". I have lost count of the number of correspondents who, while questioning manmade global warming, have pointed me there.

The man who runs it is called Steve Milloy. In 1992, he started working for APCO- Philip Morris's consultants. While there, he set up the JunkScience site. In March 1997, the documents show, he was appointed TASSC's executive director. By 1998, as he explained in a memo to TASSC board members, his JunkScience website was was being funded by TASSC. Both he and the "coalition" continued to receive money from Philip Morris. An internal document dated February 1998 reveals that TASSC took $200,000 from the tobacco company in 1997. Philip Morris's 2001 budget document records a payment to Steven Milloy of $90,000. Altria, Philip Morris's parent company, admits that Milloy was under contract to the tobacco firm until at least the end of 2005.

He has done well. You can find his name attached to letters and articles seeking to discredit passive-smoking studies all over the internet and in the academic databases. He has even managed to reach the British Medical Journal: I found a letter from him there which claimed that the studies it had reported "do not bear out the hypothesis that maternal smoking/ passive smoking increases cancer risk among infants". TASSC paid him $126,000 in 2004 for 15 hours' work a week. Two other organisations are registered at his address: the Free Enterprise Education Institute and the Free Enterprise Action Institute. They have received $10,000 and $50,000 respectively from Exxon. The secretary of the Free Enterprise Action Institute isThomas Borelli. Borelli was the Philip Morris executive who oversaw the payments to TASSC.

Milloy also writes a weekly Junk Science column for the Fox News website. Without declaring his interests, he has used this column to pour scorn on studies documenting the medical effects of second-hand tobacco smoke and showing that climate change is taking place. Even after Fox News was told about the money he had been receiving from Philip Morris and Exxon, it continued to employ him, without informing its readers about his interests.

TASSC's headed notepaper names an advisory board of eight people. Three of them are listed by Exxonsecrets.org as working for organisations taking money from Exxon. One of them is Frederick Seitz, the man who wrote the Oregon Petition, and who chairs the Science and Environmental Policy Project. In 1979, Seitz became a permanent consultant to the tobacco company RJ Reynolds. He worked for the firm until at least 1987, for an annual fee of $65,000. He was in charge of deciding which medical research projects the company should fund, and handed out millions of dollars a year to American universities. The purpose of this funding, a memo from the chairman of RJ Reynolds shows, was to "refute the criticisms against cigarettes". An undated note in the Philip Morris archive shows that it was planning a "Seitz symposium" with the help of TASSC, in which Frederick Seitz would speak to "40-60 regulators".

The president of Seitz's Science and Environmental Policy Project is a maverick environmental scientist called S Fred Singer. He has spent the past few years refuting evidence for manmade climate change. It was he, for example, who published the misleading claim that most of the world's glaciers are advancing, which landed David Bellamy in so much trouble when he repeated it last year. He also had connections with the tobacco industry. In March 1993, APCO sent a memo to Ellen Merlo, the vice-president of Philip Morris, who had just commissioned it to fight the Environmental Protection Agency: "As you know, we have been working with Dr Fred Singer and Dr Dwight Lee, who have authored articles on junk science and indoor air quality (IAQ) respectively ..."

Singer's article, entitled Junk Science at the EPA, claimed that "the latest 'crisis' - environmental tobacco smoke - has been widely criticised as the most shocking distortion of scientific evidence yet". He alleged that the Environmental Protection Agency had had to "rig the numbers" in its report on passive smoking. This was the report that Philip Morris and APCO had set out to discredit a month before Singer wrote his article.

I have no evidence that Fred Singer or his organisation have taken money from Philip Morris. But many of the other bodies that have been sponsored by Exxon and have sought to repudiate climate change were also funded by the tobacco company. Among them are some of the world's best-known "thinktanks": the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the Reason Foundation and the Independent Institute, as well as George Mason University's Law and Economics Centre. I can't help wondering whether there is any aspect of conservative thought in the United States that has not been formed and funded by the corporations. Until I came across this material, I believed that the accusations, the insults and the taunts such people had slung at us environmentalists were personal: that they really did hate us, and had found someone who would pay to help them express those feelings. Now I realise that they have simply transferred their skills.

While they have been most effective in the United States, the impacts of the climate-change deniers sponsored by Exxon and Philip Morris have been felt all over the world. I have seen their arguments endlessly repeated in Australia, Canada, India, Russia and the UK. By dominating the media debate on climate change during seven or eight critical years in which urgent international talks should have been taking place, by constantly seeding doubt about the science just as it should have been most persuasive, they have justified the money their sponsors have spent on them many times over. It is fair to say that the professional denial industry has delayed effective global action on climate change by years, just as it helped to delay action against the tobacco companies.

This is an edited extract from Heat, by George Monbiot, published by Allen Lane.

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Advancement_of_Sound_Science_Coalition

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition

From SourceWatch

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) is a now-defunct, industry-funded PR front group run by the APCO Worldwide public relations firm. It worked to hang the label of "junk science" on environmentalists. Created in 1993, TASSC began as a front for Philip Morris, which was attempting to discredit ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) research as a long-term cause of increased cancer and heart problem rates in the community -- especially among office workers and children living with smoking parents.[1]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Advancement_of_Sound_Science_Coalition#cite_note-0) It advanced industry-friendly positions on a wide range of topics, including global warming, smoking, phthalates, and pesticides. Later still, they extended the role of TASSC to Europe using Dr. George Carlo. [2]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Advancement_of_Sound_Science_Coalition#cite_note-1)

Contents

A "Sound Science" Award for Gina Kolata's Reporting on Silicon Breast Implants

In 1995 TASSC awarded New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata its "Sound Science in Journalism Award." Announcing the award TASSC Chairman Garrey Carruthers praised Kolata "who responsibly detailed in a series of stories how science has been distorted and manipulated to fuel litigation concerning silicone breast implants." [1]

Explaining their award to Gina Kolata TASSC wrote that she "wrote several articles on how science has been distorted and manipulated to advance implant-related litigation. Why it was chosen: Everyone seemed to be afraid to talk about it -- the FDA has treated the issue like a hot potato and respected scientific researchers and medical professionals were criticized and harassed when they spoke out . It would have been an easy issue to avoid, but Kolata courageously took it on. Her articles were well-balanced and presented the strong scientific case -- and why it had been distorted in the first place -- for silicone breast implants." [2]

Junk Science

Steven J. Milloy, began his career with TASSC.

"Public health professionals need to be aware that the "sound science" movementis not an indigenous effort from within the profession to improve the quality of scientific discourse, but reflects sophisticated public relations campaigns controlled by industry executives and lawyers whose aim is to manipulate the standards of scientific proof to serve the corporate interests of their clients. " [3]

The Philip Morris effort also spawned the "junk science" home page. junkscience.com writer/editor/publisher Steven Milloy worked for TASSC, ultimately as its executive director before the sham operation was allowed to fade out of existence:

"...by 1995, a TASSC Web site was being planned with PM to distribute scientific papers and polls to support PM's position. 44 TASSC and its Web site are now defunct, but itsexecutive director Steve Milloy, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute(a libertarian think tank in Washington, DC, that has received funds from the tobacco industry), now produces a "junk science" Web site. Milloy's Web site continues TASSC's original work in criticizing and "debunking" the science behind public health and environmental issues, including secondhand smoke."

Milloy's association with tobacco continues, as acknowledged [4] on his website. [5]

The Whitecoat Project

One of the forerunners of TASSC at Philip Morris was a 1988 "Proposal for the**Whitecoat Projec**t," named after the white laboratory coats that scientists sometimes wear. The project had four goals: "Resist and roll back smoking restrictions. Restore smoker confidence. Reverse scientific and popular misconception that ETS is harmful. Restore social acceptability of smoking."

To achieve these goals, the plan was to first "generate a body of scientific and technical knowledge" through research "undertaken by whitecoats, contract laboratories and commercial organizations"; then "disseminate and exploit such knowledge through specific communication programs." Covington & Burling, PM's law firm, would function as the executive arm of the Whitecoat Project, acting as a "legal buffer ... the interface with the operating units (whitecoats, laboratories, etc.)."

The effort to create a scientific defense for secondhand smoke was only one component in the tobacco industry's multi-million-dollar PR campaign. To defeat cigarette excise taxes, a Philip Morris strategy document outlined plans for "Co-op efforts with third party tax organizations"--libertarian anti-taxation think tanks, such as Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Tax Foundation. Other third party allies included the National Journalism Center, the Heartland Institute, the Claremont Institute, and National Empowerment Television, a conservative TV network.

In one memo to Philip Morris CEO Michael A. Miles, vice president Craig L. Fuller noted that he was "working with many third party allies to develop position papers, op-eds and letters to the editor detailing how tobacco is already one of the most heavily regulated products in the marketplace, and derailing arguments against proposed bans on tobacco advertising." [6]

In April 1996, Milloy proclaimed himself a public health expert and began turning out a stream of anti-environmental, anti-public health commentary through his "Junk Science" homepage (www.junkscience.com). The site claims to debunk bad science used by lawsuit-happy trial lawyers, the 'food police,' environmental Chicken Littles, powerdrunk regulators, and unethical-to-dishonest scientists to fuel specious lawsuits, wacky social and political agendas, and the quest for personal fame and fortune. Although Milloy's Junk Science Home Page does not disclose its specific funding source, the website, Citizens for the Integrity of Science [in 1999], and the debunked TASSC share the same address at 1155 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 300 in Washington, DC. [7]

The phone number for junkscience.com is registered to The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (a well exposed corporate front group and a former project of the EOP Group) at 1155 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 300 in Washington, DC. This is the same phone number and address Milloy has used for the Citizens for the Integrity of Science, Junkscience.com, NoMores:{Scares:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:.com, and of course, the defunct The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. The fax number used on numerous press releases over the years is "an interoffice fax" at 1155 Connecticut Ave NW,. according to a simple internet search.

Citizens for the Integrity of Science

The internet site, CFIS.org (Citizens for the Integrity of Science), is registered to Steve Milloy's home address in posh Potomac, MD, with Steve Milloy listed as the administrative contact. So who is actually paying for junkscience.com? We don't know, and Milloy has repeatedly refused to disclose his patrons.

CFIS does appear to have some sort of board, though we know of only two members, including Milloy. In a May 11,1999 Freedom of Information Act filed by Citizens for the Integrity of Science posted on the Junkscience web page, Steve Milloy listed himself and Michael Gough of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as "Directors" of Citizens for the Integrity of Science, with TASSC's old 1155 Connecticut address and contact info, which is also Milloy's current business address. [8]

Milloy, an 'Adjunk' Scholar at Cato Institute[9] encountered Rupert Murdoch during Murdock's term as Cato Director -- thus leading to Milloy's Junk Science columns on Fox News website and newspapers. For many years, including Murdoch's term, a Philip Morris V.P. sat on Cato's board, which probably sufficiently explains Milloy's appearance on Cato's payroll.

Funders

TASSC's funders include:

Founding member scientists

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

References

  1. ↑ Margery Kraus, APCO Associates Untitled Letter. 6 pp. September 23, 1993. Bates No.2024233677/3682
  2. ↑ Margery Kraus, Tom Hockaday, APCO Associates European Sound Science Program May 31, 1994. Bates No. 2025493120

Resources

External links

This article may include information from Tobacco Documents Online.

The Junkscience web site was supposedly run by a pseudo-grassroots organization called The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC),organized by APCO for Philip Morris,[2] which initially paid ex-Governor Garrey Carruthers of New Mexico as a front.[3] Milloy actually ran it from the back-room, and issued the press releases. Then when Carruthers resigned, Milloy started to call himself "Director."Bonner Cohen -- who also worked for APCO -- became "President."[citation needed]

Initially all of this was funded by Philip Morris, but later PM broadened the focus to gather even more funding by garnering participation from energy, pharmaceutical, chemical companies. TASSC's funders include 3M, Amoco, Chevron, Dow Chemical, Exxon, General Motors, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lorillard Tobacco, Louisiana Chemical Association, National Pest Control Association, Occidental Petroleum, Philip Morris Companies, Procter & Gamble, Santa Fe Pacific Gold, and W.R. Grace, the asbestos and pesticide manufacturers. [4]

TASSC was then exposed publicly as a fraud, and so Milloy established the "Citizens for the Integrity of Science" to take over the running of the Junkscience.com web site.[citation needed]

^ ===^

^...^

Check out the full PR Watch report, complete with links to original tobacco documents.

The now-defunct Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), founded primarily by Philip Morris in 1993, was part of a corporate plan to pump millions of dollars into a campaign to cast doubt on a variety of environmental and public health issues, including global warming and second hand smoke.(The New York Times, April 25, 1998) TASSC, originally set up as a front group by APCO and Associates (PR firm related to EOP Group, Milloy's previous employer), and faded into oblivion after September 1998, possibly due to the damage caused by the negative exposure in the 1998 New York Times article. TASSC was funded by Philip Morris, Exxon, Procter and Gamble, Dow, 3M and other large corporations, primarily as a pro-tobacco and anti-tort voices. TASSC left the scene in 1998, yet Milloy has used TASSC's phone number and address for all his subsequent ventures.

Though later a project of theEOP Group, TASSC was originally based in the Washington, D.C. offices of the lobbying firm APCO Associates and claimed a membership of over 400 corporations representing chemical, agricultural, manufacturing, oil, dairy, timber, paper and mining interests, including Amoco, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum, as well as industry trade associations. TASSC also had a science advisory panel of over 200 members, including some of the most prominent science skeptics in America. TASSC is mentioned by name in the now infamous "tobacco papers" as a group organized to help with the "scientific" message that second hand smoke is harmless. The purpose of TASSC, as described in a memo from APCO's Tom Hockaday and Neal Cohen, was to "link the tobacco issue with other more 'politically correct' products"--in other words, to make the case that efforts to regulate tobacco were based on the same "junk science".

^^

^court doc:

The Advancement of Sound Science Center (TASSC), formerly The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, is an industry-funded lobby group which promotes the idea that environmental science is “junk science”, which should be replaced by “sound science” more favourable to corporate interests (see Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/2rgkr8).

It runs well-funded campaigns to cast doubt on a variety of environmental and public health issues, including global warming and second hand smoke.

It was founded primarily by the tobacco company Philip Morris in 1993 and changed its name after receiving negative exposure in an April 26, 1998 New York Timesarticle: John H. Cushman, Jr., “Industrial Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty”, http://tinyurl.com/2x86n5.

TASSC is headed by Steven Milloy, who also runs the junkscience.com website.

See also the following articles, by the Union of Concerned Scientists: http://tinyurl.com/v8u2d (PDF), the University of Maryland: http://tinyurl.com/2hdzbf, the Center for Media and Democracy: http://tinyurl.com/yho43j, Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/2rgkr8 and Tim Lambert: http://timlambert.org/2004/02/milloy.

TASSC has received $50,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998 (see ExxonSecrets: http://tinyurl.com/ysmsk9). It also receives substantial funding from the mining company 3M, the oil company Chevron, the car firm General Motors and the oil company Occidental Petroleum (see Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/2h477f).

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Garrey_Carruthers

Garrey E Carruthers was governor of New Mexico from 1987-1990. [1].

Carruthers served as chairman of the The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a pro-industry "junk science" front group created and funded by Philip Morris through the PR firm APCO Associates, now known as APCO Worldwide.[2] He was only ever nominally the head of TASSC; the real behind-the-scenes work was done by a younger professional lobbyist Steve Milloy who became a regular celebrity on Murdoch's Fox TV News. Milloy eventually took over the front-role, and became an on-line arbitrator of what was junk-science and what was 'sound science'. He was the polluting industries' main supporter and cheer-squad leader, both in the health ('tobacco smoke is not dangerous') and environmental ('there is no such thing as climate change') fileds.

Carruther later became the Dean of New Mexico State University's College of Business and is listed as the formerly President and CEO of Cimarron Health Plan. He serves on the board of Arrowhead, an economic development center in Las Cruces, as well as a number of other corporate and public organizations." [1]

Documents & TimeLine

1986 Oct The Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) Foundation Update announces that President Reagan has named CSE Foundation President Richard H. Fink one of 12 members of the newly-established President's Commission on Privatization. Other commission members are:

[3]

Note CSE also had a subsidiary Citzens for a Sensible Environment and is now called FreedomWorks.

1987-90 Carruters was Gov of New Mexico 1987-1990 [4] Also various publicity materials. [5]

[Note that Jerry Apodaca was Governor in 1975-1979 National Issues Council Chairman; and on the board of Philip Morris until 1981]

1988 Jan 3 A Tobacco Institute report on New Mexico: They are worried about punitive damages and want tort-reform (reduction in the ability for the public to sue for damages).

Barberousseis their legislative lobbyist -- and he is working with ATRA American Tort Reform Association - another industry front supported by tobacco.

At this time Garrey Carruthers was still the Governor of New Mexico. A report on New Mexico for the tobacco industry notes:

The TI lobbylist does not anticipate any significant tort reform activity in 1988. Collateral sources may be given consideration, as may insurance regulation or workers compensation issues. There is virtually no chance that product liability proposals will be introduced or could move in 1988.

Governor Carruthers sees tort reform as valuable to economic development, but he is not actively pushing for reforms in 1988. His effectiveness in promoting legislation is questionable.

The Speaker of the House is firmly opposed the tort and product liability reform. He is backed by the Trial Lawyers and the AFL-CIO.

The New Mexico Alliance for Tort Reform worked for 1987 legislation, but considers 1988 an unlikely year for action due to the time constraint.

The Institute lobbyist [Barberousse] works this issue through his representation of the Association of Independent Insurers. The industry has not been approached for coalition support.[6]

[Barberousse was, in effect, being double-paid for his work by both the insurance and the tobacco industries.]

1988 Jan 18 Weekly Activities of Terry Frakes for the Tobacco Institute in Region VIII (including New Mexico). He was meeting with David Remes of Covington & Burling (C&B) in Austin Texas, and then went to Sante Fe in New Mexico.

*I also had the opportunity to sit down at length with Bob Barberousse, local TI counsel, and discuss the 1988 session of the New Mexico legislature. While I was there a 5 cent a pack cigarette tax bill was filed in the Senate.

Attended a luncheon for the Governor of New Mexico, and Barberousse and I had a chance to sit down and meet with the Speaker of the House, Ray Sanchez.*[7]

1990 Mar 9 The Tobacco Institutenewsletter "Executive Summary"contains an item:

New Mexico Governor Carruthers has called a three-day special session on revenue starting March 16. Among the governor's proposals is a 4-cent cigarette excise tax increase. During the regular session, the legislature defeated proposals for 6- and 10-cent cigarette tax hikes.

The following week it reported

New Mexico adjourned the special legislative session without acting on Governor Carruthers's 4-cent cigarette excise tax proposal [8]

1993 March Statement of Support for TASSC: this is a draft card design which says "Inappropriate science only harms the integrity of public policy decisions" and asks for a financial contribution (to make it look like a genuine grassroots organisation). This preliminary copy design was in the files of Steve Parrish at Philip Morris Corporate Affairs. [9]

1993 MayThe TASSC Statement of Principles draft was in the files of Philip Morris's Worldwide Regulatory Affairs (these are the lawyers and political lobbyists). It gives no address other than Washington DC box number, a fax number & phone number) [10]

1993 May 12 Writing to Richard Lindzen at MIT trying to recruit him to TASSC Curruthers had been an economist at New Mexico State Uni

Lindzen only had to "complete the enclosed Statement of Support" to become a member. (No fees, commitments, etc) [11]

1993 Jun 1 Another draft TASSC document (see "Mr John Doe" name) in the Philip Morris files [12]

1993 Jun Media tour and intensive training in order to raise his profile in the media 2045930491 DENVER MEDIA TRIP Other efforts included involvement in the successful effort by Aspen Ski Corporation and Jackson Hole Ski Corporation to withdraw from Marlboro Challenge skiing events. Additionally, in 1991, the Coalition presented (then) Mayor Fredrico Pena with the Smoke-Free Award in recognition of his support and dedication to creating a smoke-free environment in Denver. US West received the "Smoke-Free Award" in 1989.

From 1993, Steve Milloy was working as the researcher and organiser, running TASSC from behind the scenes.

1993 Nov A TASSC list sent to the Tobacco Institute along withpress clippings showing the success of Curruthers in his media tours.This is supposedly the launch date. [13]

1994 Miami '94 journalists conference. PAHO doc 'Profits over People p30 Carruthers is paid $5,000 a month

1994 April The first quarterly newsletter 'The Catalyst' by TASSC and asking for help in finding members. It says that the organisation was launched last Fall (November) and that it already has "more than 400 individuals or organisations" including "75 respected scientists and academicians from some of the nation's finest colleges universities, and leading research institutions."

It had been promoted by "a national media tour that took us to Denver, St Louis, San Diego, and Dallas/Fort Worth."

The newsletter spells out examples of unsound science (the term "junk science" hadn't yet become its currency.) Judging from the turgid writing, Milloy may not have been employed at this time. They have a mailing list for their releases for 650 media outlets. Carruther's key supporters were

https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/pkhm0090

Under the direction of these three TASSC was:

* in support of bovine somatotropin (BST was a hormone used to promote milk production and activists were objecting)* in support of the Carpet and Rug Institute (vapour exudates from synthetic carpets were saturating some offices)* against the Alar scare* against the EPA being raised to Cabinet status by President Clinton.* against the super-fund toxic waste/landfill projects* anti the Clean Air Act [16]

1994 Oct /E TASSC's newsletter, Vol 1 No 3 "The Catalyst"

The American scientific community is very concerned that public confidence in scientific research is being seriously eroded by policy makers who use scientific findings to conform to political agendas, according to a poll sponsored by The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC).

The poll, conducted by The Tarrance Group of Houston, Texas, showed that 62 percent of scientists believe public confidence in scientific research has decreased in the last 10 years, and 83 percent agree that policy makers use science to achieve their policy goals in controversial issues such as asbestos, pesticides, dioxin, environmental tobacco smoke or water quality.

Ed Goeas, President and CEO of The Tarrance Group, also attended the news conference and said, "Overall, researchers are critical of the need for more stringent adherence to scientific principles and a thorough review process of research. These data clearly indicate wide-spread concern over how scientific research is conducted, why it is conducted, and how it is used in the formation of public policy."

After months of research and 10% development, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) issued its "Five Guiding Scientific Principles" to offer a standard against which policy-makers should measure research.

The TASSC member scientists who assisted in drafting our Statement of Principles are :

  • Dr. James E. **Enstrom**, University of California at Los Angeles School of Public Health;
  • Dr. Alan Gross of the Medical University of South Carolina;
  • Dr. Jay Lehr, senior scientist, Environmental Evaluation Enterprises;
  • Dr. George Levinskas, fellow, director and past president of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences;
  • Dr. Floy Lilley, College of Engineering, University of Texas.

Also,

  • Dr. Margaret Maxey, professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas;
  • Dr. Patrick Michaels, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia;
  • Dr.Henry Miller, visiting scholar, Hoover Institution, Stanford University;
  • Dr. Stuart F. Spickler, professor, Center for Ethics, Medicine and Public Issues, Baylor College of Medicine ; and,
  • Dr. Donald Stedman, Brainerd Phillipson professor of chemistry, University of Denver.

[17]

Almost every one a grateful recipient of tobacco industry largess

1995 Aug/E(Summer). TASSC's "The Catalyst" newsletter reports that Carruthers was speaking

[18]

1996 Mar 4 TASSC has as a science adviser, Michael Pariza , Director of the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is supporting the National Restaurant Association against claims by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) about fatty foods done as part of its National menu Monitoriing program.

TASSC granted a "media manipulation award" to the CSPI for its report warning consumers about nutritional hazards in sandwiches. "It's time for everyone to say 'no' to this junk science", said Garrey Carruthers, chairman of TASSC, "It's time to reject this fear-mongering nonsense." [19]

1997 Mar Steve Milloytook over officially as 'Executive Director' of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC). He had previously been hired as the 'behind the scenes contact' who could answer press questions. For a while Garrey Curruthers continued to parade himself as 'President' and 'Founder'.

The so-called Management Board listed in the TASSC letterhead was also sometimes called an "Advisory Board" [Not a SAB], and different listings had different names at different times. George L Carlo's name never appears on the letterhead, but he is listed by APCO (the PR company which ran the operation behind the scenes) as a member of the TASSC Scientific Advisory Board.

This Advisory Board appears to have consisted of a variable list with at least 7 well-known tobacco industry 'consultants', only a few of which were 'scientists':

TASSC's ScientificAdvisory Board appears to have been a cabal of think-tank operators, industry supporters and professional corporate lobbyists, including:

This summary records the claim that in 1997 Milloy...

[20]

[Elizabeth Connell was ex-FDA, and Emory Uni. In 2003 she was also a senior counselor for the tort-reform advocacy group Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA)funded by Philip Morris. This was a subsidiary of the ATRA 'tort reform/product liability' coalition also run by APCO.]

1999 In Blue Smoke, Mirrors, and Designer Science: How the Public Relations Industry Compromises Democracy by Brian Siano (Skeptic magazine)

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a main source of compliant experts, is an instructive example of the “junk science” debate. Its list of advisors includes pesticide defender Bruce Ames, and global warming critics Fred Singer and Patrick Michaels. The groups’ original leader was Garrey Carruthers, a former governor of New Mexico and undersecretary to former Interior secretary and Second Coming prophet James Watt. [21]

2003 Apr 17 Garrey Carruthers appointed dean of business. State Universty of New Mexico. He is credited as

Garrey E. Carruthers, president of the Cimarron Health Plan, former governor of New Mexico and former faculty member at New Mexico State University, has been appointed dean of the university's College of Business Administration and Economics.

Carruthers, who will start on July 1, "brings years of experience in private industry, public service and higher education administration," said Provost William Flores, the university's chief academic officer.

Dr. Carruthers is a past director of the Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, serves on the boards of New Mexico Business Roundtable for Educational Excellence, New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and on many other organizations that will help him bring national recognition to the College of Business Administration and Economics," Flores said.

Carruthers said he is ìdelighted to be returningî to New Mexico State University. "The college has an excellent faculty and staff," he said. "I look forward to joining this team." Carruthers has been president and CEO of the Cimarron Health Plan since 1993. He served as governor of New Mexico from 1987 to 1990 and was a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business at New Mexico State before running for governor.

Carruthers earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at New Mexico State and got his Ph.D. in economics at Iowa State University in 1968. He joined the NMSU faculty in 1968 and remained at the university until 1985, with interruptions for governmental appointments.

He was an assistant U.S. secretary of the interior from 1981 to 1984. During 1974 and 1975 he served as special assistant to the U.S. secretary of agriculture. From 1976 to 1978 he was director of the New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute at NMSU.

He has been president of the New Mexico Association of Health Plans, a member of the New Mexico Education and Accountability Task Force, and co-founder and chairman of the board of the New Mexico Business Roundtable for Educational Excellence. He also is a founding director of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and a founding board member of Think New Mexico.

Carruthers was selected from a national pool of candidates to head the College of Business Administration and Economics, one of six academic colleges at New Mexico State. The college has an enrollment of more than 2,000 students and has about 70 full-time faculty members in five academic departments.

2004 Apr 30 LATEST NEWS Carruthers named to AccessAnytime board by Jason Gil Bear NMBW Staff

Former New Mexico Gov. Garrey Carruthers was elected Friday to a three-year term on the Albuquerque-based Access Anytime BanCorp Inc.'s board of directors. Carruthers will serve as a director and member of the audit committee for the savings and loan company's board.

Related Sourcewatch

References

  1. ↑ Board, Think New Mexico, accessed March 19, 2011.

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