M i / / Q i

Also:• Part 1 general overview.• Part 2 E. Bruce Harrison and the GCC.

JUNK SCIENCE AND THE ART OF SPIN-DOCTORING(Part 3)

by Stewart Fist

NOTES AND REFERENCES

Milloy's Junkscience pages.

Millov's C.V.

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 run by a pseudo-science debunker by the name of Steven Milloy. He promotes his site as "All the Junk that's fit to Debunk", and a lot of the material in his pages is 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 Democrats; in particular A1 Gore.

Milloy gives you some personal details at the site. Here's what hesays:

Steven J. Milloy is the publisher o f 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 o f the 50 Best Web Sites o f 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 o f London, Financial Times,Forbes and MSNBC.

Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences from the Johns Hopkins University, a Master o f Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School o f Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctorate from the University o f 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

Cato Institute

The main corporate funders of the Cato Institute are:• American Farm Bureau Federation,• Amoco,. ARCO,• Chase Manhattan Bank,• Coca-Cola,• CSX Corp.,• Exxon,• Ford Motor Co.,• Kochlndustries,• Monsanto Co.,• National Ammonia Co.,• Philip Morris,• Proctor and Gamble,• Toyota Motor Sales USA.

Cato Science Policy

and Superfund before the U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous organizations.

Milloy’s publications include:Silencing Science, with co-author Michael Gough (Cato Institute, 1998)Science Without Sense: The Risky Business o f Public Health Research (Cato Institute, 1995)Science-Based Risk Assessment: A Piece o f the Superfund Puzzle (National Environmental Policy Institute, 1995)

A lobbyist with a law degree is a valuable commodity in America because it invokes lawyer/client-privilege if dubious deals ever get into the courts.

Milloy is 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. He writes books for the Cato Institute sarcastically attacking the scientific expertise and ethics of any scientist who's results threaten American corporate business.

The Cato Institute is a well-known independent "free-enterprise" think-tank run by members of the Republican Right in Washington DC. ["22 years o f 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 o f ideas".

It 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; most humourists attack on the Republican Right are far more vicious.

Behind the scenes the Cato Institute is, itself, actually 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., Kochlndustries, Monsanto Co., National Ammonia Co., Philip Morris, Proctor and Gamble, and Toyota Motor Sales USA.

"Cato promotes the private funding of science, free from the politics and waste that accompany government programs, and will continue to work to reduce regulations based on faulty risk assessments, bad science, and value-laden assumptions." They are all worthy aims — but the devil is in the detail.

Steve Milloy writes most of his books in association with the Cato Institute's Director of Science and Risk Studies, Michael Gough. Gough lists himself as being "against politics-driven government funding of science and in favor of private funding." He's not actually attacking universities and such, he means research of the kind conducted by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and FDA (Food and Drug Administration), and medical research not conducted by, and for the benefit of, drug companies. He also wants all defence and welfare research to be out-sourced from profit-making organisations.

There's a lot of corporate benefit in this, apart from just the tax savings. In America, any publicly funded research project must be published in full within a month of completion — while projects funded privately through private research organisations can be held to

Michael Gough's C.V. be confidential.

Gough has "testified against the Advanced Technology Program, a Department of Commerce corporate welfare program, and against government funding of'environmental research,' which is focused on extending the underpinnings regulation, not scientific understanding."

Cato credits him thus: "Gough's goals include:• exposing questionable or 'junk' science;• illuminating the opportunity costs of resulting regulations; and• combating the publicOs fear of chemicals.

This is the position that Milloy and Gough both take. But now let me tell you what Milloy doesn't reveal about himself in his C/V at the junkscience site.

Until a few years ago he was the director of science policy studies at NEPI home page. the National Environmental Policy Institute (a part of The Center for

Strategic and International Studies — a public policy research institution "dedicated to analysis and policy impact").

This organisation appears to be dedicated more towards transforming (or destroying) both the EPA and the FDA, and challenging the Superfund clean-ups of toxic chemical locations.

The mission statement of the NEPI organisation says it has a "commitment to providing a substantive framework for improving environmental policy and management. It draws upon the collective skill, experience and knowledge of elected officials, industry representatives, government policy makers, academics and members of the environmental and scientific communities.

"NEPI is dedicated to establishing realistic environmental priorities and helping to focus the national environmental debate," they say. And one of the ways they focus the debate is to have on-staff those members of the Reagan Administration who didn't get jobs with the Cato Institute. They bill themselves as "a non-profit, bipartisan organization of environmental leaders." and have on-board Timothy K. Judge who is the "founder and former president o f Bio-Safe Incorporated, a medical waste disposal company, [who] is currently a consultant on environmental management systems and brownfield restoration."

Milloy frequently appeared on radio and television programs for the NEPI, and has testified on risk assessment and the Superfund before the American Congress. One report of such testimonial states: "Clearly, any meaningful reform of Superfund must address risk assessments and remediation technologies required by the EPA. Costly decisions have been made in the past because Superfund has been viewed as a cleanup program, not a risk reduction program."

The NEPI's publication, Science-Based Risk Assessment: A Key to the Superfund Puzzle, says:"Sound science and more accurate risk assessments can significantly reduce the costs o f remediation, while reducing real health risks when they are found. Steven J. Milloy o f the NEPI suggests that the

Air Quality Standards Coalition:

This is an ad hoc creation of the:

• National Association of Manufacturers,• American Petroleum Institute,• American Automobile Manufacturers Association,• National Mining Association

The CSE get its funding from:

• American Petroleum Institute,• American Plastics Council,• Chemical Manufacturers Association.

The Citizens For The Integrity of Science group doesn't appear to exist except in the mind of Milloy.

costs o f cleanups would fall by 60 percent if the program focused more directly on risk when identifying the appropriate remedies."

NEPI is also associated with The Air Quality Standards Coalition (AQSC) which represent an industry viewpoint that current clean-air regulations are adequate, and that more stringent regulations would harm business. This is actually an ad hoc coalition created by the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, the National Mining Association and others for the express purpose of fighting the EPA's proposed clean air standards.

While Milloy was involved, the AQSC held numerous news "briefings", launched its own Internet web sites, and paid PR companies to place news stories proclaiming that the EPA's data is "junk science." In addition, the Coalition retained the services of political adviser to Vice President A1 Gore, Carter Eskew, for a contract that is estimated at over $5 million.

C Boyland Clay, an outspoken critic of the EPA’s standards and a lobbyist for Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, a firm specialising in environmental and regulatory risk management, is the principle spokesman and organiser of the AQSC. He was once White House legal counsel for President Bush, and he claims to have ghostwritten the weakened Clean Water Act for Senator Bob Dole.

His grandfather Bowman Gray, was the principal owner of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and his father, Gordon Gray, founded the Bowman Gray (memorial) Medical School in Winston-Salem and was actively involved in the 1940s national eugenical sterilisation movement along with other Clay relatives.

C. Boyland Clay is also chairman of Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE - a national free-market think-tank and public policy organization), which is yet another major players in the anti-clean air debate. This is another group working with the National Association of Manufacturers.

The CSE appears also to be directly involved in anti-regulatory strategy planning with AQSC and they get their funding from the American Petroleum Institute, the American Plastics Council and the Chemical Manufacturers Association.!! The CSE's budget quadrupled from $4 million in 1991 to $17.6 million in 1995 and the organisation claims that its cash comes equally from industry, foundations and individuals.

Steve Milloy also runs an organisation called Citizens For The Integrity of Science, which he claims on hisjunkscience.com web site to be the funder and copyright owner of the site. Its registered address is at his home: 12309 Briarbush Lane, Potomac, MD 20854 - - which is also the location of his software company, Simusoft Inc. Milloy flogs Pathogen Modeling Software, said to be "PC software that simulates the growth of foodborne pathogens."

"For food processors, it is an inexpensive way to reduce the potential for food poisoning," the sales blurb explains. It apparently saves food companies from having to do laboratory checks by simulating laboratory tests on the food itself.

Milloy is now better known in non-Internet circles as the executive director of TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition),

APCO Associates are a very large global PR and "communications strategy" organisation. It is a subsidiary of Grey Advertising.Their biggest client is Phillip Morris. They also service special-interest groups like National Rurual Health Association and Coalition For Fairness In Medicare (anti Medicare) and Milloy's TASSC.APCO also has "alliances" with organisations like the International Management and Development Institute: "APCO is available to 1MDI Members to provide separate public relations, government affairs and related services," they boast.

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,• W.R. Grace,

which is run by APCO Associates, an international PR and lobbying company which specialises in “grassroots lobbying" for corporate clients. APCO Associates, is a division of Grey Advertising.

APCO Associates shares a Washington DC office with a number of registered lobbyist organisations and some trade and industry associations, including the Business Round Table and Business Executives for National Security, Inc.

On the side, Milloy also runs another right-wing business-funded 'think-tank' called EPAN (Environmental Policy Analysis Network) and his own companies Milloy, Inc. and Simusoft, Inc., Milloy Inc. appears to run the junkscience home pages with a number of full-time employees.

His relationship with TASSC is much more important because the organisation has the cover of many good scientists who probably genuinely want to promote better science.

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 pesticide manufacturers.

TASSC gets is public relations strength both from its list of 500 scientists who are deemed to be 'Advisors' and from the fact that it belongs to legitimate environmental organisations. For instance, Milloy's TASSC belongs to ECO, the Environmental Conservation Organization known around the world for its "wise use" umbrella network.

But look a TASSC's record, and the picture is quite different. TASSC officials have regularly criticised highly-recognised and perfectly legitimate studies ranging from the quality of drinking water to the safety of baby food. TASSC claims that these adverse health reports are based on dubious science and are employ scare tactics to drum up financial support - but they don’t reveal where their own support comes from.

Like all good public relations, the strength of the message being sold depends to a very large degree on the credibility of the organisation. Credibility is best promoted by merging genuine and fake claims, with the legitimate information blended carefully with the skillfully- crafted backlash material. When credibility has been established though a list of reputable scientists acting as advisors, it steadily becomes easier to make a claim of "junk-science" stick.

TASSC's scientists lend their names to the organisation on the basis that it's mission is purely one of advancing good scientific practice. They do so in the belief that TASSC is closely associated with government and environmental groups. Of course, that's not the whole story, but most of the scientists don't know that. Nor do the media, who are equally gullible.

TASSC gets a special mention in Ken Silverstein's book Washington on $10 million a day subtitled "How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation" (1998), as does the Competitive Enterprises Institute (below), and another "Astroturf grassroots" lobby group "Citizens for a Sound Economy".

EOP Group are funded by:

• American Petroleum Institute,• Business Roundtable,• Chlorine Chemistry Council,• Edison Electric Institute,• National Mining Association,• Nuclear Energy Institute• Oglethorpe Power

ICE was funded by:

• National Coal Association,• Western Fuels Association,• Edison Electrical Institute

Consumer Alert

The 'Washington Representatives' (1996, Columbia Books, Washington DC) listing of registered lobbyists, reveals Milloy is actually employed by the EOP Group, which works for GCC and has many major US polluters as clients. (American Petroleum Institute, the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Edison Electric Institute, National Mining Association and the Nuclear Energy Institute, to name just a few).

One of Milloy's claims to fame is creating the Information Council for the Environment (ICE), a front organisation for the coal industry (National Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association, and Edison Electrical Institute). ICE was later run by Bracy Williams & Co., a Washington, DC-based PR firm, but back in 1996 it launched a half-million dollar advertising blitz to assuage public fears about global warming.

Both ICE and the campaign collapsed after leaks of strategic- planning memos revealed that they had been paying-off scientists to support their cause.

ICE appears to be directly associated with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) a conservative Washington think tank that focuses on "free-market environmentalism". The CEI has taken a front position belittling what it calls "hypothetical risks to human health" from environmental pollution. At a recent Congress hearing their representative stated that global climate change politics were fallaciously built on the assumption that humans are changing climate, and that this change will necessarily result in catastrophic events.

He then refuted all such criteria, and there are. some scientist who would agree with this position. However he then emphasized the importance of wealth in addressing extreme events, such as hurricanes and floods. His comparison was between the loss of life in Florida and that in Bangladesh after similar storms -- and the implication is that it is better to pollute, then to combat the problems you create by being wealthy enough to fix the damage.

The position of the CEI is that we should not attempt to control energy use and therefore make developing countries poorer, but rather allow them to develop their economic base for technological advancement and resilience to battle such hurricans and floods. The claim has a certain glimmer of rationality, until you find out who funds the propaganda; its a creature of the energy and mining industries, and one of the major funders is the Mississippi Valley Coal Trade & Transport Council.

The CEI are also 'collaborating' with Australia's Western Mining Corporation, The Australian Government (major coal exporters),Ford Motors, American Petroleum Institute and the US National Mining Association on the Kyoto issue.

The CEI is also linked to with "free market" outfit called Consumer Alert, which is actually an industry-funded front group supported by the Chlorine Chemistry Council. This is an arm of the Chemical Manufacturers Association (the descendant of the Manufacturing Chemists Association that attacked Rachael Carson in 1962).

A secretary at Chlorine Council inadvertently revealed to a reporter that the group has a $13.5 million annual budget including more than

Milloy has personal responsibility for the affairs of:

• Fort Howard Corporation,• International Food Additives Council,• Monsanto Co.• Edison Electrics.

Contact details:E-mail to Stewart Fist

1 C \ A4irlrllp MarKnnr Pnctrl

$2 million a year for "communications.". Consumer Alert has been vocal in its dismissal of the recent book ’Our Stolen Future' following the pattern which was established when the chemical industry went after Rachael Carson's 'Silent Spring'.

After ICE collapsed, it was replaced by the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) as the ’grassroots’ organisation supporting the oil, coal, power and electricity distribution industry on environmental issues, and Milloy was working with the GCC during Kyoto. PR Watch reported "TASSC attempted to stimulate anti-treaty email to President Clinton by promising to enter writers' names in a $1,000 sweepstakes drawing."

On the eve of the Conference in December 1997, Milloy, on behalf of TASSC and its corporate funders, announced that more than 500 physicians and scientists had signed an open letter to world leaders opposing any climate change treaty. When asked to provide the signers' names and credentials, Milloy told the authors that he had not had time to "compile" the hard-copy list. (See: Sierra release)

Milloy's employment by the EOP Group Inc. dates back to before 1995, and it includes a record of lobbying on behalf of the Fort Howard Corporation, the International Food Additives Council, Monsanto Co. and Edison Electrics.

The EOP Group publications: "PMA Value to Taxpayers and Customers," (Washington: Edison Electric Institute April 1995) is probably one of his works, as is "Measuring Up to the Year 2000 Aim of the Framework Convention on Climate Change".

More recently, the EOP Group's boss Mike O'Bannon has been implicated in a bribery and corruption scandal involving Clinton's Secretary for Agriculture, Mike Espy (of the USDA). Among the 30- odd charges was one related to Espy’s acceptance from the EOP Group of $US2,200 worth of tickets to the 1994 Super Bowl, and a job for Espy's girlfriend Patricia Dempsey.

The Washington Post (Nov 98) reported the arrangement in this way: Another friend o f Espy’s, lobbyist Michael O ’Bannon, likewise denied doing anything improper by giving him a ticket to the 1994 Super Bowl game. At the time, O ’Bannon was working on behalf of Oglethorpe Power, which wanted to repay a $3 billion USDA loan earlier than scheduled but also wanted to avoid paying $300 million in penalties. Although Espy and others at USDA sided with Oglethorpe, the Treasury Department rejected the arrangement.

O ’Bannon also helped Patricia Dempsey. In early 1994, he hired her to work as a training and events coordinator for his company, EOP Group Inc., a job that paid $35,000 a year. O ’Bannon testified that Dempsey’s performance was "sporadic at best," and said his partners and clients complained about her. She resigned from the firm in March 1995, after Espy had left USDA. O ’Bannon testified that he hired Dempsey because the firm needed help and not in any way to curry favor with Espy. "I don’t do favors in hiring," he said.

END.

There's now much more on Milloy and junk-science in general at my new site, www.iunk-science.com

LINDFIELD, NSW, 2070, Australia Phone: +61 2 9416 7458 (H & W) Facsimile: +61 2 9416 4582

The sources of this material are extensive, but much of it came directly or indirectly from PR Watch and from John Stauber (co­author of the book 'Toxic Sludge is Good For You'). Check also PR Watch.

There is also a bit from Dave Shenk's Data Smog' which is highly recommended.

You should also buy and read Washington on $10 million a day subtitled "How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation" (1998, Ken Silverstein, Common Courage Press).

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