Confronting Pseudoscience and Threats from a Corporate Front Group: The American Council on Science and Health

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Confronting Pseudoscience and Threats from a
Corporate Front GroupThe American Council on
Science and Health

• Martin Donohoe

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Disclosure

• Regular column for Medscape
• Small payment per article
• While much of Medscapes content is supported by
  the pharmaceutical industry, my columns have been
  free of industry support
• No other funding sources or conflicts of interest

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Outline

• Background Global Warming
• American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)
  history, staff, and funding
• Corporate Front Groups
• ACSH Pseudoscience and Misinformation

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Outline

• ACSH Attacks on Scientists and the Scientific
  Enterprise
• Implications for Science and Public Health
• Other examples of obfuscation of science by
  corporate interests
• Conclusions

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Background

• Essay describing health and environmental
  consequences of global warming for Medscape
• Described ACSH as a corporate front group and
  criticized its selection of author Michael
  Crichton as recipient of its 2005 Sound Science
  Medal
• Crichtons State of Fear questions existence of
  human-caused global warming
• Crichton also received the American Association
  of Petroleum Geologists journalism award

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ACSH and Global Warming

• Leader referred to belief that burning fossil
  fuels has caused global warming as pseudoscience
• Criticized environmental scientists as
  doomsayers and fearmongers

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ACSH Response

• Threatens litigation against Medscape
• Medscape briefly pulls article, then publishes
  with comments removed, then republishes with
  additional material
• ?Loss of potential readership?

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ACSHDr Elizabeth Whelan

• Founded in 1978 by Drs. Elizabeth Whelan and
  Frederick Stare
• Whelans early writing career included
• Freelance writing assignment for Pfizer
  criticizing the FDA
• Consumer magazine pieces for Harpers Bazaar
  and Glamour (fashion magazines)
• Books include Panic in the Pantry and Toxic
  Terror
• Whelans 2003 salary 326,612

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ACSHDr Gilbert Ross

• Joined ACSH as staff assistant in 1997
• Became Coordinator of Medical Projects in 1998
• Appointed Medical Director, then Executive
  Director in 1999

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ACSHDr Gilbert Ross

• Spent 1996 in federal prison after being
  sentenced to 46 months for
• Medicaid fraud
• Perjury
• Obstruction of justice
• Not mentioned on his bio on ACSH website
• Barred by the DHHS for 10 years from
  participating in either Medicare or Medicaid

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ACSHDr Gilbert Ross Career

• Defended Wood Preservative Science Council
  against health claims regarding arsenic in
  pressure-treated wood
• Wrote on behalf of the farmed salmon industry
  that PCBs in fish do not cause any health
  problems
• Now in charge of all scientific projects,
  publications, and personnel issues involving
  scientific staff at ACHS

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ACSH

• ACHS Board of Directors includes anti-regulatory
  Individuals (2001 Survey)
• Funding from right wing foundations, corporations
• Accepted money to write and disseminate
  pro-industry studies

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Corporate Front Groups

• Promote corporate agendas
• Strong financial and advisory links with
  corporations
• Disseminate misinformation/lies under guise of
  science
• Non-peer reviewed
• Promote pro-business, conservative ideology

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ACSHPseudoscience and Misinformation

• Attacked the precautionary principle
• anti-science and anti-technology phobia
• fundamentally reactionary and elitist
• more on the order of theology than science
• Minimized the effects of environmental tobacco
  smoke (ETS) on human health
• 38,000 deaths/yr in U.S.

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ACSHPseudoscience and Misinformation

• Denied many of the adverse neurological effects
  of lead exposure
• Denied endocrine-disrupting effects of PCBs
• Claimed court ordered-cleanup of Hudson River by
  GE based on false claims of PCBs causing cancer
• Claimed uncertainty regarding effects of
  agricultural antibiotics

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ACSHPseudoscience and Misinformation

• Called warning regarding tuna consumption by
  pregnant women unfounded health scare
• Critiqued health concerns re trans fatty acids
• There is no such thing as junk food
• There is insufficient evidence of a relationship
  between diet and any disease.

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ACSHPseudoscience and Misinformation

• Claimed irradiated food is safe, wholesome and
  nutritious and no radioactive isotopes are
  involved
• Denied link between dioxins and pesticides and
  adverse health effects
• Supported use of human volunteers in pesticide
  toxicity studies

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Pesticides

• EPA U.S. farm workers suffer up to 300,000
  pesticide-related acute illnesses and injuries
  per year
• NAS Pesticides in food could cause up to 1
  million cancers in the current generation of
  Americans
• WHO 1,000,000 people killed by pesticides over
  the last 6 years

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Phony Health Scares

• Mercury in tuna and other fish
• Flame retardant traces found in blood and breast
  milk
• PCBs in the Hudson River
• Diesel exhaust fumes from school busses
• Arsenic in drinking water
• Phthalates in medical devices and childrens toys

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ACSH Attacks on Scientists and the Scientific
Enterprise

• Threat of litigation against Medscape
  antithetical to the rules of science
• require the free exchange of information and
  opinion in pursuit of the truth

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ACSH Attacks on Scientists and the Scientific
Enterprise

• ad hominem attacks
• environmentalists toxic terrorists
• Whelan criticized Dr. Barry Levy and
  citizen-activist Erin Brockovich as individuals
  whopursued self-serving financial opportunities
  through litigation

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Barry Levy

• Expert in asbestos-related litigation
• Past president of APHA and winner of Sedgwick
  Medal
• Career has included work with CDC and USAID and
  the presidency of International Physicians for
  the Prevention of Nuclear War

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Erin Brokovich

• Received Harvard School of Public Healths
  highest honor, the Julius Richmond Award
• Exposed Pacific Gas and Electrics (PG and Es)
  pollution of California groundwater with
  chromium-6 (linked to stomach cancer)

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Implications of Attacks on Science and Scientists

• ACSH has broad media presence
• Web site attracts large numbers of individuals
• 100,000 hits per month for 2005
• Dr. Whelan has been featured on NBCs Today Show,
  CNN Live, and CNBCs Business Insiders
• Editorials by Whelan and Ross have appeared in
  the New York Times and Wall Street Journal

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Implications of Attacks on Science and Scientists

• Mislead public / may cause alterations in
  lifestyle and/or purchasing habits
• adverse consequences to health
• Threats of litigation and SLAPP suits distract,
  intimidate, and deplete the scientific, legal,
  and financial resources of individuals and groups
  committed to public health

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Implications of Attacks on Science and Scientists

• Faulty pronouncements influence elected officials
• Threats of litigation divert the valuable time of
  health care providers, editors, and legal
  departments away from their more productive
  missions of research, teaching, writing, and
  patient care

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Implications of Attacks on Science and Scientists

• Scientists and health care advocates may decide
  it is wiser to avoid conflict than publish
  content to which ACSH and other such groups might
  object

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Educational Deficits Impede Publics
Understanding of Science

• Inadequate funding of science and health
  education means individuals may lack background
  necessary to recognize sound science vs.
  ideological bunk
• Corporate-sponsored educational materials
  replacing scientific syllabi

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Would You Sign a Petition to Ban Dihydrogen
Monoxide?

• 1. It can cause excessive sweating and
  vomiting2. It is a major component in acid
  rain3. It can cause severe burns in its gaseous
  state4. It can kill you if accidentally
  inhaled5. It contributes to erosion6. It
  decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes7.
  It has been found in tumors of terminal cancer
  patients

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Geographic Ignorance

• Percent of US teens unable to locate the
  following on a map
• United States 11
• Pacific Ocean 29
• Japan 58
• United Kingdom 68

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Pseudoscientific Beliefs

• Percentage of Americans who believe at least to
  some degree in these phenomena
• 1976 1997
• Astrology 17 37
• UFOs 24 30
• Reincarnation 9 25
• Fortune-Telling 4 14

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Ignorance / Pseudoscientific Beliefs

• Half of US citizens do not believe in evolution
  and do believe that humans and dinosaurs
  coexisted (2007)
• 37 believe places can be haunted (2007)
• 25 believe in UFOs (2007)

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Ignorance / Pseudoscientific Beliefs

• 22 of Americans dont know whether an atomic
  bomb has ever been dropped (2000)
• 20 of Americans dont know the earth revolves
  around the sun (1999)

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Corporate Influence

• Greenwash Public relations/ad campaigns
• Chevrons People Do Campaign,
  butterflies/refinery
• British Petroleum (BP) invests 100 million
  annually in clean energy amt. it spends
  annually to market its new name and
  environmentally-friendly image of moving Beyond
  Petroleum

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Corporate Influence

• Astroturf artificially-created grassroots
  coalitions
• Other corporate front groups
• The Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy
• National Wilderness Institute
• The Foundation for Clean Air Progress

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Corporate PR tactics

• Invoke poor people as beneficiaries
• Characterize opposition as technophobic,
  anti-science, and against progress
• Portray their products as environmentally
  beneficial in the absence of (or despite the)
  evidence

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Sponsored Environmental Educational Materials

• Corporate-sponsored and supported by a loose
  coalition of antiregulatory zealots, corporate
  polluters, lapdog scientists and misguided parents

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Sponsored Environmental Educational Materials -
Examples

• Exxons Energy Cube
• -Gasoline is simply solar power hidden in
  decayed matter
• -Offshore drilling creates reefs for fish
• Pacific Lumber Company
• -The Great American Forest is. . . renewable
  forever

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Sponsored Environmental Educational Materials -
Examples

• American Nuclear Societys Activities with the
  Atoms Family
• Dows Chemipalooza

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Environment of Anti-Science/Pseudoscience

• Erosion of science under the current
  administration
• Appointments to key scientific bodies based on
  corporate connections and political or religious
  ideology, rather than scientific expertise
• Excessive corporate influence over legislation
• The rewriting and even suppression of scientific
  policy statements

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Conclusions

• Professional and lay publications should expose
  the workings of groups like ACSH
• Scientists should fight back against harassment
• Improve quality of public education get
  corporations out of the classroom

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Papers/References

• Donohoe MT. Corporate front groups and the abuse
  of science the saga of the American Council on
  Science and Health. Z Magazine 2007
  (October)42-6. Available at http//zmagsite.zmag.
  org/Oct2007/donohoe_print.html. Referenced
  version available at http//phsj.org/wp-content/up
  loads/2007/11/corporate-front-groups-abuse-of-scie
  nce-with-background-and-refs.doc
• Donohoe MT. Global warming a public health
  crisis demanding immediate action. World Affairs
  Journal 200711(2)44-58 (adapted from Global
  warming a public health crisis demanding
  immediate action (Part I). Medscape Public Health
  and Prevention (1/12/07). Available at
  http//www.medscape.com/viewarticle/548985 and
  Global warming a public health crisis demanding
  immediate action (Part II). Medscape Public
  Health and Prevention (1/16/07). Available at
  http//www.medscape.com/viewarticle/549292)

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Contact Info

• Martin T Donohoehttp//www.publichealthandsocialj
  ustice.orghttp//www.phsj.orgmartindonohoe_at_phsj.
  org