Weinberg Group

Weinberg Group Logo

The Weinberg Group describes itself as " an international scientific and regulatory consulting firm that helps companies protect their product at every stage of its life. We help our clients improve manufacturing processes, clear regulatory hurdles, and defend products in the courts and the media".

Weinberg Group & The Alcohol Industry

The Brewers of Europe hired the Weinberg Group to counter any adverse business consequences of the report Alcohol in Europe by Dr Peter Anderson. Anderson noted that despite reviews which called his work important, accurate and impressive that "... the [Alcohol] industry has still been determined to present its own views as ‘evidence-based’. Between the release of our report and the final strategy, the Brewers of Europe paid for what they described as an ‘independent report . . .reviewed by an independent scientific panel’, a surprising claim given that the report’s co-ordinators say they companies . . . to clear regulatory hurdles, and defend products in the courts and the media’.

Martin McKee, a professor of public health, share Anderson's concerns. McKee criticized the Weinberg Group for writing a paper on alcohol regulation for the european alcohol industry. McKee said of the report:

"Its content is remarkably similar to the tobacco industry reports that contended there was insufficient evidence that its products caused any harm or that preventive measures would be effective. For example, it concludes that "there is not enough evidence to substantiate a link between alcohol advertising and consumption," which raises the question of why the industry spends so much money promoting its products, and that "violence is a subjective term which is fairly nebulous and elastic," a view unlikely to be shared by those scarred by bottles wielded by drunks. Now that the methods used by the tobacco industry have been exposed, few serious commentators believe what they say. Unfortunately, the alcohol industry seems to be going down the same path. European commissioners will miss a valuable opportunity to improve the health of their fellow citizens if they are taken in by the alcohol industry's arguments." .

Tobacco Industry Ties

The Weinberg Group has also worked closely with the tobacco industry. Myron Weinberg is described as a tobacco industry consultant in a thesis paper produced by Elisa Ong of the University of California San Francisco titled "Tobacco Industry Efforts Subverting the International Agency for Research on Cancer's Secondhand Smoke Study." The consultant relationship is confirmed in tobacco industry documents. Myron Weinberg is listed in a Philip Morris grants and projects budget as being paid $50,000 U.S.D. in 1995 alone for "Consulting Related to ETS [Environmental Tobacco Smoke] Projects." [7] PM Worldwide Scientific Affairs (WSA) department budgeted $250,000 for the Weinberg Group for Feb-Dec 1998 to organize a risk management conference and help develop and publicize a body of academic literature on risk management that would be favorable to the industry. [8]

The Weinberg Group also assisted the tobacco industry's law firm, Covington and Burling, with implementing a multinational Environmental Tobacco Smoke scientific witness program (also known as the "Whitecoat Project.") The Project was an effort by the industry to clandestinely find, recruit and train third party scientists to act as credible, disinterested third parties who would speak, write and testify in the industry's favor on the subject of secondhand smoke without disclosing ties to the tobacco industry.

A Philip Morris internal document dated 1989 and titled TI Consultants on ETS - Status Report (Tobacco Institute Consultants on Environmental Tobacco Smoke-Status Report) describes the Weinberg Group as a "witness search firm," and describes their role in the ETS project. It says the tobacco industry "used [the Weinberg Group] 4-5 years ago in initial effort to identify scientists on ETS" and that they "found 8-9 scientists, many of which have since fallen by the wayside...Today even more resistance among scientific community to working with the industry." The Weinberg Group at that time provided Covington & Burling (C&B) with the names of 33 potential scientists to recruit into the project. C&B "reviewed their resumes and bibliographies, and ensured that the selected scientists held no negative [to the industry] views on ETS, that their position on primary [smoking] is that it is no more than a 'risk factor,' and that they are not retained by other companies as potential court witnesses." [9]

In 2001, a researcher wrote about interviewing for a job at the Weinberg Group in Science Magazine. She wrote, "The Weinberg Group presented itself more like a law firm: The formal office environment was cold, stark, and way too quiet for my tastes. As soon as they mentioned the phrase 'billable hours' and that they had some tobacco companies as clients, I knew it was not for me. I ended the interview shortly after it began."[10]