Steven Milloy
Steven Milloy is best known as the founder and publisher of the Junk Science website.[1] He defines 'junk science' as "bad science used by lawsuit-happy trial lawyers, the 'food police,' environmental Chicken Littles, power-drunk regulators, and unethical-to-dishonest scientists to fuel specious lawsuits, wacky social and political agendas, and the quest for personal fame and fortune.."[2] In reality it is a label that industry supporters use to attack any science that shows that industrial products and activities may be harmful to health or the environment. For example, the site has been named as a "leading debunker" of global warming by Rolling Stone magazine.[3]
Industry Connections
The self-styled 'Junkman' worked in the 1990s for PR companies when he lobbied for, amongst others, the American Petroleum Institute, the International Food Additives Council, and Monsanto on the subject of 'food safety and labeling', ie biotech foods[4]. He continues to attack critics of the safety of genetically engineered products and oppose the labelling of GM foods.[5]
Evidence exists that Milloy's 'junk science' internet mission was founded with Philip Morris tobacco money as part of their campaign to undermine industry-critical research. The Philip Morris campaign was waged via front organisations such as The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), of which Milloy is executive director, and which is listed as the originator of the Junk Science website.
TASSC was run by a division of Grey Advertising called APCO. TASCC was funded by Dow Chemical, Exxon, the National Pest Control Association, Amoco, Lorillard, Occidental Petroleum, Phillip Morris (Grey's largest client), W.R. Grace and other corporations interested in discrediting epidemiological and toxicological studies contrary to their interests.
Milloy is an 'adjunct scholar' at the Cato Institute, which has published his books such as Junk Science Judo: Self Defense Against Health Scares and Scams . He is also a columnist for FoxNews.com and runs an organisation called Citizens for the Integrity of Science, (CFIS). Details about CFIS are scant but it appears to have some sort of board, of which only two members, including Milloy, are known. The other is Michael Gough of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (and Cato) who is the co-author with Milloy of Silencing Science (Cato Institute 1998).
Milloy was a leader in the already defunct NoMoreScares.com, a web site launched in August 2000 primarily to defend biotech products and malign Fenton Communications, one of the only PR firms in Washington DC willing to work with non-profit public interest groups and their relatively small PR budgets. Other coalition members listed included Elizabeth Whelan of the American Council on Science and Health, Alex Avery and [Michael Fumento] of the Hudson Institute and Michael Gough of the Cato Institute. NoMoreScares disappeared almost as quickly as it was brought into existence, only to be replaced by StopLabelingLies.com.
Both were used to publish 'The Fear Profiteers', by Milloy, Fumento, Gough, Whelan, John Carlisle and Henry I. Miller. It claims to uncover a 'tangled web of non-profit advocacy groups with a public relations "ring leader" playing spider'. The latter is a reference to Fenton Communications, one of the only PR firms in Washington DC willing to assist relatively low-budget non-profit public interest groups. These groups together with Fenton Communications are accused of being behind 'food scares' such as the concern over Monsanto's genetically-engineered growth hormone Bovine somatotropin (BST). this is injected into cows by some American farmers in order to boost milk production. BST is banned in all other major industrialised countries because of either human health or animal welfare concerns.
Their other main publication is 'Organic Industry Groups Spread Fear for Profit', later reissued as Marketing & The Organic Food Industry (September 2000). It was written by Graydon Forrer, Alex Avery and John Carlisle. The detailed biographies of the 3 authors provided in the document fails to mention that less than a year earlier Forrer was director of Executive Communications for the Monsanto Corporation.
Milloy's attacks on the scientific expertise and ethics of any scientist whose views or results threaten the interests of American corporations have always been marked by extreme sarcasm and aggression. When Dr. David Rall, founder of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, was fatally injured in a car accident, Milloy posted this 'obituary of the day' on his Junk Science website: 'Scratch one junk scientist.... He was a bad guy when he was alive [and] death did not improve his track record.' When pressed to apologise to Rall's family, Milloy refused.[6]
References
- ↑ "JunkScience.com", accessed 7 February 2009.
- ↑ "Junk science FAQs", JunkScience.com, accessed 7 February 2009.
- ↑ "Steven J. Milloy", JunkScience.com, accessed 7 February 2009.
- ↑ "CLEAR Profile: Steven Milloy and JunkScience.com", Tittabawasse River Watch, December 2001, accessed 7 February 2009
- ↑ "JunkScience.com", accessed 7 February 2009.
- ↑ For more on Milloy
