George Carlo (Doc Index)
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George L Carlo was one of the most prolific science corrupter in the American scene, and he worked for any industry that would pay. Initially he built his business working for Dow Chemicals through the E Bruce Harrison Company, then he was hired through Ketchum PR to run the Wireless Technology Research program for the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) when it was found that the strobe-pulsed output from the first digital mobile phones (D-AMPS and GSM) caused breaks in the DNA in test animals. He then moved on to various other scams.
His main company was Health and Environmental Sciences but he had a half-dozen others usually with the Carlo name. His close associates were Jim Tozzi and Thorne Auchter who ran Federal Focus. the Multinational Business Service and the Institute for Regulatory Policy in Washington DC.
| SPLIT ENTRY |
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| George L Carlo |
| Wireless Technology Research |
| Health and Environmental Sciences Group |
Contents
Various Research Associates
- Professor Keith Solomon
Keith Solomon of University of Guelf, is probably the same K. Solomon who has worked for and with George in the HES days on a number of occasions -- and also the K. Solomon who featured in an 16 March 1997 article in the Toronto Star supporting the tobacco companies. He is quoted as saying that gun-shot wounds were more of a problem than second-hand smoke. - Professor Robert Squire
Robert Squire of John Hopkins University, is probably the RA Squire who also worked for HES. Squires has worked with Carlo on a number of dubious projects. - Professor Anthony Miller
Anthony Miller of the University of Toronto, is very probably the AB Miller who also worked with Carlo at HES on tobacco problems. - Dr Philip Cole
There are three Philip Coles in the archives. This one worked for Dow Corning,
All above appear to be available to conduct research projects with Carlo when required. There is nothing to suggest a propensity for scientific distoriation other than their close association with Carlo.
Documents & Timeline
1940s: Carlo's family migrated to the USA from Calabria in Sicily, and George was born in New York. In the early 1970s he claims to have earned Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo [1]
1972: Dr Carlo's "scientific involvement with dioxins" begins. He reveals in a letter to the Wall Street Journal (March 27 1992) that his focus at this time was on risk management rather than basic research. He also said that he designed protocols which were used by the Arkansas Department of Health about this time, to monitor dioxin-exposed Vietnamese refugees.
1974-1977 Arkansas Power and Light had their Nuclear One power plant in Pope County. And, in 1974, when it opened, the county had a still-birth rate of 20.3 per 1000, the following year it rose to 25.4, then to 27.5, and then in 1977 it hit a figure of 26.8 per thousand. "The combined rate in control counties farther from the site had, by contrast, dropped sharply."
1976-1977: Carlo is an Epidemiologist on the staff of the University of Arkansas's Medical Sciences department when the increased rate of still-births became common knowledge.
"While at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (sic), he chaired the research committee of the Department of Family and Community Medicine and designed the acute and chronic clinical work performed by that department." (Carlo biog)
1978: George Carlo, still with the University of Arkansas, co-wrote (with epidemiologist Carol Hogue) a report for the Arkansas Department of Health. They warned that "a pattern of risk" seemed to be developing in the neighbourhood of the power plant. "The situation should be monitored closely," they said, because "we may be detecting a weak signal."
Arkansas Power and Light quickly denied any likelihood that Nuclear One "would have any effect on the health of newborns. We have worked closely with the hospital there," said AP&L vice-president, Charles Kelly, "and every indication we've had in monitoring the health effects is that there is none."
Carlo's paper was not kindly received by local authorities. "The study", said Director Robert Young of the Arkansas Health Department, was "inconclusive" and offered no evidence that Nuclear One was to blame for the escalating stillbirth rate. (Arkansas Gazette, October 31, 1979)
Carlo as Consultant
1978: About this time he left Arkansas and sets up as an Independent consultant, establishing the organisation originally called Health and Environmental Sciences (HES) and looks for work in the tobacco industry. "He is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology, and is a specialist in assessing and managing risks to public health." (Carlo biog)
1979: Love Canal: This is a toxic land-fill incident that made world headlines. A developer had built a new suburb on reclaimed land, and a number of families with young children had shifted into the suburb and been living there for some time. It was then discovered that the land-fill was loaded with the dioxins.
The suburb was evacuated and the homes torn down. According to his own report, Carlo was consulted by the New York State Department of Health over this incident. Presumably, by then, he was seen as a dioxin expert -- but it is not clear which side was employing him at this time.
1980: Superfund: A special government financed fund of $1.6 billion is established for general site clean-ups around the United States after Love Canal. However, the government was trying to load a proportion of these costs back on the industries that had caused the problems -- so the fund was strongly opposed by industry.
The correct name of the Superfund is CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act) and Carlo claims to have been consulted on the design of the Superfund proposal by a congressional committee.
Three Mile Island
1979 March: The Three Mile Island incident. A leak at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant created the most serious nuclear incident in American history, and probably the best-known in the world before the Ukrainian Chernobyl disaster and the Japanese Fukiyama power plant.
1979 Oct: The American Department of Health issued a quick study which had been conducted on the Three Mile Island incident only 6 months after the event and Carlo claims to have been involved as a consultant.
"His work has included studies addressing risks from the environment and consumer products, as well as the safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals and medical devices."
[Carlo]...served in diverse scientific advisory capacities, including membership on the US. Congress Office of Technology Assessment Agent Orange Advisory Panel. (Carlo biog)
1981: The Agent Orange herbicide used by the military in Vietnam had serious dioxin contamination problem. Dioxins were both toxic and caused mutagens, and they were accidentally when some manufacturing processes were not strictly supervised.
This year Carlo begins serving on the US Congress - Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) panel on Agent Orange alongside a couple of other scientists who were to become friends and business associates. He continues on this panel for at least ten years.
He met two scientific consultants who would later figure strongly in his life: Dr Maurice LeVois, another epidemiologist working at this time for the Veterans, and Dr Michael Gough who was the dioxin representative for the government in the OTA. LeVois became a partner in HES, while Gough moved on to a life in think-tanks, firstly Resources for the Future and later the Cato Institute. They became a mutual supporting clique, and this provided Carlo with back-up when needed.
- [All three joined forces to support Steven J Milloy in the TASSC junk-science scam for Philip Morris]
In 1982 Dr William Morton of the University of Oregon found a significant link between low-levels of medium frequency (MF) radio radiation from television towers, and higher rates of lymphatic leukemia, cancers of the uterus, and breast cancer in Portland residents believed to be exposed to the radiation. There was also suspicion that certain types of radar had increased cancer rates among operators during the war. Fears began to develop that not enough research had been done into possible health effects of radio frequency radiation when the technologies had become widely used during World War II, and no one had bothered to do research when similar frequencies were later used in the densely populated residential areas. 1987: Dr Richard Stevens, writing in the American Journal of Epidemiology, suggests that increased rates of breast cancer might possibly be associated with radio frequency EMFs. |
1986: The Superfund Amendments and Reauthorisation Act (SARA) increases the Superfund to $8.5 billion, and made private cleanups compulsory. Carlo says he was consulted by a congressional committee here also.
Reaganite zealots, Michael Gough (who had moved from the government Office of Technical Assessment (OTA), to the conservative think-tank "Resources for the Future") and 'junk-man' Steve J Milloy (then working through the National Environment Policy Institute (NEPI), MBE and later the EOP Group) were also involved in spin-doctoring the Superfund problems on behalf of the large corporations and the government.
At this time the US Federal Government had a vested interest in covering up the Agent Orange scandal. And since this was associated with dioxins, they also 'aided and abetted' the cover-up of dioxin pollution problems. The line was simply to deny that dioxins were strongly mutagenic.
1986-90: Carlo's Health & Environmental Services Group, Ltd. (now HESG) now had offices and staff at 1513 Sixteenth Street, NW, Washington DC.
His staff are now working for the Chlorine Institute (which runs a program of disinformation on the dioxin issue for the paper manufacturers. He also has some of the larger chemical companies as clients: he acts personally as a consultant and trouble-shooter. Meanwhile he is trying to break into the big-time shonky-research business with the tobacco companies. At this stage LeVois and Carlo join forces to provide Philip Morris with a proposal for sham research which can be used to prove that those scientists who oppose smoking are simply 'biased'.
You can find this letter at the Philip Morris document archives (It is document No 2023547147. The protocols for the research are also at 2023549442, and some other meeting memos can be found at 2023549425)
Tobacco Research
1989 Aug: In a letter signed by Maurice LeVois to Dr Thomas J Borelli who headed the Science and Technology division of Philip Morris (which direct both the real science and the pseudo-research)/ Carlo and LeVois offer to run a research project aimed to show that it is the personal anti-smoking biases among epidemiologists causes them to 'mislead' politicians and the public about the dangers of ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke). Philip Morris are keen to get such research.
Carlo and his staff at HESG do this study by sending out a questionairre which asks isolated, and quite irresponsibly-loaded questions.
In this letter Carlo and LeVois don't only offer to conduct the research, they are also offering to pre-plan the response and organise how to exploit the propaganda that will be generated. In effect, while supposedly acting as a disinterested scientist examining scientific ethics, he is performing the functions of a PR lobbyist and deliberately planning to manipulate a scientific outcome.
Part II of his plan is to "developing persuasive messages". On Page 2 (top), he specifies that this is a strategic question for PM -- not a scientific question -- but he will do it anyway, for money.
An internal list prepared by Newman Partners for the head of scientific propaganda at Philip Morris, also lists George Carlo and Maurice LeVois as full-time consultants on the problem of passive smoking. Carlo is listed as the top consultant to be sent to London for a conference which has, as its aim, the disruption of claims that the regulators make when imposing the 'precautionary principle'. This plan was known as Good Epidemiological Practices orGEP
Some of the 'scientific principles' which were designed by the participants (some may have been genuine, but gullible) at this tobacco-loaded conference were viable and acceptable, but many set the scientific hurdles so high that no independent scientist looking to prove harm from some source of pollution, would never be able to jump over it. So no independent scientist could ever claim that the case against tobacco smoke or chemical pollution had been proven.
This tobacco-industry inspured "GEP" standard became known as the "London Principles" after the predicatble loaded industry conference. You can find these London Principles at the Federal Focus web-site still. Government imposition of such principles would have prevented the EPA, FDA, OSHA and any other environmental/health regulator from ever issuing regulations until proof of danger was accepted by ever scientist in the industry and every paid industry consultant scientist. An impossible task.
1989: Carlo received two Philip Morris payments ($70,000 + $60,000) for his 'Bias Study" paper proving that epidemiology is wrong and that anti-tobacco scientists are all biased, and are producing distorted results.
Two HESG staffers, Kelly Sund and Rebecca Steffens, have their name on the paper as co-researcher -- Kelly Sund on the draft, and Rebecca Steffens on the final. Kelly Sund had been a faithful employee although lacking any biomedical qualifications. She had her name listed in this year also as co-author on a dioxin-spill study on the Melbourne (Australia) water supply.
Maurice LeVois also managed to get a check for $25,000 from Philip Morris at the same time, and he later began to work more with another dubious scientist called Max Layard. Philip Morris may not have known that LeVois and Carlo were linked in the first place; or it could be that the Carlo HES operation split, or changed nature at this time. LeVois shifted to California.
The tobacco documents also mention a Canadian, Dr Ian Munro, who later worked with Carlo firefighting dioxin concerns. Munro became Carlo's deputy Director in the cellphone industry's Wireless Technology Research (WTR) project. Later Carlo and Munro formalised a partnership in preparing environmental impact statements in Canada. Munro also runs an organisation called CanTox, which is the Canadian equivalent (or maybe an "arm") of Carlo's HES group.
George Carlo Still the 'dioxin specialist' travelled to Australia with one staffer (Kelly Sund) and his personal lawyer (James Baller) to conduct an 'independent audit' of the Melbourne water supply following a dioxin spill from a factory sited in the Melbourne water catchment area. It is not at all clear what role Baller played, but his name is on the main report as if he was a biomedical specialist. .
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The NuFarm Dioxin Spill Nufarm Limited, is an agricultural chemicals manufacture which has the Australian and New Zealand rights to produce the herbicide Roundup. Following the Agent Orange problems, this herbicide had come under threat from Greenpeace activists because they were suspected of having comparatively high dioxin content (due to sloppy manufacture). Carlo's water-quality/dioxin paper, when published, showed that his associates in this research were Kelly Sund (who appears to have no biomedical degree) who worked for him at HES and later for the WTR, and also his contract lawyer and friend, James Baller. These three "independent" experts found no cause for alarm, and told the Australian media that health effects are unlikely to result from general population exposures to PCDDs and PCDFs (different types of dioxins). This was reported in the Australian media as having "cleared" the Melbourne Water Supply of any suspicion of contamination. At this time Nufarm was a subsidiary of Fernz Pty Ltd. a New Zealand company which owns Pharma Pacific and Pharma Pacific Management Pty Ltd. A Dr George Carlo is listed as Technical Director for these companies. (Later the Fernz companies merge under the Nufarm name.) As technical director, Carlo is still being offered around the world today as a keynote conference speaker by the Pharma Group (they pay the airfare and probably more). He is now touted as an expert on 'Risk Assessment'. They don't say he also works for a organochloride pesticide/herbicide manufacturing subsidiary, even though Nufarm owns the Australian licence for Roundup (Monsanto), the most widely used herbicide in the world. |
Juggling dioxins and tobacco smoke
1991 late: Carlo is now working for both Philip Morris and for the Chlorine Institute. His job appears to be to play down the fears of the public about dioxin spills, and ridicule fears surrounding them. The Chlorine Institute was, without doubt, one of the most disreputable lobby organisations that has ever existed ... if you don't counting the tobacco industry.
Dioxins are not quite as deadly as some activists have made out, but they are still up there with the worst. The Chlorine Institute, however, had numerous paid lobbyists and paid scientists who were available on-call to counter public fears of dioxin contamination. Carlo was one of their best.
The organisation also lobbied long and hard to have the limits on dioxin contamination levels relaxed in order to reduce the costs of manufacture. During this period the lobbyists, including Carlo, constantly appeared on radio and in the newspapers, claiming that dioxin wasn't really a harmful by-product at all. Those who opposed having traces of it in their water supply, were painted as "extremists".
1991 Sep 23: On this day Carlo was involved in a National Public Radio (NPR) documentary which resulted in the publication of an article entitled: An NPR Report on Dioxin: How "Neutral" Experts Can Slant a Story, by Charlotte Ryan for FAIR.
1992 Jan: The [[Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting[[ (FAIR) organisation had conducted a four-month study of National Public Radio, and found that their coverage of toxic environmental issues had been declining since 1990 (Tyndall Report, 1/92).
The article written in 1992 explained how this was being achieved with dioxin contamination by sympathetic government officials:
A Study of National Public Radio"On Sept. 23, 1991, Morning Edition host Bob Edwards announced that scientists were gathering in North Carolina to discuss recent studies suggesting that "the dangers of dioxin may be overrated." NPR science reporter Richard Harris led off with interviews with two government scientists, Michael Gough of Congress's Office of Technology Assessment and Linda Birnbaum from the Environmental Protection Agency. Both suggested that new studies might lower estimates of dioxin's danger; Gough was quoted saying that the risk of cancer from dioxin "may be zero." Harris also cited an unnamed federal official who had ordered the dioxin-related evacuation of Times Beach, Mo., who now says the evacuation was unnecessary. These remarks were countered by those of public interest activists: Ellen Silbergeld, a toxicologist identified as working for the Environmental Defence Fund, and Paul Connett, an "anti-incinerator activist." [Incinerators also produce dioxins.] The last source quoted was George Carlo, identified by NPR as "a consultant for government and industry." Carlo claimed that activists were politicising scientific research by charging bias when new research results ran counter to their activist agenda. What's Wrong With This Coverage? At first blush, NPR's report has the aura of fair play. Two apparently neutral sources, government scientists, set the stage, explaining the significance of the issue. Counter opinions by activists were then cited, with a final wrap-up from an independent consultant. Beneath the apparent "balance," however, the story was tilted toward corporate interests. The segment's lead, "Recent studies suggest the dangers of dioxin may be overrated," is straight from the chemical and paper industries' public relations campaign. NPR framed the government scientists it cited as neutral experts, pinning their story to the claim by the Office of Technology Assessment's Michael Gough that new scientific data calls into question the toxicity of dioxin. Reconsideration of dioxin standards by the EPA, however, was based principally on industry-funded studies, one of which was written by Gough himself while on sabbatical from his government job. And according to an investigation by Jeff Bailey in the Wall Street Journal (2/20/92), the EPA's Birnbaum was influenced by a Chlorine Institute conference to urge EPA to consider the possibility that there is a "safe dose" of dioxin. (Birnbaum, according to the Journal report, has since altered her opinion.) The unnamed federal official who regretted the evacuation of Times Beach was Dr. Vernon Houk, whose work with the US. Public Health Service has been criticised by Congress, the National Academy of Science and others. In the fall of 1992, In These Times (9/25/92) reported that Houk "admitted copying virtually verbatim from paper industry documents in proposing relaxed standards for dioxin." The NPR report portrayed these scientists as objective experts, while activists were presented as the only partisan players. However, though Michael Gough now works for government, his research was previously funded by the paper industry. George Carlo, whom NPR described only as a consultant, was identified by the Wall Street Journal as a $150/hour employee of the chemical industry's Chlorine Institute. By contrast, NPR did not mention that "anti-incinerator activist" Connett is also a scientist, with a Ph.D. in chemistry. Nor did the report acknowledge recent studies stressing dioxin's toxicity published in leading medical journals like The New England Journal of Medicine and The Journal of the American Medical Association. While appearing to reflect diversity of opinion, NPR's report on dioxin fell prey to what the Journal's Bailey described as a "well-financed public relations campaign by the paper and chlorine industries." Buying into mainstream journalistic assumptions about scientific objectivity and government neutrality, NPR did not help its listeners understand how federal government regulation and environmental research have been politicised." (from EXTRA! April/May '93) |
1992 Feb: The Wall Street Journal published an article which reveals that Dr Carlo had been responsible for publishing misleading proceedings of the Banbury Center conference (co-sponsored by the EPA) on the biological basis for risk assessment of dioxins and the accepted standard as to what constitutes a safe-dose.
The Banbury Conference was supposedly set up to resolve differences generated by chemical industry scientists denying problems while the government's health agencies said the problems were serious. Carlo had been sent to the conference as an observer for the Chlorine Institute (other scientists didn't recognise his 'dioxin expertise'!)l However he saw an opportunity and he rushed out and issue a press release purporting to be a report of the conference. This release claimed that the scientists had resolved their differences and now agreed that dioxins were not really a danger. The media swallowed the story.
The independent toxicologists in the conference were furious and issued statements saying that they had agreed no such thing. They had agreed only that some of the dangers had been overstated.
1992 May: Carlo and Ian Munro joined forces to convene a task-force which published a report, claiming to be a definitive statment on the dangers of dioxin as home-use herbicides. They conclude that there aren't many. Who would have guessed?
1992 Aug 21 Matt Swetonic, who runs the Total Indoor Environmental Quality (TIEQ) Coalition and its associated National Environmental Development Association (NEDA) from the same offices as the E Bruce Harrison Company has written to Betsy Annese, his main contact at RJ Reynolds Tobacco about a meeting with the notorious scientific lobbyist George L Carlo.
(Carlo runs the major Wireless Technology Research sham research program for the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) via his Health and Environmental Sciences Group (HEAG).)
I have known Carlo since 1983, when he was part of my "flying circus" of Dow scientists touring the country talking about the Agent Orange issue. As recently as three or four years ago, he had a working relationship with EBH doing projects for various chemical industry clients. In short, we know Carlo very well and, as a result, he was quite open and candid in the meeting. The study you sent me from Risk Analysis was funded through the Institute for Regulatory Policy (IRP) which, as you know has been the lead group trying to pressure the White House to release the Executive Order on risk assessment reform.
- [Polluting industries were all lobbying to try to get 'risk analysis' legislated as an essential component of all environmental and health regulation. They controlled most of the consultants and academics who did risk assessment (they funded chairs at universities). Thorne Auchter who ran IRP, was a hidden partner in Carlo's HESG. They had produced papers promoting the value of risk-assessment (which depends on judgements rather than science)]
According to Carlo, EPA was so concerned about the implications of the (IRP/Auchter/Carlo) study that he was called to a meeting at the agency to explain "what the hell I was up to."
Carlo is unwilling to speak out directly in support of ETS, his "handlers" (probably Dow Chemical at this time) at the "primary funding organization" did little to publicize it when it was published in March.
Carlo was personally involved in a number of meetings at the White House on the Executive Order and he believes, as does Ward Hubbell (Ex.Dir of TIEQ/NEDA) that it was because it would have been perceived as a cave-in to industry at the expense of the public health. According to Carlo, Boyden Gray "screamed" (his word not mine) at them at one meeting that they had blown the whole thing by the heavy-handed corporate lobbying tactics and that he couldn't afford to hand the Democrats one more issue to beat President Bush over he head with in an election year. - [Ward Hubbell at that time had left the White House to work for TIEQ.
C Boyden Gray was President HW Bush's Counsel to the President" during his second term. He had been "Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief during the Reagan Administration. Gray was also heir to a large part of the RJ Reynolds fortune, and he founded and he later ran the think-tanks Citizens for a Sound Economy and Citizens for a Sensible Environment, both of which worked for the tobacco industry.
Carlo was promoting the idea that the tobacco industry fund a new attempt at forcing risk-assessment on the EPA and other regulatory agencies by running a highly publicized series of reform symposiums to generate community support.He feels Harrison (EBH) has plenty of environmental umbrella groups through which the effort could be funded, and indeed suggests NEDA as a potential sponsor. Ward agrees and sees the new NEDA/RAP (Risk Assessment Project) as the proper vehicle.
I can't say whether or not the project is doable however, I think it has sufficient merit to carry the conversation forward. Think this thing over and let me know if there is anything you want me to do.[2]
