George Carlo (Doc Index)

From SourceWatch
Revision as of 06:04, 23 October 2016 by Stewart Fist (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

This stub is a work-in-progress by the ScienceCorruption.com journalists's group. We are indexing the millions of documents stored at the San Francisco Uni's Legacy Tobacco Archive [1] With some entries you'll need to go to this site and type into the Search panel a (multi-digit) Bates number. You can search on names for other documents also.     Send any corrections or additions to editor@sciencecorruption.com

{{#badges: tobaccowiki}}


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. In between times he worked for tobacco, and later in life he moved on to various other scams including 'bio-protection devices' to protect users from cellphone radiation.

His main company was Health and Environmental Sciences (which he expanded into "Group") but he had a half-dozen others usually incorporating the Carlo name. His closest associates were Ian C Munro from CanTox in Canada, Jim Tozzi and Thorne Auchter who ran Federal Focus. the Multinational Business Service and the Institute for Regulatory Policy in Washington DC.

SPLIT ENTRY
George L Carlo
Wireless Technology Research
Health and Environmental Sciences Group

Main Lobbying Associates

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.

1953 Aug 24 George Carlo was born in New York,

1970 The USA Army stopped using the defoliants Agent Orange and Agent Blue in Vietnam supposedly "because of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong charged that herbicides were a form of chemical warfare" and that they were causing birth defects among Vietnamese children as well as severe, perhaps irreversible, ecological damage.

1971 /E Carlo earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from State University of New York (SUNY) 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. {Note that there are some major inconsistencies in dates with his claims.]

1973 Carlo now at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He says that he became a professional assistant football coach for the Buffalo Bulls, at the University.

1974 Jul 30 Times Beach dioxin scare. The Centers for Disease Control finally discovered that trichlorophenol (which had a by-product, dioxin) was the highly dangerous contaminate which were causing human problems at the Times Beach township, near St Louis, Missouri. [2] Little was done about it until 1982.

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."

1975 Vietnam veterans, supported by some scientists and politicians, blamed Agent Orange as the cause of their own diseases and of birth defects in their children and demanded medical treatment and monetary compensation. Their efforts received a hugh boost from two television programs. [2]>

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. QUOTE:

"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)

1976 Jul 10: The Seveso herbicide factory owned by the Roche Group blew up just outside Milan, Italy, releasing an enormous amount of dioxin. The immediate health consequences in Seveso and neighbouring communities were chloracne, a serious skin condition; the potential for long term consequence were largely ignored. [3] There is still a dispute about the numbers killed or harmed from the released dioxins (partly because of a coverup by both the companies and the State, but also difficulty in tracing problems back to causes.)

Birth problems after Seveso
In 1996 it was found that in Seveso there was a change in the ratios of boy babies and girls in the exposed families. (males to females 26:48 for children born between April 1977 and December 1984) A 2001 study...

observed no increase in all-cause and all-cancer mortality. However, results support that dioxin is carcinogenic to humans and corroborate the hypotheses of its association with cardiovascular- and endocrine-related effects. In 2009, an update including 5 more years (up to 1996) found the expected increase in "lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue neoplasms" and increased breast cancer.

However, the most important factor in the decision that dioxins were dangerous in the long-term came from laboratory tests, carried out by scientists at the Dow Chemical Company. They showed dioxin to be the most potent cause of birth defects ever found in laboratory test animals. [Source Michael Gough's book "Politicizing Science"]
The emerging problem of Agent Orange in 1977
1977 -- 78: The Veterans Administration (VA) initially rejected veterans's claims for treatment and compensation for "Agent Orange diseases", saying that there was no evidence for a linkage between Agent Orange and the diseases for which these claims were made. The Veterans had a problem proving that they had been exposed to Agent Orange/dioxin since no records were apparently kept by the military -- and the chemical companies all denied that the substance was dangerous, carcinogenic or mutagenic. Agent Orange was also highly variable in its dioxin concentration which made true exposure to the dioxins impossible. Also, other herbicides such as Agent Blue (which contained arsenic) were also used extensively in Vietnam.

1977 July: (summer) the US Air Force disposed of 2.22 million gallons of Agent Orange (believed to contain 23 kilograms of dioxins) by burning the chemical in a high-temperature incineration at sea aboard the incinerator ship, M/T Vulcanus [in compliance with the EPA permit requirements] There can be little doubt that the Air Force knew it was dealing with dangerous chemicals by this time.
      [Only revealed at a later International Symposium in Arlington] [4]

[Note: Although this was known to be a dioxin problem, Agent Orange remained a relatively dormant issue in the media until about 1980. It was the Love Canal contamination which created the public concerns. ]

  1977 Sep-Aug 1978 Carlo says he worked during this period as a Teaching Assistant, Roswell Park Graduate Division, State University of New York at Buffalo, Department of Epidemiology. This suggests that he transfered to a new job which allowed him to pursue a higher qualification. His PhD is from the Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Division of Graduate Studies (SUNYAB), Department of Experimental Pathology (Experimental Pathology/Epidemiology) [Source: George Carlo's C/V as sent to the Tobacco Institute in 1988.] [5]

November 1977 - Love Canal at Niagra Falls
1977 Nov: This was an unfinished canal had become an industrial waste site which leaked chemicals whenever it rained. It had been given to the New York Education Department, which had then sold various parts of it as housing estates.

After 30 years of indiscriminate dumping and regular reports of seepages and odours, a local reporter began an investigation of possible links between the contamination and resident illnesses. In 1976 toxicology consultants (Calspan Corp. -- an ex-Defence-related general lab group associated with Cornell University) reported serious contamination by dioxins, and this fired up local Congressman LaFalce, who turned up at the site with the Environmenal Protection Agency in tow. The EPA tested air in basements, and the New York State Health and Environmental personnel sampled sump pumps and storm sewers. Love Canal citizens organised themselves into three large resident's organisations, and began to lobby for remedial action or relocation. [833 families were eventually relocated]

In March 1978 the New York health authorities ordered human testing of blood, and a committee of physicians recommended drastic measures. The Governor declaring a State health emergency, closed the school, etc. Over the next years the EPA and New York health authorities expanded their area of concern to 36 residential blocks, and the Congress became involved in Joint Hearings when chromasomal damage was reported.

This landmark case led, in the last days of the Carter Administration (1980), to passage of the Superfund (CERCLA) laws which required polluting industries to jointly pay to clean up their own mess and they also set aside government funds for sites where it was impossible to identify the culprits. However it took five years of lax Reagan-Repubican administration before the ATSDR (the agency charged with enforcing these rules) to be funded.
[Love Canal land was later remediated as a new suburb with a new name] [6]

  1978: George Carlo, while still a staff epidemiologist at the Medical Sciences Department, University of Arkansas, he had co-written (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."

According to the Arkansas Gazette , Carlo and Hogue's report was they sent to the Arkansas Department of Health warning that:

"a pattern of risk" seemed to have developed 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."

Nor was the Carlo/Hogue paper received kindly by local municipal or supported by the local health 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."

[Source: Arkansas Gazette, October 31, 1979]


1978 Dr Richard J Kociba a scientist working for Dow Chemicals found overwhelming evidence that 2,3,7,8-TCDD herbicides (which contain dioxins) were dangerous, and published his report in Applied Pharmacology. Before Love Canal had come to public notice, he had begun a series of three different life-time (2 year) animal studies feeding dioxins to male and female Sprague-Dawley rats. Kociba found high rates of liver cancer in the female mice (but not the males) and he had microscope slides to prove it.
This triggered the scientific scare about dioxins (and later, their cousins, the furans) in herbicides -- not just in Agent Orange. Public concerns became exaggerated when the media over-reacted; and this was supplemented by the clumsy and frantic attempts by the chemical companies to throw doubt on their own research.
[Dow Chemicals rejected the Kociba findings. They then hired the 'greenwashing' PR firm, E Bruce Harrison , to run a campaign discounting and confusing the findings. They later challenged Kociba's diagnosis of the cancers by mounting their own 'independent' committee of highly-paid consultants who reviewed the Kociba slides and found fewer 'confirmed' cancers -- which is why scientists don't like releasing their basic data; it just fuels the fires of organised attack.].
The first lawsuits are filed against Dow Chemicals and Monsanto over their sloppy production of Agent Orange resulting in Vietnam Veteran's dioxin. Then in March, Eckardt C Beck, the local (Love Canal) Regional administrator for the EPA reported:

I visited the canal area at that time. Corroding waste-disposal drums could be seen breaking up through the grounds of backyards. Trees and gardens were turning black and dying. One entire swimming pool had been had been popped up from its foundation, afloat now on a small sea of chemicals. Puddles of noxious substances were pointed out to me by the residents. Some of these puddles were in their yards, some were in their basements, others yet were on the school grounds. Everywhere the air had a faint, choking smell. Children returned from play with burns on their hands and faces.
And then there were the birth defects. The New York State Health Department is continuing an investigation into a disturbingly high rate of miscarriages, along with five birth-defect cases detected thus far in the area.

1978 Aug 1 the New York Times front-page article stated:

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.--Twenty five years after the Hooker Chemical Company stopped using the Love Canal here as an industrial dump, 82 different compounds, 11 of them suspected carcinogens, have been percolating upward through the soil, their drum containers rotting and leaching their contents into the backyards and basements of 100 homes and a public school built on the banks of the canal.

[7] The story triggered action. The next day Dr Robert Whalen , the New York state Commissioner of Health, visited Love Canal and said:

"The Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill constitutes a public nuisance and an extremely serious threat and danger to the health, safety, and welfare of those using it or exposed to the conditions emanating from it, consisting, among other things, of chemical wastes lying exposed on the surface in numerous places and pervasive, pernicious, and obnoxious chemical vapors and fumes affecting both the ambient air and the homes of certain residents living near such sites."

He issued an order to country health officials to close the school and reduce accessibility to one division of the site ["keep people off"], and to begin health studies. On August 7 he expanded the prohibited area and Governor Carey decided to buy the homes of those who wished to relocate. President Carter also approved emergency financial aid.

Dr Whalen also convened a Blue-Ribbon Panel, declared a health emergency and ordered the relocation of women and children living in the most contaminated parts of the estate. President Carter then declared a 'State of Emergency' and provided financial aid. By the end of this year workers on the site were undergoing daily monitoring, and over the next three years lawsuits were filed by New York State Attorney against Hooker Corporation and Occidental Petroleum (settled by consent agreement in 1988 and 1989) and the whole area cleared. [Multiple Sources]

1978 Aug 4 -- Sep 79: Carlo was now an Epidemiologist at the State University of New York at Buffalo, School of Medicine's . Research Program in Occupational and Environmental Health.

[His C/V says that he was also] Clinical Instructor , State University of New York at Buffalo, School of Medicine, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine. [Source: George Carlo's C/V dated the end of 1988.] [8] One of Carlo's puff pieces says:

Dr Carlo was among the first scientists on the scene at the infamous Love Canal chemical crisis in Niagara Falls, New York in 1978 that led to the Superfund law addressing hazards from abandoned hazardous waste sites.

Carlo's denial of Love Canal involvement...
Defending himself against charges that he was a consultant to the land developers at Love Canal (and there is no evidence of this) Carlo later wrote:

"I was one of the first consultants to be approached by Lois Gibbs and the other mothers who were concerned about the risk of miscarriages. We helped them put together the study that was later submitted to the State Health Department about health risks. I helped Congressman John LaFalce with the first writings of the Superfund Act that was intended to prevent financial harm to families living on or near abandoned hazardous waste sites and this a direct consequence of the Love Canal work.
My work was used by Congress because it supported the theory that the chemicals such as Mirex or Kepone were related to cancer. "

[Google turns up no evidence supporting the claim that Carlo's research information was given to Congress, or of any relationship with Congressman LaFalce. However, it could well be true that the University was approached for help by Lois Gibbs, and therefore true that he helped the activists.


1979 Mar 26: The Three Mile Island incident.
A leak followed by a partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania created the most serious nuclear contamination incident in American history, and probably the best-known in the world before the Ukrainian Chernobyl disaster and Fukijama in Japan. Wikipedia says:

The nuclear power industry claims that there were no deaths, injuries or adverse health effects from the accident, and a report by Columbia University epidemiologist Maureen Hatch agrees with this finding. Another study by Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina found that lung cancer and leukemia rates were 2 to 10 times higher downwind of TMI than upwind. The Radiation and Public Health Project, an anti-nuclear organization, reported a spike in infant mortality in the downwind communities two years after the accident.

In some of his later puff-pieces Carlo claimed to have worked helping the public affected by this accident.]

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. QUOTE:

"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)

<hr.

1979 the delayed publication date for the Carlo/Hogue Nuclear One stillbirth paper. It was only published well after the Three-Mile Island incident.

"Analysis of Infant Deaths and Stillbirths in Pope County, Arkansas. " by Carlo GL and Hogue CJ, Arkansas State Department of Health.

1980: Superfund: A special government financed fund of $1.6 billion (initially) is established for general toxic site clean-ups around the United States after Love Canal. This by funded by a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries. However, the government was trying to load a proportion of these costs back on the States and 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.

1980 Research biologist Beverly J Paigen , who was a senior staffer doing Cancer Research at Roswell Park while Carlo was there, has produced a series of papers on Love Canal [but she doesn't list Carlo as a contributor or co-author]

  • "Controversy at Love Canal" which was published as a Hastings Center Report, in 1982.
  • "Methods for assessing health risks in populations living near hazardous waste sites" 1983
  • "Assessing the problem -- Love Canal," 1983
  • Use of small mammals (voles) to assess a hazardous waste site at Love Canal, 1983

[It is possible that Carlo may have made some minor contributions to early Roswell Park papers before moving back to Arkansas in September 1980.] [9]

1980


1980: The first Agent-Orange class-action lawsuit is filed in Pennsylvania against Dow Chemicals and Monsanto. This is a product liability suit over their sloppy production of Agent Orange resulting in Vietnam Veteran's dioxin exposures. Critical research evidence produced at this trial included:

about 100 articles from toxicology journals dating back more than a decade, as well as data about where herbicides had been sprayed, what the effects of dioxin had been on animals and humans, and every accident in factories where herbicides were produced or dioxin was a contaminant of some chemical reaction. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange" target=tobdocs> <img src="../library/seeArticle.jpg" align=right> </a>


1980 Carlo says he was Principal Investigator this year on "Birth Cohort Infant Mortality and Environmental Insult in Arkansas Counties," study which was being funded by US Environmental Protection Agency,

[Source: George Carlo's 1988 C/V as sent to the Tobacco Institute] [10]

[We have found no studies which match the above. There is only the Arkansas Health Department study with no mention of the EPA. However, given the recent publication of his Arkansas Nuclear One paper, this could well be true.]

1980 The Superfund Compromise is being floated, This was (initially) a proposal to limit the number of hazardous waste sites that would be cleaned up, but it was amended out of recognition because of public hostility. A Bill extending the Compromise was only passed in Aug 1986 after five years of long and bitter inactivity during (Reagan's First term) See legal outline [11] Only six dumps were cleaned up during the first five years of Superfund, and it went into limbo after September 30 1985 when its revenue sources dried up, The new compromise became a Bill for Renewal, which would require the Environmental Protection Agency to identify for future action 1,600 of the nation's worst sites by 1988. [The agency's national priority list was about half that size.] The compromise bill also gave citizens living near toxic sites the right to sue polluters to force a cleanup if EPA is not acting against a dump and to require chemical companies to inform communities about emissions of acute hazards from their plants.]

See US News & World Report article from the 1980s. [12]

1980 May American Journal of Public Health publishes "Cancer incidence and trihalomethane concentrations in a public drinking water system." by G L Carlo, C J Mettlin

Four thousand two hundred fifty-five cases of esophageal, stomach, colon, rectal, bladder, and pancreatic cancer reported from Erie County, NY between 1973 and 1976 were analyzed in terms of their relationship to type of water source, level of trihalomethane (THM) and various social and economic parameters. Among white males, a significant positive correlation existed between pancreatic cancer incidence rates and THM level. No other significant correlations were observed. This research lends little or no support to the hypothesis that THM levels which meet present standards are related to the incidence of human cancer. [13]

1980 June 6 A Hill & Knowlton Advisory to its clients:

The Justice Department expects to file 100 lawsuits to enforce the cleanup of dangerous hazardous waste disposal sites in 1980. It claims there are from 500 to 600 dumping sites today that could be as much of a threat to public health as Love Canal.

Another report says the National Toxicology Program "had isolated about 200 compounds at the site and was testing 70 of them.""

OTA Agent Orange Assessment Panel

1981: The Agent Orange herbicide used by the military in Vietnam had serious dioxin contamination problem also. 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 Office of Technical Assessments OTA. LeVois became a partner in Carlo's consultancy company Health and Environmental Sciences (HES), while Gough moved on to a life of lazing 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 later joined forces to support Steven J Milloy in the TASSC junk-science scam for Philip Morris]

1982The Environmental Defense Fund published a leaked letter from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which listed 14 confirmed, and 41 possible dioxin-contaminated sites in Missouri, and also attacked the EPA's attempts to lower the dioxin cleanup protocol standards. Anne Burford Gorsuch was the EPA director and Rita Lavelle was assistant administrator. Times Beach was highly contaminated an excavation of 800 families was ordered on December 4th. The CDC publicly recommended that the settlement must not be reinhabited.

Cell phone research context:

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.

1983 The American Medical Association attack the news media for creating a scare at Times Beach, claiming that there was no scientific evidence that dioxins were so harmful. Dr Vernon Houk the director of CDC's Center for Environmental Health, later came to the same conclusion, but only years after having recommended the permanent relocation. {However it was 2012 before new tests confirmed the dioxins had degraded to safe levels]

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. .

The NuFarm Dioxin Spill
1990: Carlo conducts a community health risk assessment project in Melbourne, Australia following a dioxin-related scare which suggested there might be health risks for the Melbourne metropolitan area's water supply. There is no record that he revealed that he was working for the Chlorine Institute as a consultant. Nufarm, the company which spilled the dioxin, maintained that he was an independent American dioxin expert.

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.

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.[14]

1992 Sep 25: The Times reported (above) that Dr. Vernon Houk the head of the US Public Health Service, had since been criticised by Congress, the National Academy of Science, and others over the Times Beach, Missouri evacuation. He was the "unnamed federal official" who had ordered the dioxin-related evacuation of Times Beach, Mo., {it has been officially a ghost town since 1985] However Houk later promoted the Dow company-line that the evacuation was unnecessary. [See Wikipedia explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri]

[Houk] admitted copying documents verbatim from Dow Chemical in his proposal relaxed standards for dioxin. Shortly before this a number of top EPA officials had also been forced to resign (seven in all). One of these officials, John Hernandez, had also been taking his written regulatory material straight from Dow Chemicals. (See also John Todhunter)

1993 June Publication of Assessment of dioxin-related health risk for the Melbourne metropolitan area in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. [15]

Wireless Technology Research

Cellphone Industry problems
1993 Jan 21: The story broke about Florida a woman who had died from a brain tumour; the claim was that the tumour (allegedly) had been promoted by her use of a NEC cell phone. Her husband, David Reynard, was suing two cellular phone companies and the shop which sold the phone. He created a sensation when he appeared live on the Larry King Show and the public learned that no real health research had ever been conducted by the cellphone companies. Share prices in the Cellular phone companies tumbled on Wall Street.

1993 Feb 1: The Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) president, Tom Wheeler, announced that a special "blue-ribbon" panel would be formed, staffed by representatives from industry and government, to oversee a newly invigorated research project. The industry rejected any plan which had an FDA oversight on the work, and said it would fund the research itself -- but at arm's length. It then bought in John D Graham from the Harvard University Center for Risk Analysis to provide peer-review.

1993 Feb: The Florida lawsuit begins, with David Reynard suing the cellular telephone companies (NEC and GTE) over his wife's fatal brain tumour.

In early 1993, the hypothesis that radiation from cellular telephones might be causally related to brain cancer in users was first advanced in a Florida lawsuit. Officials from industry and government agreed on the need for additional research. (Carlo speech 1995) In February 1993, the United States wireless telecommunications industry made a public commitment to support independent scientific research into the safety of portable cellular telephones and other aspects of wireless communications technology. (Carlo overview report 1995)

1993 April: The establishment of the cellphone industry's Scientific Advisory Group, the precursor to Wireless Technology Research. Dr. George Carlo is contracted the run the organisation.

If you are wondering why he was chosen, you need look no further than Burson-Marsteller -- the PR advisors to both the tobacco industry and the cellphone industry. Carlo is one of their favourite contract researchers.

1993 April: The first Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) of the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) meets under Dr Carlo. Carlo has also recruited a number of his friends from the Society of Risk Assessors and the Harvard University Risk Assessment group. These two organisations are almost synonymous at this time, and the Harvard Risk group under Dr John Graham also worked for and with Philip Morris.

This SAG organisation was specifically charged only with "cellular telephone research" and it did not (as stated later) including health research into "other aspects of wireless communications technology". At this time SAG did nothing other than glance quickly over a few research reports. However, George Carlo later (30 April 97) claimed that this was the beginning of the WTR 'research program' (implying actual research funding). He said:

"WTR has been exploring the concept of cancer promotion since the beginning of our research program in April 1993. As part of our step by step approach to evaluating the risk of human cancer among wireless phone users, our Expert Panel on Tumor Promotion has completed a comprehensive review of the available scientific information regarding RF and promotion.

These leaders in the field of promotion have advised us that the weight of existing science does not support the hypothesis that RF is a tumor promoter."

[It was also reported in this way in a 1995 Carlo overview:

The Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) on Cellular Telephone Research was subsequently established with criteria and procedures guaranteeing non-interference by the industry to assess the public health impact of wireless technology and to recommend corrective interventions when necessary. The SAG began developing its research program by looking at existing research and identifying data gaps.

And also:

The Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) on Cellular Telephone Research was established in April to review the literature, develop an overall research plan and then implement the program of research in independent laboratories. The SAG was supported by a $25 million commitment from the cellular industry. (Carlo speech 1995.)

The actual support was only $2 million at this time as Carlo admits in his 1995 overview report. The $25 million came later -- and then only after pressure from Congress.

The published budget a year later (1994) included more than $2 million for fundamental risk evaluation research in the areas of dosimetry, toxicology, epidemiology, and electromagnetic interference. The Foundation seems to have disappeared into the mire.

1993: At about this time the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA0 also got the urge to demonstrate how socially responsible it was by establishing an entirely altruistic CTIA Foundation to bring joy and light into the world. Here's what they said at the time:

The mission of the CTIA Foundation is to meet the challenges of the 21st century in areas that are crucial to American society; education, health care, and job creation/productivity, using innovative, groundbreaking applications of wireless technology.

Founded in 1993 on the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of wireless phone service, the CTIA Foundation For Wireless Telecommunications seeks out worthy projects that utilise wireless telecommunications technology for the benefit of their communities. As part of this effort, CTIA member companies make a fair share annual contribution to fund the work of the Foundation.

Through its hands-on support of worthy projects, the CTIA Foundation is showing the nation how wireless telecommunications can help solve society's greatest problems and improve the quality of life for the American people.

1993 July: The FDA admonished the president of the CTIA for making statements to reporters that displayed "an unwarranted confidence that these products [cellphones] will be found to be safe,".

They concluded by saying that the public might "wonder how impartial the research can be when its stated goal is a determination to reassure customers, and when the research sponsors predict in advance that [they] expect the new research to reach the same conclusions ... that cellular phones are safe."

1995 Dec: The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (run by John Graham) lists the following companies as providing grants (as distinct from the main funders of projects -- a list which included Carlo's own Health and Environmental Services Group):

3M, Aetna Life & Casualty Company, Alcoa Foundation, American Automobile Manufacturers Association, American Crop Protection Association, American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Corporation, ARCO Chemical Company, ASARCO Inc., Ashland Inc., Astra AB, Atlantic Richfield Corporation, BASF, Bethlehem Steel Corporation, BP America Inc., Chemical Manufacturers Association, Chevron Research & Technology Company, CIBA-GEIGY Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company, Cytec Industries, Dow Chemical Company, DowElanco, Eastman Chemical Company, Eastman Kodak Company, Edison Electric Institute, E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company, Electric Power Research Institute, Exxon Corporation, Ford Motor Company, Frito-Lay, General Electric Fund, General Motors Corporation, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Hoechst Marion Roussel, ICI Americas Inc., Inland Steel Industries, International Paper, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Kraft General Foods, Mead, Merck & Company, Mobil Oil Corporation, Monsanto Company, New England Power Service, Olin Corporation, Oxygenated Fuels Association, PepsiCo Inc., Pfizer, Procter & Gamble Company, Rhone-Poulenc, Inc., Rohm and Haas Company, Shell Oil Company Foundation, Texaco Inc., Union Carbide Corporation, Unocal, USX Corporation, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and WMX Technologies, Inc.

1993 Dec: In order to demonstrate how independent and arm's length all this research was, the new Wireless Technology Research (WTR) under Carlo announces that research pertaining to cellular telephones would be coordinated through the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis -(the HCRA at the University).

The HCRA had originally been part of the Harvard School of Public Health. It now appears almost certain that the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis was essentially a private operation owned and run by Dr John D Graham and a number of his associates. They paid Harvard University an annual fee for the right to use the Harvard name, and they accepted money from the tobacco companies (even though this was forbidden by Harvard University bylaws). They bypassed this restriction by the simple expedient of having the money paid from a Kraft account, since Philip Morris owns Kraft.

John D Graham later became President George W Bush's director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which gives him oversight on the spending of the major environmental and health regulatory agencies (FDA, EPA, OSHA, etc). Graham has spent his life, like Carlo, as another science entrepreneur, but his line was the quasi-science of Risk Analysis (which attracts generous funding from industry because it can be manipulated to produce whatever outcome the client requests). Graham spent a lot of time cosying up to the tobacco, food and chemical industries looking for work and funds.

You'll find the Harvard group and John D Graham himself, prominentaly featured in the Phillip Morris document archives. He was also on Steve Milloy's TASSC Advisory Board along with George Carlo, and he was involved from the beginning of the tobacco-funded Risk Assessment project called the 'Landsdown Panel' which was the foundation of the London Principles]. Graham became a favourite anti-science activist for the Republicans, and they exploited his value to big business in a range of ways.

When the CTIA announced that the Harvard Risk Group would audit the science conducted by WTR, they didn't spell out what was meant by 'independent'. It turned out that Carlo's Health & Environmental Sciences Group Ltd. (supposedly a small company owned by Carlo himself) is the sole small company listed among a few very big and wealthy foundations and government departments in the Harvard Center's list of donors. [It was said that it required a donation of $26,000 to be listed.]Here is the Center's list:

Restricted grants for project support have been provided by the:
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,American Industrial Health Council,Andrew Mellon Foundation,
Bradley Foundation,Brookings Institution,Congressional Research Service,
Health and Environmental Sciences Group,National Institute of Justice,National Science Foundation,
Trustees of Health and Hospitals; Boston,US. Department of Energy,US. Depart. of Health and Human Services,
US. Environmental Protection AgencyUS. Department of Transportation.

Dr Carlo must be a very rich and very generous man to afford this sort of donation. Either that, or the HESG has been acting as a front for the Cellular Telephone Industry Association in laundering funds.

What did the CTIA have to hide.? The donations listed above are quite separate from the payment for services which appears (presumably) on the WTR books for auditing services rendered. How can an organisation claim to be independent and arms-length when it is being funded surreptitiously by the organisation it is supposed to audit? In fact, John Graham, who runs the Harvard Risk Assessment Group also appears prominently in the Philip Morris documents, both seeking donations and working from the tobacco company.

1994 early Dr Soma Sarkar of New Delhi, publishes a paper suggesting that EMF can cause breaks in DNA strands.

The Lai-Singh evidence of DNA breaks1994 mid: Word leaks out that Professor Henry Lai and Dr Narendra Singh, from the University of Washington in Seattle, have found single and double-strand DNA breaks in the brain cells of live rats exposed to only two hours of low-power microwaves at 2.45GHz - the same band as the mobile phones. This is obviously going to be the story of the year. They have been using a special research technique called 'comet assays' (Singh is the world authority on the technique) these two independent scientists had show an increase in damage to the DNA in rat brains after these relatively brief exposures to microwave radiation at frequencies just above those used by cellphones. An Indian doctor, Soma Sakar, had found similar problems in the DNA of cells, using a quite different analysis technique shortly before.

1994 Feb 11: The Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) officially becomes known as the "SAG on WT". In a later reported speech Carlo says:

In 1994, the SAG changed its name to the Scientific Advisory Group on Wireless Technology as a reflection of its expanding research role in the areas of telecommunications technology and electromagnetic interference.(Carlo speech 1995).

Actually, this name-change appears to be an attempt to downplay the role of cellular phones, by widening the coverage of the investigations to encompass all radio-emitting devices -- two-way radios, cordless phones, radar, etc. However the funding and the industry focus remained the same.

The Wall Street Journal about this time lists Dr George Carlo as an "Epidemiologist at Georgetown University" when announcing his involvement in cellphone research." Yet The Wall Street Journal must have, in its own files, records of Carlo's antics during the dioxin debate. At about this time Ian C Munro of the Canadian firm CanTox became Carlo's WTR deputy.

1994 Nov:The GAO report.
The US General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report concluding that existing research into the safety of cellular phones is inadequate. They do not believe cell phones should be taken off the market, but they say that further research should be done as a matter of urgency to determine whether these new mobiles pose a health hazard. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was also closely monitoring the progress of the SAG group.

1994 Dec 13: A Motorola memo to the industry's PR company Burson-Marsteller (from Norman Sandler to Michael Kehs) shows how close the relationship was between the industry giants and the SAG team.

Sadler said in the memo that Motorola was prepared to tell the media that, until the work was replicated and interpreted

"any conclusions about the significance of this study are pure speculation".

They also note that even if the DNA breaks are found, there is no evidence of increased cancer rates, anyway. The Media Strategy, as listed in a leaked memo, says that it is ...

... "not in the interest of Motorola to be out in front on this issue because the implications of this research -- if any -- are industry wide. Therefore, we suggest that the SAG be the primary media contact followed by the CTIA. It is critically important that third-party genetic experts, including respected authorities with no specific background in R/F, be identified to speak on the following issues." "I think we have sufficiently war-gamed the Lai-Singh issue, assuming SAG and CTIA have done their homework. SAG will be prepared to release the Munro-Carlo memos, which touch on key points made in this material."

The memo shows that they plan tactics to dilute the effect of the report on DNA breaks. They fully expected the so-called 'independent' scientists [Carlo as director of the SAG and Ian Munro as his deputy], to be ready and willing to help them denigrate the legitimate reseach of a number of top independent molecular biologists and researchers in the USA and India, merely because they had produced some alarming results. In the memo, Sadler [from Motorola] is quoted as being ...

"...adamant that we have a forceful one- or two-sentence portion of our standby statement that puts a damper on speculation arising from this research, as best we can."

Sadler goes on to say that:

  • Motorola "was insistent as ever about the prominent inclusion" of a phrase attacking the Lai-Singh research on the grounds that it was conducted at frequencies higher than the 800MHz band where cellular communications operates. (Only marginally true; certainly not relevant)
  • He also states that Motorola would claim in public that the Lai-Singh findings and other similar research by Dr Soma Sarkar, of the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences in New Delhi (India) were of "questionable relevance."

There is no suggestion that Carlo, munro and the WTR should be kept at arms-length here. They are to be used a spokesmen for the industry, and they say what the industry wants them to say. The memo defines the main problems to be overcome as:

  • "Problems with the Lai-Singh and Sarkar studies."
  • "The health implications of DNA single-strand breaks."

Sadler says:

"We do not believe that Motorola would put any one on camera" (Obviously they do not want to be in the front line themselves.)

"We must limit our corporate visibility and defer complex scientific issues to credible, qualified scientific experts. We have developed a list of independent experts in this field and are in the process of recruiting individuals willing and able to reassure the public on these matters. "[3]

1994 Dec:Towards the end of 1994 Carlo wrote the introduction to the CTIA's Health and Safety Media Manual, summing up the achievements during they year -- saying that "a concerted industry response succeeded in blunting unsubstantiated allegations about a link to brain cancer in early 1993." His role is obviously seen by himself and the CTIA as primarily one of public relations, not science.

1995 Jan 20: David Rosenbaum (New York Times) reports on the close relationship that has developed between the Harvard Centre for Risk Analysis (which was considered a part of the Harvard University School of Public Health) and Carlo's WTR's SAG group.

1995 Jan 25: Carlo announced to the public that the name "Scientific Advisory Group on Cellular Telephone Research" has now been changed to "SAG on Wireless Technology" and that it is now conducting a wider program of research into all aspects of radio-frequency exposures ... "because the scope of the SAG's scientific research effort has expanded dramatically in the past year, and now involves an evolution to all wireless communications."

The Wireless Technology Research group is reported as actually underway. The expansion in their interest from just cellular mobile phones to the whole spectrum of radio devices (as indicated by the change in name of the SAG) diffuses their focus.

At this time the SAG evolved into a legally constituted entity, the Wireless Technology Research, LLC., at the recommendation of the US. General Accounting Office. (Carlo speech 1995) The WTR was a limited liability company rather than a trade organisation. The GAO recommendation, quoted below, was intended to maintain an arms-length funding arrangements, rather than for limited liability. It now has three executives:

  • Dr. George Carlo oversees epidemiology and human studies,
  • Dr. Ian Munro oversees experimental toxicology,
    Munro is an old friend and associate of Carlo's from the dioxin days, and he still ran Cantox in Canada. Later he and Carlo both worked for Philip Morris, and more recently they worked together on preparing Environmental Impact Statements for oil companies.
  • Dr. Arthur W Guy ('Bill') oversees bioelectromagnetics and dosimetry.
    In fact, Guy was only paid by the hour to attend as a representative at a few conferences. Guy was an electrical engineer who had made a reputation in the early days of R/F research by conducting a $5 million study for the US Air Force. This was a token employment of a retired gentleman who provided the group with some credibility.

1995 Feb 18:The WTR advertises for grant proposals. These are to be proposed before June 15, 1995. This is now two years since the problem surfaced and grabbed media attention, and to this date nothing had happened.

1995 mid: Dr. Carlo, Health & Environmental Sciences Group, WTR and the CTIA figure in a civil claim before a Chicago court (Cook County). The plaintiff, Debbra Wright was suffering from recurrent brain tumours.

She had worked for many years in the cell phone industry and had attended a San Diego workshop and training program run by Carlo, the main purpose of which had been to provide advice to cellphone industry employees as to how they should to avoid answering direct media questions about cellphone health research, and how to discount any questions about cellphone safety.

She and was furious at the line Carlo and his associates were using in their training program, and charged them with systematic orchestration of a cover-up of health risks. So she included them, along with the CTIA, as part of a conspiracy.

The implications of Debrra Wright's personal conspiracy charge against Carlo were very significant, since he now realised that he was vulnerable. This was the way that the attorneys-general had broken the back of the tobacco industry, by charging the lawyers, scientists and the industry itself with conspiracy to conceal evidence of health harm. Scientists and science-entrepreneurs like Carlo found that they could be held legally responsible for their actions, or for concealing evidence of health risks (despite their confidential contracts), if they were conspiring with the WTR.

The Debbra Wright case against Carlo was dismissed years later. Judge Paddy McNamara said the Wright case, originally filed against Motorola, included substantial evidence, but nothing linking HES to conspiracy. The Judge said their case had merit. However the Wright case gave Carlo a fright. He says to another scientist "I almost lost my house, my car, and my boat." [He jointly owns, probably with Thorne Auchter, a very large deep-sea sports fishing boat moored in Florida.]


1996 Jan 1: Newsnet report on the beginning of the Debbra Wright case in Chicago. She had charged him and the HESG group with (concealing and distorting evidence). The Circuit Court, Chicago, dismissed Health & Environmental Sciences Group (HES) and Dr. George Carlo as defendants in lawsuit. The remaining case against WTR was resolved in mid-year with a win for the CTIA.



Claims about the WTR's budget. .

At this time Carlo makes extravagant claims that the budget is about $10m

The 1995 Wireless Technology Research budget nears $10 million. All studies conducted pursuant to the research agenda will be subjected to rigorous, scientific peer review, both by the SAG and through the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. In addition, investigators funded through the program will be required to submit their work for publication in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. (Carlo overview report 1995.)

[The $10m claim is about twice the actual annual figure ($25 m over 5 years). In fact it turned out to be less than $4m p.a. ($27 m over 7 years).


At this time he also presents a paper to the Society for Risk Analysis's 1995 Annual Meeting, which outlines how the WTR is conducting Risk Management. Thus proving, once again, that he is better at dealing with fiction than with fact.

Fake organisations, loaded conferences.

The WTR starts using the old tobacco industry tactics of floating fake science symposiums, and loading them with its own tame scientists. .

ICWCMR

Sep 29, 1995: About this time the International Committee on Wireless Communications Health Research (ICWCMR) was formed. Carlo is listed as chairman, and the WTR also funds their conference program and provides keynote speakers. Don't confuse this with the IRCNIP. See ICWCMR

Nov 13-15 1995: The ICWCMR conference was held in "La Sapiencia" in Rome this week with Carlo as the chairman and spokesman. Carlo later summed up the conclusions of the conference to the press, and I'm sure you'll be surprise to find that the conference agreed that there was no health risk. In fact, this organisation was nothing more than a front for the WTR. Some of the documents admit openly that "WTR has been instrumental in forming the ICW." There was no such organisation.

Gert Friedrich of the FGF is listed as member also, and his organisation appears to be a German version of the WTR, which is also funded and controlled by the industry. Carlo was key speaker and chairman of the ICWCMR conference, and the conference appears to have been totally funded by the WTR. Presumably they also selected the speakers.

The CTIA's press report promoted this event:

In October 1995, an international symposium on the health effects associated with wireless phones was held in Rome, Italy. Researchers from throughout the world met to review existing research on this subject. The researchers reported that they were unable to identify any health risks associated with wireless phone use. Scientists strike. .

Scientists Strike
At about this time many of the scientists that the WTR had on contract also become aware that scientists involved in 'scientific research' for the Tobacco Institute and for the tobacco companies, had been charged with conspiracy, along with the companies. This was an entirely new concern which shonky scientists had never faced before.

So the WTR scientists all go on strike and refuse to budge until the CTIA indemnifies them against any possible legal action. The CTIA refuses, and there is a stalemate for nearly a year. Fortunately George has other research for other industries to keep his people occupied.

The problem comes about because the legal protection afforded by having a lawyer theoretically in charge of all research and funding (to provide protection from discovery, through privilege), had disappeared overnight. The tobacco industry had exploited this 'lawyer-client priviledge', but had found themselves along with the scientists being charged for conspiracy, also. Carlo's J.D. qualification was no longer protection against legal discovery in a court case, if conspiracy to conceal could be shown.

This protection of the lawyer-client relationship disappeared when the State Attorneys-General wsued the cigarette companies, and included the tobacco lawyers, the public relations organisations and staff and the scientists, in their charge of conspiracy to conceal evidence about the harmful effects of tobacco smoke. Suddenly, any pseudo or distorted science came under threat if it had the potential to harm customers, and this was a real problem for science-for-sale practitioners.

The CTIA made things worse by refusing to pay for this insurance, nor would it pay Carlo's personal legal fees in defending himself in the Wright case in Chicago. So for nearly a year all WTR-funded research work (what little there was) ceased.
  1. ↑ (Carlo's online biography)
  2. ↑ [Source: Michael Gough's book "Politicizing Science"]
  3. ↑ (Norm Sandler to Michael Kehs)
Retrieved from "https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_Carlo_(Doc_Index)&oldid=700876"