JunkScience.com
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This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation. |
JunkScience.com is a website maintained by Steven J. Milloy, an adjunct scholar the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute - right wing think tanks with long histories of denying environmental problems at the behest of the corporations which fund them. Milloy is also a columnist for FoxNews.com.
Milloy defines "junk science" as "bad science used by lawsuit-happy trial lawyers, the 'food police,' environmental Chicken Littles, power-drunk regulators, and unethical-to-dishonest scientists to fuel specious lawsuits, wacky social and political agendas, and the quest for personal fame and fortune." He regularly attacks environmentalists and scientists who support environmentalism, claiming that dioxin, pesticides in foods, environmental lead, asbestos, secondhand tobacco smoke and global warming are all "scares" and "scams."
Milloy's attacks are often notable for their vicious tone, which appears calculated to lower rather than elevate scientific discourse. That tone is noticeable, for example, in his extended attack on Our Stolen Future, the book about endocrine-disrupting chemicals by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and Peter Myers. Milloy's on-line parody, titled "Our Swollen Future," includes a cartoon depiction of Colborn hauling a wheelbarrow of money to the bank [1] (her implied motive for writing the book), and refers to Dianne Dumanoski as "Dianne Dumb-as-an-oxski." [2]
Lobbyist
Prior to launching the JunkScience.com, Milloy worked for:
- The EOP Group, run by Michael O'Bannon and his associates in the Reagan White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)
- Multinational Business Services, run by Jim Tozzi (also ex-head of the OIRA), and Thorne Auchter (ex-head of the OSHA). This group was the Philip Morris tobacco company's primary lobbyist in Washington with respect to the issue of secondhand cigarette smoke.
- National Environmental Policy Institute (NEPI) founded in September 1993 by Congressmen Don Ritter and Dennis M. Hertel, and funded by Occidental Petroleum which had problems with the government over a Superfund toxic spill cleanup. NEPI had links to The Center for Strategic and International Studies and to the Air Quality Standards Coalition fighting against pollution controls.
- Regulatory Impact Analysis Project, Inc. a front group for the energy industry, that was fighting $400 million in Superfund clean ups. He was project manager in producing their "Choices in Risk Assessment" report
- Competitive Enterprise Institute which funded him to write a 24 page booklet: "Regulatory Reform, Is it still a pipe-dream?"
He subsequently went to work for
- APCO & Associates (later APCO Worldwide)
- The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a Philip Morris front group created by the PR firm of APCO Worldwide. [1]
- Environmental Policy Analysis Network, another anti-EPA front group, where he claimed to be president.
- Cato Institute with his close friend and collaborator, Michael Gough[citation needed]
When APCO and TASSC became exposed as tobacco fronts, he joined forces with his old EOP Group associate, Bonner Cohen (who also did contract work for APCO) and they took control of the TASSC operation, and the junkscience.com webpages, and expanded its coverage to make it useful to a wider-range of companies with poisoning and polluting problems.[citation needed]
He also performed other services for Philip Morris, mainly in helping his friend Bonner Cohen produce the "EPA Watch newsletter. TASSC and Milloy were later transfered over to the control of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco when their activities for Philip Morris were exposed, and the company needed deniability. At R.J. Reynolds, they were run as corporate lobbyists through Powell-Tate, (Jody L Powell ex-Press Secretary to Jimmy Carter & Shiela Tate, Ronald Reagan's former spokeswoman).[citation needed]
He also ran an Issues Watch electronic newsletter for other tobacco companies,[2] and contracted to them as a speaker for journalistic junkets, and various conferences.[citation needed]
Although Milloy frequently represents himself as an expert on scientific matters, he is not a scientist himself. He holds a bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences, a law degree and a master's degree in biostatistics. He has never published original research in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Moreover, he has made scientific claims himself that have no basis in actual research. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, he claimed that greater use of asbestos insulation in the World Trade Towers would have delayed their collapse "by up to four hours." In reality, there is no scientific basis for claiming that asbestos would have delayed their collapse by even a second, let alone four hours.[3]
Contact Information
Steven J. Milloy
c/o The Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20001-5403
Phone (202) 842-0200
Fax (202) 842-3490
mailto: milloy@cais.com
http://www.junkscience.com/
External links
- Steven J. Milloy biography and works
- "The Junkman's Answer to Terrorism: Use More Asbestos," PR Watch, 4th Quarter 2001.
- Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, "How Big Tobacco Helped Created 'the Junkman'," PR Watch, 3rd Quarter 2000.
- The Junkman Exposed by Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights describes the tobacco industry's role in Milloy's career
Suggested tobacco industry document searches:
<tdo>search_term=junkscience.com</tdo>
<tdo>search_term-Milloy junk science</tdo>
- ↑ Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber How Big Tobacco Helped Create the Junkman PR Watch, Third Quarter 2000, Volume 7, No. 3
- ↑ S.J. Milloy Issues Watch - Fax ETS and meningitis? Newsletter. September 18, 1998. Bates No. 2024711468/1472
- ↑ Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber The Junkman's Answer to Terrorism: Use More Asbestos PR Watch, Fourth Quarter 2001, Volume 8, No. 4
