The Money Game - Billions From Bankers...Debt For The People
By Sheldon Emry
From CCW
4-26-00
Introduction
The love of money is the root of all evil
(1 Timothy 6: 10)
In 1901, the national debt of the United States was less
than $1 billion. It stayed at less than $1 billion until we
got into World War I. Then it jumped to $25 billion.
The national debt nearly doubled between World War I
and World War II, increasing from $25 billion to $49
billion. Between 1942 and 1952, the debt zoomed from
$72 billion to $265 billion. In 1962, it was $303 billion.
By 1970, the debt had increased to $383 billion.
Between 1971 and 1976, it rose from $409 billion to
$631 billion. The debt experienced its greatest growth,
however, during the 1980s, fueled by an unprecedented
peacetime military buildup. In 1996, the Outstanding
Public Debt has roared past $5 trillion. The
unconstitutional "share" of this debt for every man,
woman, and child is currently nearly $19,000 and will
continue to increase, along with individual credit card
debts, mortgages, automobile loans, and so on.
Today, as we stand before the dawn of a New World
Order run by internationalist financiers, most of the
revenue collected by the Federal Government in the form
of individual income taxes will go straight to paying the
interest on the debt alone. At the rate the debt is
increasing, eventually we will reach a point where, even
if the Government takes every penny of its citizens'
income via taxation, it will still not collect enough to keep
up with the interest payments. The Government will own
nothing, the people will own nothing, and the banks will
own everything. The New World Order will foreclose on
America.
The Three Types of Conquest
History reveals that nations can be conquered by the use
of one or more of three methods.
The most common is conquest by war. In time, though,
this method usually fails, because the captives hate the
captors and rise up and drive them out if they can. Much
force is needed to maintain control, making it expensive
for the conquering nation.
A second method is by religion, where men are
convinced that they must give their captors part of their
earnings as "obedience to God." Such a captivity is
vulnerable to philosophical exposure or by overthrow by
armed force, since religion by its nature lacks military
force to regain control, once its captives become
disillusioned.
The third method can be called economic conquest. It
takes place when nations are placed under "tribute"
without the use of visible force or coercion, so that the
victims do not realize they have been conquered.
"Tribute" is collected from them in the form of "legal"
debts and taxes, and they believe they are paying it for
their own good, for the good of others, or to protect all
from some enemy. Their captors become their
"benefactors" and "protectors."
Although this is the slowest to impose, it is quite often
long-lasting, since the captives do not see any military
force arrayed against them, their religion is left more or
less intact, they have freedom to speak and travel, and
they participate in "elections" for their rulers. Without
realizing it, they are conquered, and the instruments of
their own society are used to transfer their wealth to their
captors and make the conquest complete.
In 1900, the average American worker paid few taxes
and had little debt. Today, payments on debts and taxes
take more than half of what he earns. Is it possible that a
form of conquest has been imposed on America? Read
the following article and decide for yourself -- and may
God have mercy on this once debt-free and great
country.
Money Control in America
Americans, living in what is called the richest nation on
earth, seem always to be short of money. It is impossible
for many families to make ends meet unless both parents
are in the work force. Men and women hope for
overtime hours or take part time jobs in the evening and
on weekends. Children look for odd jobs for spending
money. Nevertheless, the family debt climbs higher.
Psychologists say that one of the biggest causes of family
quarrels and break-ups is "arguing over money." Much of
this trouble can be traced to our present "debt-money"
system.
Too few Americans realize why the Founders wrote into
Article I of the U.S. Constitution the following provision:
"Congress shall have the power to Coin Money and
Regulate the Value Thereof." They did this, as we will
show, in the hope that it would prevent the "love of
money" from destroying the Republic they had founded.
We shall see how subversion of Article I has brought on
us the evil of which God warns us in 1 Timothy 6:10.
Economists use the term "create" when speaking of the
process by which money comes into existence.
"Creation" means making something which did not exist
before. Lumber workers make boards from trees,
workers build houses from lumber, and factories
manufacture automobiles from metal, glass, and other
materials. But in all these, they did not actually "create."
They only changed existing materials into a more usable
and, therefore, more valuable form.
This is not so with our current money supply. Here, and
here alone, something is actually "created" out of nothing.
A piece of paper of little value is printed so that it is
worth a piece of lumber. With different figures it can buy
the automobile or even the house. Its value has been
created" in the truest sense of the word.
Money is very cheap to make, and whoever does the
"creating" of money in a nation can make a tremendous
profit. Builders work hard to make a profit of five
percent above their cost to build a house. Auto makers
sell their cars for one to two percent above the cost of
manufacture and it is considered good business. But
money "manufacturers" have no limit on their profits,
since a few cents will print either a $1.00 bill or a
$10,000 bill. That profit is part of our story.
The Causes of the Great Depression
An adequate supply of money is indispensable to civilized
society. We could forego many other things, but without
money industry would grind to a halt, farms would
become only self-sustaining units, surplus food would
disappear, jobs requiring the work of more than one man
or one family would remain undone, shipping and large
movement of goods would cease, hungry people would
plunder and kill to remain alive, and all government
except family or tribe would cease to function.
An overstatement, you say? Not at all. Money is the
blood of civilized society, the means of all commercial
trade except simple barter and exchange. It is the
measure and the instrument by which one product is sold
and another purchased. Remove money or even reduce
the supply below that which is necessary to carry on
current levels of trade, and the results are catastrophic.
For an example of this, we need only look at America's
depression of the early 1930s.
In 1930, America did not lack industrial capacity, fertile
farmlands, skilled and willing workers or industrious
families. It had an extensive and efficient transportation
system in railroads, road networks, and inland and ocean
waterways. Communications between regions and
localities were the best in the world, utilizing telephone,
teletype, radio, and a well-operated government mail
system. No war had ravaged the cities or the countryside,
no pestilence weakened the population, nor had famine
stalked the land. The United States of America of 1930
lacked only one thing: an adequate supply of money to
carry on trade and commerce.
In the early 1930s, bankers, the only source of new
money and credit, deliberately refused loans to industries,
stores, and farms. Payments on existing loans were
required, however, and money rapidly disappeared from
circulation. Goods were available to be purchased, jobs
waiting to be done, but the lack of money brought the
nation to a standstill. By this simple ploy, America was
put into a "depression" and bankers took possession of
hundreds of thousands of farms, homes, and business
properties. The people were told, "Times are hard," and
"Money is short." Not understanding the system, they
were cruelly robbed of their earnings, their savings, and
their property.
Power to Regulate the Value of Money
When we see the disastrous results of an artificially
created shortage of money, we can better understand
why our Founding Fathers, who understood both money
and God's laws, insisted on placing the power to "create"
money and the power to control it only in the hands of
the Federal Congress. They believed that all citizens
should share in the profits of its "creation" and therefore
the Federal Government must be the only creator of
money. They further believed that all citizens, of
whatever State, territory, or station in life, would benefit
by an adequate and stable currency. Therefore, the
Federal Government must also be, by law, the only
controller of the value of money.
Since the Federal Congress was the only legislative body
subject to all the Citizens at the ballot box, it was, in their
minds, the only safe depository of so much profit and so
much power. They wrote it out in simple, but
all-inclusive terms: "Congress shall have the power to
Coin Money and Regulate the Value Thereof."
Instead of the constitutional method of creating our
money and putting it into circulation, we now have an
entirely unconstitutional system. This has brought our
country to the brink of disaster, as we shall see.
Since our money was handled both legally and illegally
before 1913, we shall consider only the years following
1913, since from that year on, all of our money had been
created and issued by an illegal method that will
eventually destroy the United States if it is not changed.
Prior to 1913, America was a prosperous, powerful, and
growing nation, at peace with its neighbors and the envy
of the world. But in December of 1913, Congress, with
many members away for the Christmas holiday, passed
what has since been known as the Federal Reserve Act.
Omitting the burdensome details, this Act simply
authorized the establishment of a Federal Reserve
Corporation, run by a Board of Directors (the Federal
Reserve Board). The Act also divided the United States
into twelve Federal Reserve "Districts." This simple, but
terrible, law completely removed from Congress the right
to "create" money or to have any control over its
"creation," and gave that function to the Federal Reserve
Corporation. It was accompanied by the appropriate
fanfare. The propaganda claimed that this would "remove
money from politics" (they did not say, "and therefore
from the people's control") and prevent "boom and bust"
economic activity from hurting the Citizens.
The people were not told then, and most still do not
know today, that the Federal Reserve Corporation is a
private corporation controlled by bankers and therefore is
operated for the financial gain of the bankers over the
people rather than for the good of the people. The word
"Federal" was used only to deceive the people. Since that
"day of infamy," more disastrous to us than Pearl
Harbor, the small group of "privileged" people who lend
us "our" money have accrued to themselves all of the
profits of printing our money, and more! Since 1913,
they have "created" tens of billions of dollars in money
and credit, which, as their own personal property, they
can lend to our government and our people at interest
(usury). An example of the process of "creation" and its
conversion to people's "debt" will aid our understanding.
Billions In Interest Owed to Banks
We shall start with the need for money. The Federal
Government, having spent more than it has taken from
its citizens in taxes, needs, for the sake of illustration, $1
billion. Since it does not have the money, and Congress
has given away its authority to "create" it, the
Government must go to the "creators" for the $1 billion.
However, the Federal Reserve, a private corporation,
does not just give its money away! The bankers are
willing to deliver $1 billion in paper or credit to the
Federal Government in exchange for the Government's
agreement to pay it back -- with interest. So Congress
authorizes the Treasury Department to print $1 billion in
U.S. Bonds, which are then delivered to the Federal
Reserve bankers. The Federal Reserve then pays the cost
of printing the $1 billion (about $1,000) and makes the
exchange. The Government then uses the money to pay
its obligations. What are the results of this fantastic
transaction? Well, $1 billion in Government bills are paid
all right, but the Government has now indebted the
people to the bankers for $1 billion on which the people
must pay interest!
Tens of thousands of such transactions have taken place
since 1913 so that in 1996, the U.S. Government is
indebted to the bankers for more than $5 trillion. Most of
the income taxes that we pay as individuals now go
straight into the hands of the bankers, just to pay off the
interest alone, with no hope of every paying off the
principle. Our children will also be forced into servitude.
You say, "This is terrible!" Yes, it is, but this is only part
of the sordid story. Under this unholy system, those
United States Bonds have now become "assets" of the
banks in the Federal Reserve system which they then use
as "reserves" to "create" more "credit" to lend. Current
"reserve" requirements allow them to use that $1 billion
in bonds to "create" as much as $15 billion in new
"credit" to lend to States, municipalities, businesses, and
individuals.
Added to the original $1 billion, they could have $16
billion of "created credit" out in loans paying them
interest with their only cost being $1,000 for printing the
original $1 billion! Since the U.S. Congress has not issued
constitutional money since 1863 (more than 130 years),
in order for the people to have money to carry on trade
and commerce they are forced to borrow the "created
credit" of the bankers and pay them usury -- interest!
The millions of working families of America are now
indebted to the few thousand banking families for twice
the assessed value of the entire United States. And these
banking families obtained that debt against us for the cost
of paper, ink, and book-keeping!
The Tyranny of Compound Interest
The only way new money (which is not true money, but
rather credit representing a debt) goes into circulation in
America is when it is borrowed from the bankers. When
the State and people borrow large sums, we seem to
prosper. However, the bankers "create" only the amount
of the principal of each loan, never the extra amount
needed to pay the interest. Therefore, the new money
never equals the new debt added. The amounts needed
to pay the interest on loans is not "created," and therefore
does not exist!
Under this system, where new debt always exceeds new
money no matter how much or how little is borrowed,
the total debt increasingly outstrips the amount of money
available to pay the debt. The people can never, ever get
out of debt!
The following example will show the viciousness of this
interest-debt system via its "built in" shortage of money.
When a citizen goes to a banker to borrow $60,000 to
purchase a home or a farm, the bank clerk has the
borrower agree to pay back the loan plus interest. At 14
percent interest for thirty years, the borrower must agree
to pay $710.92 per month for a total of $255,931.20.
The clerk then requires the borrower to assign to the
banker the right of ownership of the property if he does
not make the required payments. The bank clerk then
gives the borrower a $60,000 check or deposit slip,
crediting the borrower's checking account with $60,000.
The borrower then writes checks to the builder,
subcontractors, etc., who in turn write checks. $60,000
of new "checkbook" money is thereby added to the
"money in circulation."
However, this is the fatal flaw in the system: the only
new money created and put into circulation is the amount
of the loan -- $60,000. The money to pay the interest is
not created, and therefore was not added to the "money
in circulation." Even so, the borrower (and those who
follow him in ownership of the property) must earn and
take out of circulation $255,931, which is nearly
$200,000 more than he put into circulation when he
borrowed the original $60,000! Every new loan puts the
same process into operation. Each borrower adds a small
sum to the total money supply when he borrows, but the
payments on the loan (because of interest) then deduct a
much larger sum from the total money supply.
There is therefore no way all debtors can pay off the
money lenders. As they pay the principle and interest, the
money in circulation disappears. All they can do is
struggle against each other, borrowing more and more
from the money lenders each generation. The money
lenders (bankers), who produce nothing of value,
gradually gain a death grip on the land, buildings, and
present and future earnings of the whole working
population. Proverbs 22:7 has come to pass in America:
"The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is
servant to the lender."
If you have not quite grasped the impact of the above, let
us consider a small auto loan for three years at 18
percent interest:
Step One: Citizen borrows $5,000 and pays it into
circulation (it goes to the dealer, factory, miner, etc.) and
signs a note agreeing to pay the bankers $6,500.
Step Two: Citizen pays $180 per month of his earnings
to the banker. In three years, he will remove from
circulation $1,500 more than he put into circulation.
Every loan of banker-"created" money (credit) causes the
same thing to happen. Since this has happened millions of
times since 1913 (and continues today), you can see why
America has gone from a prosperous, debt-free nation to
a debt-ridden nation where practically every home, farm,
and business is paying usury-tribute to the bankers.
In the millions of transactions made each year like those
just discussed, little actual currency changes hands, nor is
it necessary that it do so. About 95 percent of all "cash"
transactions in the United States are executed by check.
Consider also that banks must only hold ten percent of
their deposits on site in cash at any given time. This
means that 90 percent of all deposits, though they may
actually be held by the bank, are not present in the form
of actual cash currency. That leaves the banker relatively
safe to "create" that so-called "loan" by writing the check
or deposit slip, not against actual money, but against your
promise to pay it back! The cost to him is paper, ink, and
a few dollars of overhead for each transaction. It is
"check-kiting" on an enormous scale. The profits increase
rapidly, year after year.
Gambling Away the American Dream
To grasp the truth that periodic withdrawal of money
through interest payments will inexorably transfer all
wealth in the nation to the receiver of interest, imagine
yourself in a poker or dice game where everyone must
-- (@ .), April 26, 2000
Answers
test
-- gwen (test@tessie.com), July 14, 2000.
Flack Attack
The Usual Suspects: Industry Hacks Turn Fear
on its Head
How Big Tobacco Helped Create ;the Junkman
Tobacco's Secondhand Science of Smoke-Filled Rooms
Readers Invited to Trust Us, We're Experts
PR Watch is a publication of the Center
for Media Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 310
Madison, WI 53703
phone: (608) 260-9713
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email: editor@prwatch.org
How Big Tobacco Helped Create "the Junkman"
by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
In the biographical sketch that accompanies "The
Fear Profiteers"
Steven Milloy describes himself as the publisher of the Junk
Science Home Page and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. "Milloy
appears frequently on radio and television; has testified on risk assessment
and Superfund before the U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous
organizations," it adds, noting that he has also "written articles
that have appeared in the New York Post, USA Today, Washington Times,
The Chicago Sun-Times, and the Investors' Business
Daily."
These facts are all accurate as far they go,
but they say nothing about how Milloy came to be a prominent debunker
of "junk science." This omission is undoubtedly by design, because
it would certainly be embarrassing to admit that a self-proclaimed scientific
reformer got his start as a behind-the-scenes lobbyist for the tobacco
industry, which has arguably done more to corrupt science than any other
industry in history.
Early in his career, Milloy worked for a company
called Multinational Business Services, a Washington lobby shop that Philip
Morris described as its "primary contact" on the issue of secondhand
cigarette smoke in the early 1990s. Later, he became executive director
of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), an organization
that was covertly created by Philip Morris for the express purpose of
generating scientific controversy regarding the link between secondhand
smoke and cancer.
One of the
forerunners
of TASSC at Philip Morris was a 1988 "Proposal for the Whitecoat
Project," named after the white laboratory coats that scientists
sometimes wear. The project had four goals: "Resist and roll back
smoking restrictions. Restore smoker confidence. Reverse scientific and
popular misconception that ETS is harmful. Restore social acceptability
of smoking."
To achieve these goals, the plan was to first
"generate a body of scientific and technical knowledge" through
research "undertaken by whitecoats, contract laboratories and commercial
organizations"; then "disseminate and exploit such knowledge
through specific communication programs." Covington & Burling,
PM's law firm, would function as the executive arm of the Whitecoat Project,
acting as a "legal buffer . . . the interface with the operating
units (whitecoats, laboratories, etc.)."
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The effort to create a scientific defense for
secondhand smoke was only one component in the tobacco industry's multi-million-dollar
PR campaign. To defeat cigarette excise taxes, a Philip Morris strategy
document outlined plans for "Co-op efforts with third party tax
organizations"--libertarian
anti-taxation think tanks, such as Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens
for a Sound Economy, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Tax Foundation.
Other third party allies included the National Journalism Center, the
Heartland Institute, the Claremont Institute, and National Empowerment
Television, a conservative TV network.
In one memo to Philip Morris CEO Michael A.
Miles, vice president Craig L. Fuller noted that he was "working
with many third party allies to develop position papers, op-eds and letters
to the editor detailing how tobacco is already one of the most heavily
regulated products in the marketplace, and derailing arguments against
proposed bans on tobacco advertising."
Through the PR firm of Burson-Marsteller, Philip
Morris also created the "National Smoker's Alliance," a supposedly
independent organization of individual smokers which claimed that bans
on smoking in public places infringed on basic American freedoms. The
NSA was a "grassroots" version of the third party technique,
designed to create the impression of a citizen groundswell against smoking
restrictions. Burson-Marsteller spent millions of dollars of tobacco industry
money to get the NSA up and running--buying full-page newspaper ads, hiring
paid canvassers and telemarketers, setting up a toll-free 800 number,
and publishing newsletters and other folksy "grassroots" materials
to mobilize the puffing
masses.
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The NSA's stated
mission was to "empower" smokers to reclaim their
rights--although,
behind closed doors, industry executives fretted that they didn't want
this rhetoric to go too far. They were well aware of opinion polls showing
that 70 percent of all adult smokers wish they could kick the habit. "The
issue of 'empowerment of smokers' was viewed as somewhat dangerous,"
stated a tobacco strategy document. "We don't want to 'empower' them
to the point that they'll quit."
The purpose of TASSC, as described in a memo
from APCO's Tom Hockaday and Neal Cohen, was to "link the tobacco
issue with other more 'politically correct' products"--in other words,
to make the case that efforts to regulate tobacco were based on the same
"junk science" as efforts to regulate food additives, automobile
emissions and other industrial products that had not yet achieved tobacco's
pariah status.
"The credibility of EPA is defeatable,
but not on the basis of ETS alone," stated a Philip Morris strategy
document. "It must be part of a larger mosaic that concentrates all
of the EPA's enemies against it at one time."
Originally dubbed the
"Restoring Integrity
to Science Coalition," the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
was later renamed to resemble the venerable American Association for the
Advancement of Science. After APCO's planners realized that the resulting
acronym was not terribly flattering--ASSC, or worse, the ASS Coalition--they
began putting a capitalized article "the" at the beginning of
the name, and TASSC was born, a "national coalition intended to educate
the media, public officials and the public about the dangers of 'junk
science.' "
In September 1993, APCO President Margery Kraus
sent a memo to Philip Morris Communications Director Vic Han. "We
look forward to the successful launching of TASSC this fall," she
stated. "We believe the groundwork we conduct to complete the launch
will enable TASSC to expand and assist Philip Morris in its efforts with
issues in targeted states in 1994."
APCO's work would focus on expanding TASSC's
membership, finding outside money to help conceal the role of Philip Morris
as its primary funder, compiling a litany of "additional examples
of unsound science," and "coordinating and directing outreach
to the scientific and academic communities."
APCO would also direct and manage former New
Mexico governor Garrey Carruthers, who had been hired as TASSC's spokesman.
"This includes developing and maintaining his schedule, prioritizing
his time and energies, and briefing Carruthers and other appropriate TASSC
representatives," Kraus wrote, outlining a "comprehensive media
relations strategy" designed to "maximize the use of TASSC and
its members into Philip Morris's issues in targeted states. . . . This
includes using TASSC as a tool in targeted legislative battles."
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Planned activities
included publishing a monthly newsletter, frequent news releases, drafting
"boilerplate" speeches and op-ed pieces to be used by TASSC
representatives, and placing articles in various trade publications to
help recruit members from the agriculture, chemical, biotechnology and
food additive industries. In addition to APCO's monthly fee, $5,000 per
month was budgeted "to compensate Garrey Carruthers."
Considerable effort was expended to conceal
the fact that TASSC was created and funded by Philip Morris. APCO recommended
that TASSC first be introduced to the public through a "decentralized
launch outside the large markets of Washington, DC and New York"
in order to "avoid cynical reporters from major media."
"Increasingly today, one can find examples
of junk science that compromise the integrity of the field of science
and, at the same time, create a scare environment where unnecessary
regulations on industry in general, and on the consumer products industry
in particular, are rammed through without respect to rhyme, reason,
effect or cause."
--Michael A. Miles, former CEO of the Philip Morris tobacco company
In smaller markets, APCO reasoned, there would
be "less reviewing/challenging of TASSC messages." Also, a decentralized
launch would "limit potential for counterattack. The opponents of
TASSC tend to concentrate their efforts in top markets while skipping
the secondary markets. This approach sends TASSC's message initially into
these more receptive markets--and enables us to build upon early successes."The
plan included a barnstorming media tour
by Garrey Carruthers of these secondary markets. "APCO will arrange
on-the-ground visits with three to four reporters in each city. These
interviews, using TASSC's trained spokespeople, third-party allies (e.g.,
authors of books on unsound science), members of the TASSC Science Board,
and/or Governor Carruthers, will be scheduled for a one to two day media
tour in each city."
To set up the interviews, APCO used a list
of sympathetic reporters provided by John Boltz, a manager of media affairs
at Philip Morris. "We thought it best to remove any possible link
to PM, thus Boltz is not making the calls," noted Philip Morris public
affairs director Jack Lenzi. "With regard to media inquiries to PM
about TASSC, I am putting together some Q and A. We will not deny being
a corporate member/sponsor, will not specify dollars, and will refer them
to the TASSC '800-' number, being manned by David Sheon (APCO)."
Other plans, developed later, included creation
of a TASSC internet page that could be used to "broadly distribute
published studies/papers favorable to smoking/ETS debate" and "release
PM authored papers . . . on ETS science and bad science/bad public
policy."
Carruthers began his media tour in December,
with stopovers in cities including San Diego, Dallas and Denver. News
releases sent out in advance of each stop described TASSC as a "grassroots-based,
not-for-profit watchdog group of scientists and representatives from universities,
independent organizations and industry, that advocates the use of sound
science in the public policy arena." As examples of unsound science,
it pointed to the asbestos abatement guidelines, the "dioxin scare"
in Times Beach, Missouri, and "unprecedented regulations to limit
radon levels in drinking water."
In Texas, local TASSC recruits involved in
the launch included Dr. Margaret Maxey and Floy Lilley, both of the University
of Texas. "The Clean Air Act is a perfect example of laboratory science
being superficially applied to reality," Lilley said. Carruthers
took the opportunity to inveigh against politicized uses of science by
the Environmental Protection Agency "to make science 'fit' with the
political leanings of special interests." EPA's studies, he complained,
"are frequently carried out without the benefit of peer review or
quality assurance."
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In Denver, Carruthers
told a local radio station that the public has been "shafted by shoddy
science, and it has cost consumers and government a good deal of money."
When asked who was financing TASSC, Carruthers sidestepped the question.
"We don't want to be caught being a crusader for a single industry,"
he said. "We're not out here defending the chemical industry; we're
not out here defending the automobile industry, or the petroleum industry,
or the tobacco industry; we're here just to ensure that sound science
is used."
Virtually every news release made some reference
to the so-called "Alar scare," in which consumers mobilized
to stop apple growers from using the pesticide Alar. The U.S. EPA has
classified Alar as a "probable carcinogen," and subsequent reports
from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Public Health Service
had concurred with that judgment. Pro-industry groups continue to defend
the chemical, however, as does former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett
Koop.
In its news releases, TASSC made a point of
invoking Koop's name whenever possible. In an "advertorial"
titled "Science: A Tool, Not a Weapon," TASSC noted that "respected
experts, including then-Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, said the scientific
evidence showed no likelihood of harm from Alar. . . . This is not an
isolated case of bad science being used by policymakers," it added.
"It's happened regarding asbestos, dioxin and toxic waste. . . .
It's happening in the debate over environmental tobacco smoke, or second-hand
smoke. The studies done so far on the topic do not demonstrate evidence
that second-hand smoke causes cancer, even though that is the popular
wisdom."
To the casual reader, it would almost appear
as if Dr. Koop were a defender of environmental tobacco smoke, rather
than one of its most prominent public critics.
EuroTASSC
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/tassc_budget.gif
In 1994, Philip Morris
budgeted $880,000 in
funding for TASSC. In consultation with APCO and Burson-Marsteller, the
company began planning to set up a second, European organization, tentatively
named "Scientists for Sound Public Policy" (later renamed the
European Science and Environment Forum). Like TASSC, the European organization
would attempt to smuggle tobacco advocacy into a larger bundle of "sound
science" issues, including the "ban on growth hormone for livestock;
ban on [genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone] to improve milk
production; pesticide restrictions; ban on indoor smoking; restrictions
on use of chlorine; ban on certain pharmaceutical products; restrictions
on the use of biotechnology."
The public and policymakers needed to be
"educated,"
Burson-Marsteller explained, because "political decision-makers are
vulnerable to activists' emotional appeals and press campaigns. . . .
The precautionary principle is now the accepted guideline. Even if a hypothesis
is not 100 percent scientifically proven, action should be taken, e.g.
global warming."
Companies that B-M thought could be recruited
to support the European endeavor would include makers of "consumer
products (food, beverages, tobacco), packaging industry, agrichemical
industry, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, biotech industry,
electric power industry, telecommunications."
A turf war broke out between Burson-Marsteller
and APCO over the question of which PR firm should handle the European
campaign. Jim Lindheim of Burson-Marsteller laid claim to the account
by stressing his firm's already-proven expertise at defending tobacco
science in Europe. "We have the network, much of which is already
sensitized to PM's special needs," he stated. "We have a lot
of experience in every country working with scientists. . . . We've got
a large client base with 'scientific problems' whom we can tap for
sponsorship."
APCO's Margery Kraus responded by reminding
Philip Morris regulatory affairs director Matthew Winokur that Burson-Marsteller's
long history of tobacco industry work was public knowledge and therefore
might taint the endeavor.
"Given the sensitivities of other TASSC
activities and a previous decision not to have TASSC work directly with
Burson, due to these sensitivities in other TASSC work, I did not feel
comfortable having Steig or anyone else from Burson assume primary responsibility
for working with TASSC scientists," Kraus stated. As for experience
handling "scientific problems," she pointed to her parent company's
work for "the following industries impacted by science and environmental
policy decisions: chemical, pharmaceutical, nuclear, waste management
and motor industries, power generation, biotech products, packaging and
detergents, and paint. They have advised clients on a number of issues,
including: agricultural manufacturing, animal testing, chlorine, dioxins,
toxic waste, ozone/CFCs, power generation, coastal pollution, lead in
gasoline, polyurethanes, lubricants."
TASSC was designed to appear outwardly like
a broad coalition of scientists from multiple disciplines. The other industries
and interests--biotech, chemical, toxic waste, coastal pollution, lubricants--served
as protective camouflage, concealing the tobacco money that was at the
heart of the endeavor. TASSC signed up support from corporate executives
at Santa Fe Pacific Gold Corporation, Procter & Gamble, the Louisiana
Chemical Association, the National Pest Control Association, General Motors,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Exxon, W.R. Grace & Co., Amoco,
Occidental Petroleum, 3M, Chevron and Dow Chemical.
Many of its numerous news releases attacking
"junk science" made no mention of tobacco whatsoever.
It
objected
to government guidelines for asbestos abatement; said the "dioxin
scare" in Times Beach, Missouri was a tempest in a teapot; scoffed
at the need for an EPA Superfund cleanup in Aspen, Colorado; dismissed
reports of health effects related to use of the Norplant contraceptive;
denounced the Clean Water Act; and orchestrated a letter-writing campaign
to oppose any government action aimed at limiting industrial activities
linked to global warming.
Trash Talk With the Junkman
In February 1994, APCO vice president Neal
Cohen made the mistake of boasting candidly about some of the sneaky tactics
his company uses to set up front groups. His remarks were made at a
conference
of the Public Affairs Council (PAC), an exclusive association of top-ranking
lobbyists and PR people. New York Times political reporter Jane
Fritsch later used his remarks as the basis for a March 1996 article titled
"Sometimes Lobbyists Strive to Keep Public in the Dark."
Shortly after APCO suffered this embarrassment,
the responsibility for managing TASSC was quietly transferred to the EOP
Group,
a well-connected, Washington-based lobby firm whose clients have
included the American Crop Protection Association (the chief trade association
of the pesticide industry), the American Petroleum Institute, AT&T,
the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Dow Chemical
Company, Edison Electric Institute (nuclear power), Fort Howard Corp.
(a paper manufacturer), International Food Additives Council, Monsanto
Co., National Mining Association, and the Nuclear Energy Institute.
In March 1997, EOP lobbyist Steven Milloy,
described in a TASSC news release as "a nationally known expert and
author on environmental risk and regulatory policy issues," became
TASSC's executive director. "Steven brings not only a deep and strong
academic and professional background to TASSC, but he brings an equally
deep, strong and passionate commitment to the principle of using sound
science in making public policy decisions," said Garrey Carruthers.
"The issue of junk science has become the topic of network news specials,
major articles in newspapers, and a key topic in Congress and legislatures
around the country. I look forward to working with Steven to continue
to drive home the need for sound science in public policy making."
Although the news release referred to Milloy's
work "over the last six years" on "environmental and regulatory
policy issues," it did not mention that he had worked specifically
for the tobacco industry.
During 1992 Milloy worked for James Tozzi at
Multinational Business Services. Tozzi, a former career bureaucrat at
the U.S. Office of Management and Budget who had spearheaded the Reagan-era
OMB campaign to gut environmental regulations,
is described in internal
Philip Morris documents as the company's "primary contact on the
EPA/ETS risk assessment during the second half of 1992." During that
period, it noted, "Tozzi has been invaluable in executing our Washington
efforts including generating technical briefing papers, numerous letters
to agencies and media interviews," a service for which Philip Morris
paid an estimated $300,000 in consulting fees.
Philip Morris also paid Tozzi's company another
$880,000 to establish a "nonprofit" think-tank called the Institute
for Regulatory Policy (IRP). On behalf of Philip Morris, the IRP put together
"three different coalitions which support sound science--Coalition
for Executive Order, Coalition for Moratorium on Risk Assessments, and
Coalition of Cities and States on Environmental Mandates. . . . IRP could
work with us as well as APCO in a coordinated manner," PM's Boland
and Borelli had noted in February 1993.
After leaving Tozzi's service, Milloy became
president of his own organization called the "Regulatory Impact Analysis
Project, Inc.," where he wrote a couple of reports arguing that "most
environmental risks are so small or indistinguishable that their existence
cannot be proven." Shortly thereafter, he launched the "Junk
Science Home Page." Calling himself "the Junkman," he offered
daily attacks on environmentalists, public health and food safety regulators,
anti-nuclear and animal rights activists, and a wide range of other targets
that he accused of using unsound science to advance various political
agendas.
Milloy was also active in defense of the tobacco
industry, particularly in regard to the issue of environmental tobacco
smoke. He dismissed the EPA's 1993 report linking secondhand smoke to
cancer as "a joke,"
and when the British Medical
Journal
published its own study with similar results in 1997, he scoffed that
"it remains a joke today." After one researcher published a
study linking secondhand smoke to cancer, Milloy wrote that she "must
have pictures of journal editors in compromising positions with farm animals.
How else can you explain her studies seeing the light of day?"
In August 1997, the New York Times reported
that Milloy was one of the paid speakers at a Miami briefing for foreign
reporters sponsored by the British-American Tobacco Company, whose Brown
& Williamson unit makes popular cigarettes like Kool, Carlton and
Lucky Strike. At the briefing, which was off-limits to U.S. journalists,
the company flew in dozens of reporters from countries including Brazil,
Argentina, Chile and Peru and paid for their hotel rooms and expensive
meals while the reporters sat through presentations that ridiculed
"lawsuit-driven
societies like the United States" for using "unsound science"
to raise questions about "infinitesimal, if not hypothetical, risks"
related to inhaling a "whiff" of tobacco smoke.
The Legacy
In 1999, University of Pennsylvania professor
Edward S. Herman surveyed 258 articles in mainstream newspapers that used
the term "junk science" during the years 1996 through 1998.
Only 8 percent of the articles used the term in reference to corporate-manipulated
science. By contrast, 62 percent used the term "junk science"
in reference to scientific arguments used by environmentalists, other
corporate critics, or personal-injury lawyers engaged in suing corporations.
"What's starting to happen is that this
term, 'junk science,' is being thrown around all the time," says
Lucinda Finley, a law professor from the State University of New York
at Buffalo who specializes in product liability and women's health. "People
are calling scientists who disagree with them purveyors of 'junk.' But
what we're really talking about is a very normal process of scientific
disagreement and give-and-take. Calling someone a 'junk scientist' is
just a way of shutting them up."
Like other corporate-funded front groups, the
organizations that flack for sound science are sometimes fly-by-night
organizations. Called into existence for a particular cause or legislative
lobby campaign, they often dry up and blow away once the campaign is over.
The tendency of groups to appear and disappear creates another form of
camouflage, making it d
-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 26, 2001.
Flack Attack
The Usual Suspects: Industry Hacks Turn Fear
on its Head
How Big Tobacco Helped Create the Junkman
Tobacco's Secondhand Science of Smoke-Filled Rooms
Readers Invited to Trust Us, We're Experts
PR Watch is a publication of the Center
for Media Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 310
Madison, WI 53703
phone: (608) 260-9713
fax: 608-260-9714
email: editor@prwatch.org
Steven Milloy describes himself as the publisher of the Junk
Science Home Page and an adjunct scholar at the Cato
Institute. "Milloy
appears frequently on radio and television; has testified on
risk assessment
and Superfund before the U.S. Congress; and has lectured
before numerous
organizations," it adds, noting that he has also
"written articles
that have appeared in the New York Post, USA Today,
Washington Times,
The Chicago Sun-Times, and the Investors' Business
Daily."
These facts are all accurate as far they go,
but they say nothing about how Milloy came to be a prominent
debunker
of "junk science." This omission is undoubtedly by
design, because
it would certainly be embarrassing to admit that a
self-proclaimed scientific
reformer got his start as a behind-the-scenes lobbyist for the
tobacco
industry, which has arguably done more to corrupt science
than any other
industry in history.
Early in his career, Milloy worked for a company
called Multinational Business Services, a Washington lobby
shop that Philip
Morris described as its "primary contact" on the
issue of secondhand
cigarette smoke in the early 1990s. Later, he became executive
director
of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), an
organization
that was covertly created by Philip Morris for the express
purpose of
generating scientific controversy regarding the link between
secondhand
smoke and cancer.
One of the
forerunners
of TASSC at Philip Morris was a 1988 "Proposal for the
Whitecoat
Project," named after the white laboratory coats that
scientists
sometimes wear. The project had four goals: "Resist
and roll back
smoking restrictions. Restore smoker confidence. Reverse
scientific and
popular misconception that ETS is harmful. Restore social
acceptability
of smoking."
To achieve these goals, the plan was to first
"generate a body of scientific and technical
knowledge" through
research "undertaken by whitecoats, contract laboratories
and commercial
organizations"; then "disseminate and exploit
such knowledge
through specific communication programs." Covington
& Burling,
PM's law firm, would function as the executive arm of the
Whitecoat Project,
acting as a "legal buffer . . . the interface with the
operating
units (whitecoats, laboratories, etc.)."
![]()
The effort to create a scientific defense for
secondhand smoke was only one component in the tobacco
industry's multi-million-dollar
PR campaign. To defeat cigarette excise taxes, a Philip
Morris strategy
document outlined plans for "Co-op efforts with third
party tax
organizations"--libertarian
anti-taxation think tanks, such as Americans for Tax Reform,
Citizens
for a Sound Economy, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Tax
Foundation.
Other third party allies included the National Journalism
Center, the
Heartland Institute, the Claremont Institute, and National
Empowerment
Television, a conservative TV network.
In one memo to Philip Morris CEO Michael A.
Miles, vice president Craig L. Fuller noted that he was
"working
with many third party allies to develop position papers,
op-eds and letters
to the editor detailing how tobacco is already one of the most
heavily
regulated products in the marketplace, and derailing arguments
against
proposed bans on tobacco advertising."
Through the PR firm of Burson-Marsteller, Philip
Morris also created the "National Smoker's
Alliance," a supposedly
independent organization of individual smokers which claimed
that bans
on smoking in public places infringed on basic American
freedoms. The
NSA was a "grassroots" version of the third party
technique,
designed to create the impression of a citizen groundswell
against smoking
restrictions. Burson-Marsteller spent millions of
dollars of tobacco industry
money to get the NSA up and running--buying full-page
newspaper ads, hiring
paid canvassers and telemarketers, setting up a toll-free 800
number,
and publishing newsletters and other folksy
"grassroots" materials
to mobilize the puffing
masses.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/empower.gif
The NSA's stated
mission was to "empower" smokers to reclaim
their
rights--although,
behind closed doors, industry executives fretted that they
didn't want
this rhetoric to go too far. They were well aware of opinion
polls showing
that 70 percent of all adult smokers wish they could kick the
habit. "The
issue of 'empowerment of smokers' was viewed as somewhat
dangerous,"
stated a tobacco strategy document. "We don't want to
'empower' them
to the point that they'll quit."
The purpose of TASSC, as described in a memo
from APCO's Tom Hockaday and Neal Cohen, was to "link
the tobacco
issue with other more 'politically correct'
products"--in other words,
to make the case that efforts to regulate tobacco were
based on the same
"junk science" as efforts to regulate food
additives, automobile
emissions and other industrial products that had not yet
achieved tobacco's
pariah status.
"The credibility of EPA is defeatable,
but not on the basis of ETS alone," stated a Philip
Morris strategy
document. "It must be part of a larger mosaic that
concentrates all
of the EPA's enemies against it at one time."
Originally dubbed the
"Restoring Integrity
to Science Coalition," the Advancement of Sound
Science Coalition
was later renamed to resemble the venerable American
Association for the
Advancement of Science. After APCO's planners realized
that the resulting
acronym was not terribly flattering--ASSC, or worse, the ASS
Coalition--they
began putting a capitalized article "the" at the
beginning of
the name, and TASSC was born, a "national coalition
intended to educate
the media, public officials and the public about the dangers
of 'junk
science.' "
In September 1993, APCO President Margery Kraus
sent a memo to Philip Morris Communications Director Vic Han.
"We
look forward to the successful launching of TASSC this
fall," she
stated. "We believe the groundwork we conduct to complete
the launch
will enable TASSC to expand and assist Philip Morris in its
efforts with
issues in targeted states in 1994."
APCO's work would focus on expanding TASSC's
membership, finding outside money to help conceal the role
of Philip Morris
as its primary funder, compiling a litany of
"additional examples
of unsound science," and "coordinating and directing
outreach
to the scientific and academic communities."
APCO would also direct and manage former New
Mexico governor Garrey Carruthers, who had been hired as
TASSC's spokesman.
"This includes developing and maintaining his schedule,
prioritizing
his time and energies, and briefing Carruthers and other
appropriate TASSC
representatives," Kraus wrote, outlining a
"comprehensive media
relations strategy" designed to "maximize the use
of TASSC and
its members into Philip Morris's issues in targeted states. .
. . This
includes using TASSC as a tool in targeted legislative
battles."
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/carruthers.gif
Planned
activities
included publishing a monthly newsletter, frequent news
releases, drafting
"boilerplate" speeches and op-ed pieces to be
used by TASSC
representatives, and placing articles in various trade
publications to
help recruit members from the agriculture, chemical,
biotechnology and
food additive industries. In addition to APCO's monthly
fee, $5,000 per
month was budgeted "to compensate Garrey
Carruthers."
Considerable effort was expended to conceal
the fact that TASSC was created and funded by Philip
Morris. APCO recommended
that TASSC first be introduced to the public through a
"decentralized
launch outside the large markets of Washington, DC and
New York"
in order to "avoid cynical reporters from major
media."
"Increasingly today, one can
find examples
of junk science that compromise the integrity of the field
of science
and, at the same time, create a scare environment where
unnecessary
regulations on industry in general, and on the consumer
products industry
in particular, are rammed through without respect to rhyme,
reason,
effect or cause."
--Michael A. Miles, former CEO of the Philip Morris tobacco
company
In smaller markets, APCO reasoned, there would
be "less reviewing/challenging of TASSC
messages." Also, a decentralized
launch would "limit potential for counterattack.
The opponents of
TASSC tend to concentrate their efforts in top markets while
skipping
the secondary markets. This approach sends TASSC's message
initially into
these more receptive markets--and enables us to build upon
early successes."The
plan included a barnstorming media tour
by Garrey Carruthers of these secondary markets.
"APCO will arrange
on-the-ground visits with three to four reporters in each
city. These
interviews, using TASSC's trained spokespeople, third-party
allies (e.g.,
authors of books on unsound science), members of the TASSC
Science Board,
and/or Governor Carruthers, will be scheduled for a one to
two day media
tour in each city."
To set up the interviews, APCO used a list
of sympathetic reporters provided by John Boltz, a manager of
media affairs
at Philip Morris. "We thought it best to remove
any possible link
to PM, thus Boltz is not making the calls," noted
Philip Morris public
affairs director Jack Lenzi. "With regard to media
inquiries to PM
about TASSC, I am putting together some Q and A. We will
not deny being
a corporate member/sponsor, will not specify dollars, and
will refer them
to the TASSC '800-' number, being manned by David Sheon
(APCO)."
Other plans, developed later, included creation
of a TASSC internet page that could be used to
"broadly distribute
published studies/papers favorable to smoking/ETS debate"
and "release
PM authored papers . . . on ETS science and bad science/bad
public
policy."
Carruthers began his media tour in December,
with stopovers in cities including San Diego, Dallas and
Denver. News
releases sent out in advance of each stop described TASSC as a
"grassroots-based,
not-for-profit watchdog group of scientists and
representatives from universities,
independent organizations and industry, that advocates the use
of sound
science in the public policy arena." As examples of
unsound science,
it pointed to the asbestos abatement guidelines, the
"dioxin scare"
in Times Beach, Missouri, and "unprecedented regulations
to limit
radon levels in drinking water."
In Texas, local TASSC recruits involved in
the launch included Dr. Margaret Maxey and Floy Lilley, both
of the University
of Texas. "The Clean Air Act is a perfect example of
laboratory science
being superficially applied to reality," Lilley said.
Carruthers
took the opportunity to inveigh against politicized
uses of science by
the Environmental Protection Agency "to make science
'fit' with the
political leanings of special interests." EPA's
studies, he complained,
"are frequently carried out without the benefit of peer
review or
quality assurance."
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/lie.gif
In Denver, Carruthers
told a local radio station that the public has been
"shafted by shoddy
science, and it has cost consumers and government a good deal
of money."
When asked who was financing TASSC, Carruthers sidestepped the
question.
"We don't want to be caught being a crusader for a single
industry,"
he said. "We're not out here defending the chemical
industry; we're
not out here defending the automobile industry, or the
petroleum industry,
or the tobacco industry; we're here just to ensure that
sound science
is used."
Virtually every news release made some reference
to the so-called "Alar scare," in which consumers
mobilized
to stop apple growers from using the pesticide Alar. The U.S.
EPA has
classified Alar as a "probable carcinogen," and
subsequent reports
from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Public Health
Service
had concurred with that judgment. Pro-industry groups continue
to defend
the chemical, however, as does former U.S. Surgeon General C.
Everett
Koop.
In its news releases, TASSC made a point of
invoking Koop's name whenever possible. In an
"advertorial"
titled "Science: A Tool, Not a Weapon," TASSC noted
that "respected
experts, including then-Surgeon General C. Everett Koop,
said the scientific
evidence showed no likelihood of harm from Alar. . . .
This is not an
isolated case of bad science being used by policymakers,"
it added.
"It's happened regarding asbestos, dioxin and toxic
waste. . . .
It's happening in the debate over environmental tobacco
smoke, or second-hand
smoke. The studies done so far on the topic do not
demonstrate evidence
that second-hand smoke causes cancer, even though that is
the popular
wisdom."
To the casual reader, it would almost appear
as if Dr. Koop were a defender of environmental tobacco smoke,
rather
than one of its most prominent public critics.
EuroTASSC
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/tassc_budget.gif
In 1994, Philip Morris
budgeted $880,000 in
funding for TASSC. In consultation with APCO and
Burson-Marsteller, the
company began planning to set up a second, European
organization, tentatively
named "Scientists for Sound Public Policy" (later
renamed the
European Science and Environment Forum). Like TASSC, the
European organization
would attempt to smuggle tobacco advocacy into a larger
bundle of "sound
science" issues, including the "ban on growth
hormone for livestock;
ban on [genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone] to
improve milk
production; pesticide restrictions; ban on indoor smoking;
restrictions
on use of chlorine; ban on certain pharmaceutical products;
restrictions
on the use of biotechnology."
The public and policymakers needed to be
"educated,"
Burson-Marsteller explained, because "political
decision-makers are
vulnerable to activists' emotional appeals and press
campaigns. . . .
The precautionary principle is now the accepted guideline.
Even if a hypothesis
is not 100 percent scientifically proven, action should be
taken, e.g.
global warming."
Companies that B-M thought could be recruited
to support the European endeavor would include makers of
"consumer
products (food, beverages, tobacco), packaging industry,
agrichemical
industry, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, biotech
industry,
electric power industry, telecommunications."
A turf war broke out between Burson-Marsteller
and APCO over the question of which PR firm should handle the
European
campaign. Jim Lindheim of Burson-Marsteller laid claim to the
account
by stressing his firm's already-proven expertise at
defending tobacco
science in Europe. "We have the network, much of
which is already
sensitized to PM's special needs," he stated. "We
have a lot
of experience in every country working with scientists. . .
. We've got
a large client base with 'scientific problems' whom we can tap
for
sponsorship."
APCO's Margery Kraus responded by reminding
Philip Morris regulatory affairs director Matthew Winokur that
Burson-Marsteller's
long history of tobacco industry work was public knowledge and
therefore
might taint the endeavor.
"Given the sensitivities of other TASSC
activities and a previous decision not to have TASSC work
directly with
Burson, due to these sensitivities in other TASSC work, I did
not feel
comfortable having Steig or anyone else from Burson assume
primary responsibility
for working with TASSC scientists," Kraus stated. As for
experience
handling "scientific problems," she pointed to her
parent company's
work for "the following industries impacted by science
and environmental
policy decisions: chemical, pharmaceutical, nuclear, waste
management
and motor industries, power generation, biotech products,
packaging and
detergents, and paint. They have advised clients on a
number of issues,
including: agricultural manufacturing, animal testing,
chlorine, dioxins,
toxic waste, ozone/CFCs, power generation, coastal pollution,
lead in
gasoline, polyurethanes, lubricants."
TASSC was designed to appear outwardly like
a broad coalition of scientists from multiple disciplines.
The other industries
and interests--biotech, chemical, toxic waste, coastal
pollution, lubricants--served
as protective camouflage, concealing the tobacco money that
was at the
heart of the endeavor. TASSC signed up support from
corporate executives
at Santa Fe Pacific Gold Corporation, Procter & Gamble,
the Louisiana
Chemical Association, the National Pest Control Association,
General Motors,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Exxon, W.R. Grace
& Co., Amoco,
Occidental Petroleum, 3M, Chevron and Dow Chemical.
Many of its numerous news releases attacking
"junk science" made no mention of tobacco
whatsoever.
It
objected
to government guidelines for asbestos abatement; said the
"dioxin
scare" in Times Beach, Missouri was a tempest in a
teapot; scoffed
at the need for an EPA Superfund cleanup in Aspen, Colorado;
dismissed
reports of health effects related to use of the Norplant
contraceptive;
denounced the Clean Water Act; and orchestrated a
letter-writing campaign
to oppose any government action aimed at limiting industrial
activities
linked to global warming.
Trash Talk With the Junkman
In February 1994, APCO vice president Neal
Cohen made the mistake of boasting candidly about some of the
sneaky tactics
his company uses to set up front groups. His remarks were
made at a
conference
of the Public Affairs Council (PAC), an exclusive association
of top-ranking
lobbyists and PR people. New York Times political
reporter Jane
Fritsch later used his remarks as the basis for a March 1996
article titled
"Sometimes Lobbyists Strive to Keep Public in the
Dark."
Shortly after APCO suffered this embarrassment,
the responsibility for managing TASSC was quietly transferred
to the EOP
Group,
a well-connected, Washington-based lobby firm
whose clients have
included the American Crop Protection Association (the
chief trade association
of the pesticide industry), the American Petroleum Institute,
AT&T,
the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Dow
Chemical
Company, Edison Electric Institute (nuclear power), Fort
Howard Corp.
(a paper manufacturer), International Food Additives Council,
Monsanto
Co., National Mining Association, and the Nuclear Energy
Institute.
In March 1997, EOP lobbyist Steven Milloy,
described in a TASSC news release as "a nationally
known expert and
author on environmental risk and regulatory policy
issues," became
TASSC's executive director. "Steven brings not only a
deep and strong
academic and professional background to TASSC, but he brings
an equally
deep, strong and passionate commitment to the principle of
using sound
science in making public policy decisions," said Garrey
Carruthers.
"The issue of junk science has become the topic of
network news specials,
major articles in newspapers, and a key topic in Congress and
legislatures
around the country. I look forward to working with Steven
to continue
to drive home the need for sound science in public policy
making."
Although the news release referred to Milloy's
work "over the last six years" on
"environmental and regulatory
policy issues," it did not mention that he had worked
specifically
for the tobacco industry.
During 1992 Milloy worked for James Tozzi at
Multinational Business Services. Tozzi, a former career
bureaucrat at
the U.S. Office of Management and Budget who had spearheaded
the Reagan-era
OMB campaign to gut environmental regulations,
is
described in internal
Philip Morris documents as the company's "primary contact
on the
EPA/ETS risk assessment during the second half of 1992."
During that
period, it noted, "Tozzi has been invaluable in executing
our Washington
efforts including generating technical briefing papers,
numerous letters
to agencies and media interviews," a service for which
Philip Morris
paid an estimated $300,000 in consulting fees.
Philip Morris also paid Tozzi's company another
$880,000 to establish a "nonprofit" think-tank
called the Institute
for Regulatory Policy (IRP). On behalf of Philip Morris, the
IRP put together
"three different coalitions which support sound
science--Coalition
for Executive Order, Coalition for Moratorium on Risk
Assessments, and
Coalition of Cities and States on Environmental Mandates. . .
. IRP could
work with us as well as APCO in a coordinated manner,"
PM's Boland
and Borelli had noted in February 1993.
After leaving Tozzi's service, Milloy became
president of his own organization called the
"Regulatory Impact Analysis
Project, Inc.," where he wrote a couple of reports
arguing that "most
environmental risks are so small or indistinguishable that
their existence
cannot be proven." Shortly thereafter, he launched
the "Junk
Science Home Page." Calling himself "the
Junkman," he offered
daily attacks on environmentalists, public health and food
safety regulators,
anti-nuclear and animal rights activists, and a wide range of
other targets
that he accused of using unsound science to advance various
political
agendas.
Milloy was also active in defense of the tobacco
industry, particularly in regard to the issue of environmental
tobacco
smoke. He dismissed the EPA's 1993 report linking secondhand
smoke to
cancer as "a joke,"
and when the
British Medical
Journal
published its own study with similar results in 1997, he
scoffed that
"it remains a joke today." After one researcher
published a
study linking secondhand smoke to cancer, Milloy wrote that
she "must
have pictures of journal editors in compromising positions
with farm animals.
How else can you explain her studies seeing the light of
day?"
In August 1997, the New York Times reported
that Milloy was one of the paid speakers at a Miami briefing
for foreign
reporters sponsored by the British-American Tobacco Company,
whose Brown
& Williamson unit makes popular cigarettes like Kool,
Carlton and
Lucky Strike. At the briefing, which was off-limits to U.S.
journalists,
the company flew in dozens of reporters from countries
including Brazil,
Argentina, Chile and Peru and paid for their hotel rooms and
expensive
meals while the reporters sat through presentations that
ridiculed
"lawsuit-driven
societies like the United States" for using
"unsound science"
to raise questions about "infinitesimal, if not
hypothetical, risks"
related to inhaling a "whiff" of tobacco
smoke.
The Legacy
In 1999, University of Pennsylvania professor
Edward S. Herman surveyed 258 articles in mainstream
newspapers that used
the term "junk science" during the years 1996
through 1998.
Only 8 percent of the articles used the term in reference
to corporate-manipulated
science. By contrast, 62 percent used the term
"junk science"
in reference to scientific arguments used by
environmentalists, other
corporate critics, or personal-injury lawyers engaged in suing
corporations.
"What's starting to happen is that this
term, 'junk science,' is being thrown around all the
time," says
Lucinda Finley, a law professor from the State University of
New York
at Buffalo who specializes in product liability and women's
health. "People
are calling scientists who disagree with them purveyors of
'junk.' But
what we're really talking about is a very normal process of
scientific
disagreement and give-and-take. Calling someone a 'junk
scientist' is
just a way of shutting them up."
Like other corporate-funded front groups, the
organizations that flack for sound science are sometimes
fly-by-night
organizations. Called into existence for a particular
cause or legislative
lobby campaign, they often dry up and blow away once the
campaign is over.
The tendency of groups to appear and disappear creates
another form of
camouflage, making it d
-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 26, 2001.
Flack Attack
The Usual Suspects: Industry Hacks Turn Fear on its Head
How
Big Tobacco Helped
Create the Junkman
Tobacco's Secondhand Science of Smoke-Filled
Rooms
Readers Invited to Trust Us, We're Experts
PR Watch is a
publication of the Center for
Media Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 310
Madison, WI
53703
phone:
(608) 260-9713
fax: 608-260-9714
editor@prwatch.org Steven
Milloy describes
himself as the publisher of the Junk
Science Home Page and an adjunct scholar at the Cato
Institute. "Milloy appears
frequently on radio and television; has testified on risk assessment
and Superfund before the
U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous organizations,"
it adds, noting that he
has also "written articles that have appeared in the New York
Post, USA Today,
Washington Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, and the Investors'
Business
Daily."
These facts are all accurate as far they go,
but they say nothing
about how Milloy came to be a prominent debunker of "junk
science." This omission
is undoubtedly by design, because it would certainly be embarrassing
to admit that a
self-proclaimed scientific reformer got his start as a
behind-the-scenes lobbyist for the
tobacco industry, which has arguably done more to corrupt science
than any other industry
in history.
Early in his career, Milloy worked for a company
called Multinational
Business Services, a Washington lobby shop that Philip Morris
described as its "primary
contact" on the issue of secondhand cigarette smoke in the early
1990s. Later, he became
executive director of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
(TASSC), an organization
that was covertly created by Philip Morris for the express purpose
of generating scientific
controversy regarding the link between secondhand smoke and
cancer.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/whitecoat.gif
One of the
forerunners
of TASSC at Philip Morris was a 1988 "Proposal for the Whitecoat
Project," named
after the white laboratory coats that scientists sometimes wear. The
project had four goals:
"Resist and roll back smoking restrictions. Restore smoker
confidence. Reverse scientific
and popular misconception that ETS is harmful. Restore social
acceptability of
smoking."To achieve these goals, the plan was to
first
"generate a body of scientific and technical
knowledge" through research
"undertaken by whitecoats, contract laboratories and commercial
organizations"
then "disseminate and exploit such knowledge through specific
communication
programs." Covington & Burling, PM's law firm, would
function as the executive
arm of the Whitecoat Project, acting as a "legal buffer . . . the
interface with the operating
units (whitecoats, laboratories, etc.)."
The effort
to create a scientific
defense for secondhand smoke was only one component in the tobacco
industry's
multi-million-dollar PR campaign. To defeat cigarette excise taxes, a
Philip Morris strategy
document outlined plans for "Co-op efforts with third
party tax
organizations"--libertarian anti-taxation think tanks, such as
Americans for Tax Reform,
Citizens for a Sound Economy, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Tax
Foundation. Other third party
allies included the National Journalism Center, the
Heartland Institute, the Claremont Institute, and National
Empowerment Television, a
conservative TV network.
In one memo to Philip Morris CEO
Michael A. Miles,
vice president Craig L. Fuller noted that he was "working with
many third party allies to
develop position papers, op-eds and letters to the editor detailing
how tobacco is already one
of the most heavily regulated products in the marketplace, and
derailing arguments against
proposed bans on tobacco advertising."
Through the PR
firm of
Burson-Marsteller, Philip Morris also created the
"National Smoker's
Alliance," a supposedly independent organization of individual
smokers which
claimed that bans on smoking in public places infringed on basic
American freedoms. The
NSA was a "grassroots" version of the third party
technique,
designed to create the impression of a citizen groundswell against
smoking restrictions.
Burson-Marsteller spent millions of dollars of tobacco industry
money to get the
NSA up and running--buying full-page newspaper ads, hiring paid
canvassers and
telemarketers, setting up a toll-free 800 number, and publishing
newsletters and other folksy
"grassroots" materials to mobilize the puffing masses.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/empower.gifThe NSA's
stated
mission was to "empower" smokers to reclaim their
rights--although,
behind closed doors, industry executives fretted that they didn't want
this rhetoric to go too
far. They were well aware of opinion polls showing that 70 percent of
all adult smokers wish
they could kick the habit. "The issue of 'empowerment of
smokers' was viewed as
somewhat dangerous," stated a tobacco strategy document.
"We don't want to
'empower' them to the point that they'll quit."
The
purpose of
TASSC, as described in a memo from APCO's Tom Hockaday and Neal
Cohen, was to
"link the tobacco issue with other more 'politically
correct'
products"--in other words, to make the case that efforts
to regulate tobacco
were based on the same "junk science" as efforts to
regulate food additives,
automobile emissions and other industrial products that had not
yet achieved tobacco's
pariah status.
"The credibility of EPA is
defeatable, but not on
the basis of ETS alone," stated a Philip Morris strategy
document. "It must be part of
a larger mosaic that concentrates all of the EPA's enemies
against it at one
time."
Originally dubbed the " Restoring Integrity to
Science Coalition,"
the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was later renamed to
resemble the venerable
American Association for the Advancement of Science. After APCO's
planners realized
that the resulting acronym was not terribly flattering--ASSC, or
worse, the ASS Coalition--they
began putting a capitalized article "the" at the beginning
of the name, and TASSC
was born, a "national coalition intended to educate the
media, public officials and
the public about the dangers of 'junk science.' "
In
September 1993, APCO
President Margery Kraus sent a memo to Philip Morris Communications
Director Vic Han.
"We look forward to the successful launching of TASSC this
fall," she stated.
"We believe the groundwork we conduct to complete the launch will
enable TASSC to
expand and assist Philip Morris in its efforts with issues in targeted
states in 1994."
APCO's work would focus on expanding TASSC's membership, finding
outside money
to help conceal the role of Philip Morris as its primary funder,
compiling a litany of
"additional examples of unsound science," and
"coordinating and directing
outreach to the scientific and academic
communities."
APCO would also
direct and manage former New Mexico governor Garrey Carruthers,
who had been hired
as TASSC's spokesman. "This includes developing and maintaining
his schedule,
prioritizing his time and energies, and briefing Carruthers and other
appropriate TASSC
representatives," Kraus wrote, outlining a "comprehensive
media relations
strategy" designed to "maximize the use of TASSC and
its members into
Philip Morris's issues in targeted states. . . . This includes using
TASSC as a tool in targeted
legislative battles."
included publishing a monthly
newsletter, frequent
news releases, drafting "boilerplate" speeches and op-ed
pieces to be used by
TASSC representatives, and placing articles in various trade
publications to help recruit
members from the agriculture, chemical, biotechnology and food
additive industries. In
addition to APCO's monthly fee, $5,000 per month was budgeted "to
compensate Garrey
Carruthers." Considerable effort was expended to
conceal the fact that
TASSC was created and funded by Philip Morris. APCO recommended
that TASSC first
be introduced to the public through a "decentralized launch
outside the large
markets of Washington, DC and New York" in order to
"avoid cynical
reporters from major media."
"Increasingly today, one can find examples of junk science that
compromise the integrity
of the field of science and, at the same time, create a scare
environment where unnecessary
regulations on industry in general, and on the consumer products
industry in particular, are
rammed through without respect to rhyme, reason, effect or
cause."
--Michael A. Miles, former CEO of the
Philip Morris tobacco
company In smaller markets, APCO
reasoned, there
would be "less reviewing/challenging of TASSC
messages." Also, a
decentralized launch would "limit potential for counterattack.
The opponents of
TASSC tend to concentrate their efforts in top markets while
skipping the secondary markets.
This approach sends TASSC's message initially into these more
receptive markets--and
enables us to build upon early successes."The plan included a
barnstorming media
tour by Garrey Carruthers of these secondary markets. "APCO
will arrange
on-the-ground visits with three to four reporters in each city. These
interviews, using TASSC's
trained spokespeople, third-party allies (e.g., authors of books on
unsound science), members
of the TASSC Science Board, and/or Governor Carruthers, will be
scheduled for a one to
two day media tour in each city." To set up the
interviews, APCO used
a list of sympathetic reporters provided by John Boltz, a manager of
media affairs at Philip
Morris. "We thought it best to remove any possible link
to PM, thus Boltz
is not making the calls," noted Philip Morris public affairs
director Jack Lenzi. "With
regard to media inquiries to PM about TASSC, I am putting together
some Q and A. We will
not deny being a corporate member/sponsor, will not specify dollars,
and will refer them
to the TASSC '800-' number, being manned by David Sheon
(APCO)."
Other
plans, developed later, included creation of a TASSC internet page
that could be used to
"broadly distribute published studies/papers favorable to
smoking/ETS debate"
and "release PM authored papers . . . on ETS science and bad
science/bad public
policy."
Carruthers began his media tour in December,
with stopovers in
cities including San Diego, Dallas and Denver. News releases sent
out in advance of each
stop described TASSC as a "grassroots-based, not-for-profit
watchdog group of scientists
and representatives from universities, independent organizations and
industry, that advocates
the use of sound science in the public policy arena." As
examples of unsound
science, it pointed to the asbestos abatement guidelines, the
"dioxin scare" in
Times Beach, Missouri, and "unprecedented regulations to limit
radon levels in drinking
water."
In Texas, local TASSC recruits involved in
the launch included
Dr. Margaret Maxey and Floy Lilley, both of the University of Texas.
"The Clean Air Act is a
perfect example of laboratory science being superficially applied to
reality," Lilley said.
Carruthers took the opportunity to inveigh against politicized
uses of science by
the Environmental Protection Agency "to make science
'fit' with the
political leanings of special interests." EPA's
studies, he complained,
"are frequently carried out without the benefit of peer
review or
quality assurance."
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/lie.gif
In Denver, Carruthers
told a local radio station that the public has been
"shafted by shoddy
science, and it has cost consumers and government a good deal
of money."
When asked who was financing TASSC, Carruthers sidestepped the
question.
"We don't want to be caught being a crusader for a single
industry,"
he said. "We're not out here defending the chemical
industry; we're
not out here defending the automobile industry, or the
petroleum industry,
or the tobacco industry; we're here just to ensure that
sound science
is used."
Virtually every news release made some reference
to the so-called "Alar scare," in which consumers
mobilized
to stop apple growers from using the pesticide Alar. The U.S.
EPA has
classified Alar as a "probable carcinogen," and
subsequent reports
from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Public Health
Service
had concurred with that judgment. Pro-industry groups continue
to defend
the chemical, however, as does former U.S. Surgeon General C.
Everett
Koop.
In its news releases, TASSC made a point of
invoking Koop's name whenever possible. In an
"advertorial"
titled "Science: A Tool, Not a Weapon," TASSC noted
that "respected
experts, including then-Surgeon General C. Everett Koop,
said the scientific
evidence showed no likelihood of harm from Alar. . . .
This is not an
isolated case of bad science being used by policymakers,"
it added.
"It's happened regarding asbestos, dioxin and toxic
waste. . . .
It's happening in the debate over environmental tobacco
smoke, or second-hand
smoke. The studies done so far on the topic do not demonstrate
evidence that
second-hand smoke causes cancer, even though that is the popular
wisdom."
To the casual reader, it would almost appear as if Dr. Koop
were a defender of
environmental tobacco smoke, rather than one of its most prominent
public
critics.
EuroTASSC
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/tassc_budget.gif
In
1994, Philip Morris
budgeted $880,000 in funding for TASSC. In consultation with
APCO and
Burson-Marsteller, the company began planning to set up a second,
European organization,
tentatively named "Scientists for Sound Public
Policy" (later renamed the
European Science and Environment Forum). Like TASSC, the
European organization
would attempt to smuggle tobacco advocacy into a larger bundle of
"sound
science" issues, including the "ban on growth hormone for
livestock; ban on
[genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone] to improve milk
production; pesticide
restrictions; ban on indoor smoking; restrictions on use of chlorine;
ban on certain
pharmaceutical products; restrictions on the use of
biotechnology."
The public and policymakers needed to be
"educated,"
Burson-Marsteller explained, because "political
decision-makers are vulnerable to
activists' emotional appeals and press campaigns. . . . The
precautionary principle
is now the accepted guideline. Even if a hypothesis is not 100
percent scientifically proven,
action should be taken, e.g. global warming."
Companies that B-M
thought could be recruited to support the European endeavor would
include makers of
"consumer products (food, beverages, tobacco), packaging
industry, agrichemical
industry, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, biotech
industry, electric power industry,
telecommunications."
A turf war broke out between
Burson-Marsteller
and APCO over the question of which PR firm should handle the
European campaign. Jim
Lindheim of Burson-Marsteller laid claim to the account by stressing
his firm's
already-proven expertise at defending tobacco science in
Europe. "We have the
network, much of which is already sensitized to PM's special
needs," he stated. "We
have a lot of experience in every country working with scientists. .
. . We've got a large
client base with 'scientific problems' whom we can tap for
sponsorship."
APCO's Margery Kraus responded by reminding Philip Morris
regulatory affairs director
Matthew Winokur that Burson-Marsteller's long history of tobacco
industry work was public
knowledge and therefore might taint the endeavor.
"
Given the
sensitivities of other TASSC activities and a previous decision
not to have TASSC work
directly with Burson, due to these sensitivities in other TASSC work,
I did not feel comfortable
having Steig or anyone else from Burson assume primary responsibility
for working with TASSC
scientists," Kraus stated. As for experience handling
"scientific problems," she
pointed to her parent company's work for "the following
industries impacted by
science and environmental policy decisions: chemical, pharmaceutical,
nuclear, waste
management and motor industries, power generation, biotech products,
packaging and
detergents, and paint. They have advised clients on a
number of issues,
including: agricultural manufacturing, animal testing,
chlorine, dioxins,
toxic waste, ozone/CFCs, power generation, coastal pollution,
lead in
gasoline, polyurethanes, lubricants."
TASSC was designed to appear outwardly like
a broad coalition of scientists from multiple disciplines.
The other industries
and interests--biotech, chemical, toxic waste, coastal
pollution, lubricants--served
as protective camouflage, concealing the tobacco money that
was at the
heart of the endeavor. TASSC signed up support from
corporate executives
at Santa Fe Pacific Gold Corporation, Procter & Gamble,
the Louisiana
Chemical Association, the National Pest Control Association,
General Motors,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Exxon, W.R. Grace
& Co., Amoco,
Occidental Petroleum, 3M, Chevron and Dow Chemical.
Many of its numerous news releases attacking
"junk science" made no mention of tobacco
whatsoever.
It
objected to government guidelines for asbestos abatement; said the
"dioxin
scare" in Times Beach, Missouri was a tempest in a
teapot; scoffed
at the need for an EPA Superfund cleanup in Aspen, Colorado;
dismissed
reports of health effects related to use of the Norplant
contraceptive;
denounced the Clean Water Act; and orchestrated a
letter-writing campaign
to oppose any government action aimed at limiting industrial
activities
linked to global warming.
Trash Talk With the
Junkman
In February 1994, APCO vice president Neal
Cohen made the mistake of boasting candidly about some of the
sneaky tactics
his company uses to set up front groups. His remarks were
made at a
conference of the Public Affairs Council (PAC), an exclusive
association of top-ranking
lobbyists and PR people. New York Times political
reporter Jane
Fritsch later used his remarks as the basis for a March 1996
article titled
"Sometimes Lobbyists Strive to Keep Public in the
Dark."
Shortly after APCO suffered this embarrassment,
the responsibility for managing TASSC was quietly transferred
to the EOP
Group,
a well-connected, Washington-based lobby firm
whose clients have
included the American Crop Protection Association (the
chief trade association
of the pesticide industry), the American Petroleum Institute,
AT&T,
the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Dow
Chemical
Company, Edison Electric Institute (nuclear power), Fort
Howard Corp.
(a paper manufacturer), International Food Additives Council,
Monsanto
Co., National Mining Association, and the Nuclear Energy
Institute.
In March 1997, EOP lobbyist Steven Milloy,
described in a TASSC news release as "a nationally
known expert and
author on environmental risk and regulatory policy
issues," became
TASSC's executive director. "Steven brings not only a
deep and strong
academic and professional background to TASSC, but he brings
an equally
deep, strong and passionate commitment to the principle of
using sound
science in making public policy decisions," said Garrey
Carruthers.
"The issue of junk science has become the topic of
network news specials,
major articles in newspapers, and a key topic in Congress and
legislatures
around the country. I look forward to working with Steven
to continue
to drive home the need for sound science in public policy
making."
Although the news release referred to Milloy's
work "over the last six years" on
"environmental and regulatory
policy issues," it did not mention that he had worked
specifically
for the tobacco industry.
During 1992 Milloy worked for James Tozzi at
Multinational Business Services. Tozzi, a former career
bureaucrat at
the U.S. Office of Management and Budget who had spearheaded
the Reagan-era
OMB campaign to gut environmental regulations,
is
described in internal
Philip Morris documents as the company's "primary contact
on the
EPA/ETS risk assessment during the second half of 1992."
During that
period, it noted, "Tozzi has been invaluable in executing
our Washington
efforts including generating technical briefing papers,
numerous letters
to agencies and media interviews," a service for which
Philip Morris
paid an estimated $300,000 in consulting fees.
Philip Morris also paid Tozzi's company another
$880,000 to establish a "nonprofit" think-tank
called the Institute
for Regulatory Policy (IRP). On behalf of Philip Morris, the
IRP put together
"three different coalitions which support sound
science--Coalition
for Executive Order, Coalition for Moratorium on Risk
Assessments, and
Coalition of Cities and States on Environmental Mandates. . .
. IRP could
work with us as well as APCO in a coordinated manner,"
PM's Boland
and Borelli had noted in February 1993.
After leaving
Tozzi's service, Milloy
became president of his own organization called the
"Regulatory Impact Analysis
environmental risks are so small or indistinguishable that their
existence cannot be
proven." Shortly thereafter, he launched the "Junk
Science Home
Page." Calling himself "the Junkman," he offered
daily attacks on
environmentalists, public health and food safety regulators,
anti-nuclear and animal rights
activists, and a wide range of other targets that he accused of using
unsound science to
advance various political agendas.
Milloy was also
active in defense of the
tobacco industry, particularly in regard to the issue of
environmental tobacco smoke. He
dismissed the EPA's 1993 report linking secondhand smoke to cancer
as "a
joke,"
and when the British Medical Journal
published its own
study with similar results in 1997, he scoffed that "it remains a
joke today."
After one researcher published a study linking secondhand smoke to
cancer, Milloy wrote that
she "must have pictures of journal editors in compromising
positions with farm
animals. How else can you explain her studies seeing the light
of day?"
In
August 1997, the New York Times reported that Milloy was one
of the paid
speakers at a Miami briefing for foreign reporters sponsored by the
British-American Tobacco
Company, whose Brown & Williamson unit makes popular cigarettes
like Kool, Carlton and
Lucky Strike. At the briefing, which was off-limits to U.S.
journalists, the company
flew in dozens of reporters from countries including Brazil,
Argentina, Chile and Peru and paid
for their hotel rooms and expensive meals while the reporters sat
through presentations
that ridiculed "lawsuit-driven societies like the United
States" for using
"unsound science" to raise questions about
"infinitesimal, if not
hypothetical, risks" related to inhaling a "whiff"
of tobacco
smoke.
The Legacy
In 1999, University of
Pennsylvania
professor Edward S. Herman surveyed 258 articles in mainstream
newspapers that used the
term "junk science" during the years 1996 through 1998.
Only 8 percent of the
articles used the term in reference to corporate-manipulated
science. By contrast, 62
percent used the term "junk science" in reference to
scientific arguments used by
environmentalists, other corporate critics, or personal-injury
lawyers engaged in suing
corporations.
"What's starting to happen is that this
term, 'junk science,' is
being thrown around all the time," says Lucinda Finley, a law
professor from the State
University of New York at Buffalo who specializes in product
liability and women's health.
"People are calling scientists who disagree with them
purveyors of 'junk.' But
what we're really talking about is a very normal process of scientific
disagreement and
give-and-take. Calling someone a 'junk scientist' is just a way of
shutting them
up."
Like other corporate-funded front groups, the
organizations that
flack for sound science are sometimes fly-by-night organizations.
Called into existence
for a particular cause or legislative lobby campaign, they often dry
up and blow away once the
campaign is over. The tendency of groups to appear and
disappear creates another
form of camouflage, making it difficult for journalists and
everyday citizens to sort out
the bewildering proliferation of names and acronyms.
This was
indeed what
happened with The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, which was
quietly retired in
late 1998. Its legacy, however, continues. Dozens, if not hundreds,
of industry-funded
organizations and conservative think tanks continue to wave the sound
science banner. Milloy's
Junk Science Home Page remains active, claiming sponsorship from
"Citizens for the
Integrity of Science," about which no further information is
publicly available.
The tone of the Junk Science Home Page appears
calculated to lower rather
than elevate scientific discourse. That tone is particularly
notable in its 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 (her implied motive for writing the
book), and refers to
Dianne Dumanoski as "Dianne Dumb-as-an-oxski."
Casual
visitors to
Milloy's Junk Science Home Page might be tempted to dismiss him as
merely an obnoxious
adolescent with a website. They would be surprised to discover
that he is a
well-connected fixture in conservative Washington policy circles.
He currently holds the
title of "adjunct scholar" at the libertarian Cato
Institute, which was rated the
fourth most influential think tank in Washington, DC in a 1999
survey of congressional
staffers and journalists.
Milloy is also highly visible on the
internet. In addition to
publishing the Junk Science Home Page and a website for the
campaign,
Milloy also
operates a "Consumer Distorts" website devoted to
attacking Consumers
Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, which
Milloy accuses of
socialism, sensationalism, and "scaring consumers away from
products."
-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 26, 2001.
Flack Attack
The Usual Suspects: Industry Hacks Turn Fear on its Head
How
Big Tobacco Helped
Create the Junkman
Tobacco's Secondhand Science of Smoke-Filled
Rooms
Readers Invited to Trust Us, We're Experts
PR Watch is a
publication of the Center for
Media Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 310
Madison, WI
53703
phone:
(608) 260-9713
fax: 608-260-9714
editor@prwatch.org Steven
Milloy describes
himself as the publisher of the Junk
Science Home Page and an adjunct scholar at the Cato
Institute. "Milloy appears
frequently on radio and television; has testified on risk assessment
and Superfund before the
U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous organizations,"
it adds, noting that he
has also "written articles that have appeared in the New York
Post, USA Today,
Washington Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, and the Investors'
Business
Daily."
These facts are all accurate as far they go,
but they say nothing
about how Milloy came to be a prominent debunker of "junk
science." This omission
is undoubtedly by design, because it would certainly be embarrassing
to admit that a
self-proclaimed scientific reformer got his start as a
behind-the-scenes lobbyist for the
tobacco industry, which has arguably done more to corrupt science
than any other industry
in history.
Early in his career, Milloy worked for a company
called Multinational
Business Services, a Washington lobby shop that Philip Morris
described as its "primary
contact" on the issue of secondhand cigarette smoke in the early
1990s. Later, he became
executive director of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
(TASSC), an organization
that was covertly created by Philip Morris for the express purpose
of generating scientific
controversy regarding the link between secondhand smoke and
cancer.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/whitecoat.gif
One of the
forerunners
of TASSC at Philip Morris was a 1988 "Proposal for the Whitecoat
Project," named
after the white laboratory coats that scientists sometimes wear. The
project had four goals:
"Resist and roll back smoking restrictions. Restore smoker
confidence. Reverse scientific
and popular misconception that ETS is harmful. Restore social
acceptability of
smoking."To achieve these goals, the plan was to
first
"generate a body of scientific and technical
knowledge" through research
"undertaken by whitecoats, contract laboratories and commercial
organizations"
then "disseminate and exploit such knowledge through specific
communication
programs." Covington & Burling, PM's law firm, would
function as the executive
arm of the Whitecoat Project, acting as a "legal buffer . . . the
interface with the operating
units (whitecoats, laboratories, etc.)."
The effort
to create a scientific
defense for secondhand smoke was only one component in the tobacco
industry's
multi-million-dollar PR campaign. To defeat cigarette excise taxes, a
Philip Morris strategy
document outlined plans for "Co-op efforts with third
party tax
organizations"--libertarian anti-taxation think tanks, such as
Americans for Tax Reform,
Citizens for a Sound Economy, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Tax
Foundation. Other third party
allies included the National Journalism Center, the
Heartland Institute, the Claremont Institute, and National
Empowerment Television, a
conservative TV network.
In one memo to Philip Morris CEO
Michael A. Miles,
vice president Craig L. Fuller noted that he was "working with
many third party allies to
develop position papers, op-eds and letters to the editor detailing
how tobacco is already one
of the most heavily regulated products in the marketplace, and
derailing arguments against
proposed bans on tobacco advertising."
Through the PR
firm of
Burson-Marsteller, Philip Morris also created the
"National Smoker's
Alliance," a supposedly independent organization of individual
smokers which
claimed that bans on smoking in public places infringed on basic
American freedoms. The
NSA was a "grassroots" version of the third party
technique,
designed to create the impression of a citizen groundswell against
smoking restrictions.
Burson-Marsteller spent millions of dollars of tobacco industry
money to get the
NSA up and running--buying full-page newspaper ads, hiring paid
canvassers and
telemarketers, setting up a toll-free 800 number, and publishing
newsletters and other folksy
"grassroots" materials to mobilize the puffing masses.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/empower.gifThe NSA's
stated
mission was to "empower" smokers to reclaim their
rights--although,
behind closed doors, industry executives fretted that they didn't want
this rhetoric to go too
far. They were well aware of opinion polls showing that 70 percent of
all adult smokers wish
they could kick the habit. "The issue of 'empowerment of
smokers' was viewed as
somewhat dangerous," stated a tobacco strategy document.
"We don't want to
'empower' them to the point that they'll quit."
The
purpose of
TASSC, as described in a memo from APCO's Tom Hockaday and Neal
Cohen, was to
"link the tobacco issue with other more 'politically
correct'
products"--in other words, to make the case that efforts
to regulate tobacco
were based on the same "junk science" as efforts to
regulate food additives,
automobile emissions and other industrial products that had not
yet achieved tobacco's
pariah status.
"The credibility of EPA is
defeatable, but not on
the basis of ETS alone," stated a Philip Morris strategy
document. "It must be part of
a larger mosaic that concentrates all of the EPA's enemies
against it at one
time."
Originally dubbed the " Restoring Integrity to
Science Coalition,"
the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was later renamed to
resemble the venerable
American Association for the Advancement of Science. After APCO's
planners realized
that the resulting acronym was not terribly flattering--ASSC, or
worse, the ASS Coalition--they
began putting a capitalized article "the" at the beginning
of the name, and TASSC
was born, a "national coalition intended to educate the
media, public officials and
the public about the dangers of 'junk science.' "
In
September 1993, APCO
President Margery Kraus sent a memo to Philip Morris Communications
Director Vic Han.
"We look forward to the successful launching of TASSC this
fall," she stated.
"We believe the groundwork we conduct to complete the launch will
enable TASSC to
expand and assist Philip Morris in its efforts with issues in targeted
states in 1994."
APCO's work would focus on expanding TASSC's membership, finding
outside money
to help conceal the role of Philip Morris as its primary funder,
compiling a litany of
"additional examples of unsound science," and
"coordinating and directing
outreach to the scientific and academic
communities."
APCO would also
direct and manage former New Mexico governor Garrey Carruthers,
who had been hired
as TASSC's spokesman. "This includes developing and maintaining
his schedule,
prioritizing his time and energies, and briefing Carruthers and other
appropriate TASSC
representatives," Kraus wrote, outlining a "comprehensive
media relations
strategy" designed to "maximize the use of TASSC and
its members into
Philip Morris's issues in targeted states. . . . This includes using
TASSC as a tool in targeted
legislative battles."
included publishing a monthly
newsletter, frequent
news releases, drafting "boilerplate" speeches and op-ed
pieces to be used by
TASSC representatives, and placing articles in various trade
publications to help recruit
members from the agriculture, chemical, biotechnology and food
additive industries. In
addition to APCO's monthly fee, $5,000 per month was budgeted "to
compensate Garrey
Carruthers." Considerable effort was expended to
conceal the fact that
TASSC was created and funded by Philip Morris. APCO recommended
that TASSC first
be introduced to the public through a "decentralized launch
outside the large
markets of Washington, DC and New York" in order to
"avoid cynical
reporters from major media."
"Increasingly today, one can find examples of junk science that
compromise the integrity
of the field of science and, at the same time, create a scare
environment where unnecessary
regulations on industry in general, and on the consumer products
industry in particular, are
rammed through without respect to rhyme, reason, effect or
cause."
--Michael A. Miles, former CEO of the
Philip Morris tobacco
company In smaller markets, APCO
reasoned, there
would be "less reviewing/challenging of TASSC
messages." Also, a
decentralized launch would "limit potential for counterattack.
The opponents of
TASSC tend to concentrate their efforts in top markets while
skipping the secondary markets.
This approach sends TASSC's message initially into these more
receptive markets--and
enables us to build upon early successes."The plan included a
barnstorming media
tour by Garrey Carruthers of these secondary markets. "APCO
will arrange
on-the-ground visits with three to four reporters in each city. These
interviews, using TASSC's
trained spokespeople, third-party allies (e.g., authors of books on
unsound science), members
of the TASSC Science Board, and/or Governor Carruthers, will be
scheduled for a one to
two day media tour in each city." To set up the
interviews, APCO used
a list of sympathetic reporters provided by John Boltz, a manager of
media affairs at Philip
Morris. "We thought it best to remove any possible link
to PM, thus Boltz
is not making the calls," noted Philip Morris public affairs
director Jack Lenzi. "With
regard to media inquiries to PM about TASSC, I am putting together
some Q and A. We will
not deny being a corporate member/sponsor, will not specify dollars,
and will refer them
to the TASSC '800-' number, being manned by David Sheon
(APCO)."
Other
plans, developed later, included creation of a TASSC internet page
that could be used to
"broadly distribute published studies/papers favorable to
smoking/ETS debate"
and "release PM authored papers . . . on ETS science and bad
science/bad public
policy."
Carruthers began his media tour in December,
with stopovers in
cities including San Diego, Dallas and Denver. News releases sent
out in advance of each
stop described TASSC as a "grassroots-based, not-for-profit
watchdog group of scientists
and representatives from universities, independent organizations and
industry, that advocates
the use of sound science in the public policy arena." As
examples of unsound
science, it pointed to the asbestos abatement guidelines, the
"dioxin scare" in
Times Beach, Missouri, and "unprecedented regulations to limit
radon levels in drinking
water."
In Texas, local TASSC recruits involved in
the launch included
Dr. Margaret Maxey and Floy Lilley, both of the University of Texas.
"The Clean Air Act is a
perfect example of laboratory science being superficially applied to
reality," Lilley said.
Carruthers took the opportunity to inveigh against politicized
uses of science by
the Environmental Protection Agency "to make science
'fit' with the
political leanings of special interests." EPA's
studies, he complained,
"are frequently carried out without the benefit of peer
review or
quality assurance."
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/lie.gif
In Denver, Carruthers
told a local radio station that the public has been
"shafted by shoddy
science, and it has cost consumers and government a good deal
of money."
When asked who was financing TASSC, Carruthers sidestepped the
question.
"We don't want to be caught being a crusader for a single
industry,"
he said. "We're not out here defending the chemical
industry; we're
not out here defending the automobile industry, or the
petroleum industry,
or the tobacco industry; we're here just to ensure that
sound science
is used."
Virtually every news release made some reference
to the so-called "Alar scare," in which consumers
mobilized
to stop apple growers from using the pesticide Alar. The U.S.
EPA has
classified Alar as a "probable carcinogen," and
subsequent reports
from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Public Health
Service
had concurred with that judgment. Pro-industry groups continue
to defend
the chemical, however, as does former U.S. Surgeon General C.
Everett
Koop.
In its news releases, TASSC made a point of
invoking Koop's name whenever possible. In an
"advertorial"
titled "Science: A Tool, Not a Weapon," TASSC noted
that "respected
experts, including then-Surgeon General C. Everett Koop,
said the scientific
evidence showed no likelihood of harm from Alar. . . .
This is not an
isolated case of bad science being used by policymakers,"
it added.
"It's happened regarding asbestos, dioxin and toxic
waste. . . .
It's happening in the debate over environmental tobacco
smoke, or second-hand
smoke. The studies done so far on the topic do not demonstrate
evidence that
second-hand smoke causes cancer, even though that is the popular
wisdom."
To the casual reader, it would almost appear as if Dr. Koop
were a defender of
environmental tobacco smoke, rather than one of its most prominent
public
critics.
EuroTASSC
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/tassc_budget.gif
In
1994, Philip Morris
budgeted $880,000 in funding for TASSC. In consultation with
APCO and
Burson-Marsteller, the company began planning to set up a second,
European organization,
tentatively named "Scientists for Sound Public
Policy" (later renamed the
European Science and Environment Forum). Like TASSC, the
European organization
would attempt to smuggle tobacco advocacy into a larger bundle of
"sound
science" issues, including the "ban on growth hormone for
livestock; ban on
[genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone] to improve milk
production; pesticide
restrictions; ban on indoor smoking; restrictions on use of chlorine;
ban on certain
pharmaceutical products; restrictions on the use of
biotechnology."
The public and policymakers needed to be
"educated,"
Burson-Marsteller explained, because "political
decision-makers are vulnerable to
activists' emotional appeals and press campaigns. . . . The
precautionary principle
is now the accepted guideline. Even if a hypothesis is not 100
percent scientifically proven,
action should be taken, e.g. global warming."
Companies that B-M
thought could be recruited to support the European endeavor would
include makers of
"consumer products (food, beverages, tobacco), packaging
industry, agrichemical
industry, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, biotech
industry, electric power industry,
telecommunications."
A turf war broke out between
Burson-Marsteller
and APCO over the question of which PR firm should handle the
European campaign. Jim
Lindheim of Burson-Marsteller laid claim to the account by stressing
his firm's
already-proven expertise at defending tobacco science in
Europe. "We have the
network, much of which is already sensitized to PM's special
needs," he stated. "We
have a lot of experience in every country working with scientists. .
. . We've got a large
client base with 'scientific problems' whom we can tap for
sponsorship."
APCO's Margery Kraus responded by reminding Philip Morris
regulatory affairs director
Matthew Winokur that Burson-Marsteller's long history of tobacco
industry work was public
knowledge and therefore might taint the endeavor.
"
Given the
sensitivities of other TASSC activities and a previous decision
not to have TASSC work
directly with Burson, due to these sensitivities in other TASSC work,
I did not feel comfortable
having Steig or anyone else from Burson assume primary responsibility
for working with TASSC
scientists," Kraus stated. As for experience handling
"scientific problems," she
pointed to her parent company's work for "the following
industries impacted by
science and environmental policy decisions: chemical, pharmaceutical,
nuclear, waste
management and motor industries, power generation, biotech products,
packaging and
detergents, and paint. They have advised clients on a
number of issues,
including: agricultural manufacturing, animal testing,
chlorine, dioxins,
toxic waste, ozone/CFCs, power generation, coastal pollution,
lead in
gasoline, polyurethanes, lubricants."
TASSC was designed to appear outwardly like
a broad coalition of scientists from multiple disciplines.
The other industries
and interests--biotech, chemical, toxic waste, coastal
pollution, lubricants--served
as protective camouflage, concealing the tobacco money that
was at the
heart of the endeavor. TASSC signed up support from
corporate executives
at Santa Fe Pacific Gold Corporation, Procter & Gamble,
the Louisiana
Chemical Association, the National Pest Control Association,
General Motors,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Exxon, W.R. Grace
& Co., Amoco,
Occidental Petroleum, 3M, Chevron and Dow Chemical.
Many of its numerous news releases attacking
"junk science" made no mention of tobacco
whatsoever.
It
objected to government guidelines for asbestos abatement; said the
"dioxin
scare" in Times Beach, Missouri was a tempest in a
teapot; scoffed
at the need for an EPA Superfund cleanup in Aspen, Colorado;
dismissed
reports of health effects related to use of the Norplant
contraceptive;
denounced the Clean Water Act; and orchestrated a
letter-writing campaign
to oppose any government action aimed at limiting industrial
activities
linked to global warming.
Trash Talk With the
Junkman
In February 1994, APCO vice president Neal
Cohen made the mistake of boasting candidly about some of the
sneaky tactics
his company uses to set up front groups. His remarks were
made at a
conference of the Public Affairs Council (PAC), an exclusive
association of top-ranking
lobbyists and PR people. New York Times political
reporter Jane
Fritsch later used his remarks as the basis for a March 1996
article titled
"Sometimes Lobbyists Strive to Keep Public in the
Dark."
Shortly after APCO suffered this embarrassment,
the responsibility for managing TASSC was quietly transferred
to the EOP
Group,
a well-connected, Washington-based lobby firm
whose clients have
included the American Crop Protection Association (the
chief trade association
of the pesticide industry), the American Petroleum Institute,
AT&T,
the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Dow
Chemical
Company, Edison Electric Institute (nuclear power), Fort
Howard Corp.
(a paper manufacturer), International Food Additives Council,
Monsanto
Co., National Mining Association, and the Nuclear Energy
Institute.
In March 1997, EOP lobbyist Steven Milloy,
described in a TASSC news release as "a nationally
known expert and
author on environmental risk and regulatory policy
issues," became
TASSC's executive director. "Steven brings not only a
deep and strong
academic and professional background to TASSC, but he brings
an equally
deep, strong and passionate commitment to the principle of
using sound
science in making public policy decisions," said Garrey
Carruthers.
"The issue of junk science has become the topic of
network news specials,
major articles in newspapers, and a key topic in Congress and
legislatures
around the country. I look forward to working with Steven
to continue
to drive home the need for sound science in public policy
making."
Although the news release referred to Milloy's
work "over the last six years" on
"environmental and regulatory
policy issues," it did not mention that he had worked
specifically
for the tobacco industry.
During 1992 Milloy worked for James Tozzi at
Multinational Business Services. Tozzi, a former career
bureaucrat at
the U.S. Office of Management and Budget who had spearheaded
the Reagan-era
OMB campaign to gut environmental regulations,
is
described in internal
Philip Morris documents as the company's "primary contact
on the
EPA/ETS risk assessment during the second half of 1992."
During that
period, it noted, "Tozzi has been invaluable in executing
our Washington
efforts including generating technical briefing papers,
numerous letters
to agencies and media interviews," a service for which
Philip Morris
paid an estimated $300,000 in consulting fees.
Philip Morris also paid Tozzi's company another
$880,000 to establish a "nonprofit" think-tank
called the Institute
for Regulatory Policy (IRP). On behalf of Philip Morris, the
IRP put together
"three different coalitions which support sound
science--Coalition
for Executive Order, Coalition for Moratorium on Risk
Assessments, and
Coalition of Cities and States on Environmental Mandates. . .
. IRP could
work with us as well as APCO in a coordinated manner,"
PM's Boland
and Borelli had noted in February 1993.
After leaving
Tozzi's service, Milloy
became president of his own organization called the
"Regulatory Impact Analysis
environmental risks are so small or indistinguishable that their
existence cannot be
proven." Shortly thereafter, he launched the "Junk
Science Home
Page." Calling himself "the Junkman," he offered
daily attacks on
environmentalists, public health and food safety regulators,
anti-nuclear and animal rights
activists, and a wide range of other targets that he accused of using
unsound science to
advance various political agendas.
Milloy was also
active in defense of the
tobacco industry, particularly in regard to the issue of
environmental tobacco smoke. He
dismissed the EPA's 1993 report linking secondhand smoke to cancer
as "a
joke,"
and when the British Medical Journal
published its own
study with similar results in 1997, he scoffed that "it remains a
joke today."
After one researcher published a study linking secondhand smoke to
cancer, Milloy wrote that
she "must have pictures of journal editors in compromising
positions with farm
animals. How else can you explain her studies seeing the light
of day?"
In
August 1997, the New York Times reported that Milloy was one
of the paid
speakers at a Miami briefing for foreign reporters sponsored by the
British-American Tobacco
Company, whose Brown & Williamson unit makes popular cigarettes
like Kool, Carlton and
Lucky Strike. At the briefing, which was off-limits to U.S.
journalists, the company
flew in dozens of reporters from countries including Brazil,
Argentina, Chile and Peru and paid
for their hotel rooms and expensive meals while the reporters sat
through presentations
that ridiculed "lawsuit-driven societies like the United
States" for using
"unsound science" to raise questions about
"infinitesimal, if not
hypothetical, risks" related to inhaling a "whiff"
of tobacco
smoke.
The Legacy
In 1999, University of
Pennsylvania
professor Edward S. Herman surveyed 258 articles in mainstream
newspapers that used the
term "junk science" during the years 1996 through 1998.
Only 8 percent of the
articles used the term in reference to corporate-manipulated
science. By contrast, 62
percent used the term "junk science" in reference to
scientific arguments used by
environmentalists, other corporate critics, or personal-injury
lawyers engaged in suing
corporations.
"What's starting to happen is that this
term, 'junk science,' is
being thrown around all the time," says Lucinda Finley, a law
professor from the State
University of New York at Buffalo who specializes in product
liability and women's health.
"People are calling scientists who disagree with them
purveyors of 'junk.' But
what we're really talking about is a very normal process of scientific
disagreement and
give-and-take. Calling someone a 'junk scientist' is just a way of
shutting them
up."
Like other corporate-funded front groups, the
organizations that
flack for sound science are sometimes fly-by-night organizations.
Called into existence
for a particular cause or legislative lobby campaign, they often dry
up and blow away once the
campaign is over. The tendency of groups to appear and
disappear creates another
form of camouflage, making it difficult for journalists and
everyday citizens to sort out
the bewildering proliferation of names and acronyms.
This was
indeed what
happened with The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, which was
quietly retired in
late 1998. Its legacy, however, continues. Dozens, if not hundreds,
of industry-funded
organizations and conservative think tanks continue to wave the sound
science banner. Milloy's
Junk Science Home Page remains active, claiming sponsorship from
"Citizens for the
Integrity of Science," about which no further information is
publicly available.
The tone of the Junk Science Home Page appears
calculated to lower rather
than elevate scientific discourse. That tone is particularly
notable in its 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 (her implied motive for writing the
book), and refers to
Dianne Dumanoski as "Dianne Dumb-as-an-oxski."
Casual
visitors to
Milloy's Junk Science Home Page might be tempted to dismiss him as
merely an obnoxious
adolescent with a website. They would be surprised to discover
that he is a
well-connected fixture in conservative Washington policy circles.
He currently holds the
title of "adjunct scholar" at the libertarian Cato
Institute, which was rated the
fourth most influential think tank in Washington, DC in a 1999
survey of congressional
staffers and journalists.
Milloy is also highly visible on the
internet. In addition to
publishing the Junk Science Home Page and a website for the
campaign,
Milloy also
operates a "Consumer Distorts" website devoted to
attacking Consumers
Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, which
Milloy accuses of
socialism, sensationalism, and "scaring consumers away from
products."
-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 26, 2001.
Flack Attack
The Usual Suspects: Industry Hacks Turn Fear on its Head
How
Big Tobacco Helped
Create the Junkman
Tobacco's Secondhand Science of Smoke-Filled
Rooms
Readers Invited to Trust Us, We're Experts
PR Watch is a
publication of the Center for
Media Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 310
Madison, WI
53703
phone:
(608) 260-9713
fax: 608-260-9714
editor@prwatch.org Steven
Milloy describes
himself as the publisher of the Junk
Science Home Page and an adjunct scholar at the Cato
Institute. "Milloy appears
frequently on radio and television; has testified on risk assessment
and Superfund before the
U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous organizations,"
it adds, noting that he
has also "written articles that have appeared in the New York
Post, USA Today,
Washington Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, and the Investors'
Business
Daily."
These facts are all accurate as far they go,
but they say nothing
about how Milloy came to be a prominent debunker of "junk
science." This omission
is undoubtedly by design, because it would certainly be embarrassing
to admit that a
self-proclaimed scientific reformer got his start as a
behind-the-scenes lobbyist for the
tobacco industry, which has arguably done more to corrupt science
than any other industry
in history.
Early in his career, Milloy worked for a company
called Multinational
Business Services, a Washington lobby shop that Philip Morris
described as its "primary
contact" on the issue of secondhand cigarette smoke in the early
1990s. Later, he became
executive director of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
(TASSC), an organization
that was covertly created by Philip Morris for the express purpose
of generating scientific
controversy regarding the link between secondhand smoke and
cancer.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/whitecoat.gif
One of the
forerunners
of TASSC at Philip Morris was a 1988 "Proposal for the Whitecoat
Project," named
after the white laboratory coats that scientists sometimes wear. The
project had four goals:
"Resist and roll back smoking restrictions. Restore smoker
confidence. Reverse scientific
and popular misconception that ETS is harmful. Restore social
acceptability of
smoking."To achieve these goals, the plan was to
first
"generate a body of scientific and technical
knowledge" through research
"undertaken by whitecoats, contract laboratories and commercial
organizations"
then "disseminate and exploit such knowledge through specific
communication
programs." Covington & Burling, PM's law firm, would
function as the executive
arm of the Whitecoat Project, acting as a "legal buffer . . . the
interface with the operating
units (whitecoats, laboratories, etc.)."
The effort
to create a scientific
defense for secondhand smoke was only one component in the tobacco
industry's
multi-million-dollar PR campaign. To defeat cigarette excise taxes, a
Philip Morris strategy
document outlined plans for "Co-op efforts with third
party tax
organizations"--libertarian anti-taxation think tanks, such as
Americans for Tax Reform,
Citizens for a Sound Economy, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Tax
Foundation. Other third party
allies included the National Journalism Center, the
Heartland Institute, the Claremont Institute, and National
Empowerment Television, a
conservative TV network.
In one memo to Philip Morris CEO
Michael A. Miles,
vice president Craig L. Fuller noted that he was "working with
many third party allies to
develop position papers, op-eds and letters to the editor detailing
how tobacco is already one
of the most heavily regulated products in the marketplace, and
derailing arguments against
proposed bans on tobacco advertising."
Through the PR
firm of
Burson-Marsteller, Philip Morris also created the
"National Smoker's
Alliance," a supposedly independent organization of individual
smokers which
claimed that bans on smoking in public places infringed on basic
American freedoms. The
NSA was a "grassroots" version of the third party
technique,
designed to create the impression of a citizen groundswell against
smoking restrictions.
Burson-Marsteller spent millions of dollars of tobacco industry
money to get the
NSA up and running--buying full-page newspaper ads, hiring paid
canvassers and
telemarketers, setting up a toll-free 800 number, and publishing
newsletters and other folksy
"grassroots" materials to mobilize the puffing masses.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/empower.gifThe NSA's
stated
mission was to "empower" smokers to reclaim their
rights--although,
behind closed doors, industry executives fretted that they didn't want
this rhetoric to go too
far. They were well aware of opinion polls showing that 70 percent of
all adult smokers wish
they could kick the habit. "The issue of 'empowerment of
smokers' was viewed as
somewhat dangerous," stated a tobacco strategy document.
"We don't want to
'empower' them to the point that they'll quit."
The
purpose of
TASSC, as described in a memo from APCO's Tom Hockaday and Neal
Cohen, was to
"link the tobacco issue with other more 'politically
correct'
products"--in other words, to make the case that efforts
to regulate tobacco
were based on the same "junk science" as efforts to
regulate food additives,
automobile emissions and other industrial products that had not
yet achieved tobacco's
pariah status.
"The credibility of EPA is
defeatable, but not on
the basis of ETS alone," stated a Philip Morris strategy
document. "It must be part of
a larger mosaic that concentrates all of the EPA's enemies
against it at one
time."
Originally dubbed the " Restoring Integrity to
Science Coalition,"
the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was later renamed to
resemble the venerable
American Association for the Advancement of Science. After APCO's
planners realized
that the resulting acronym was not terribly flattering--ASSC, or
worse, the ASS Coalition--they
began putting a capitalized article "the" at the beginning
of the name, and TASSC
was born, a "national coalition intended to educate the
media, public officials and
the public about the dangers of 'junk science.' "
In
September 1993, APCO
President Margery Kraus sent a memo to Philip Morris Communications
Director Vic Han.
"We look forward to the successful launching of TASSC this
fall," she stated.
"We believe the groundwork we conduct to complete the launch will
enable TASSC to
expand and assist Philip Morris in its efforts with issues in targeted
states in 1994."
APCO's work would focus on expanding TASSC's membership, finding
outside money
to help conceal the role of Philip Morris as its primary funder,
compiling a litany of
"additional examples of unsound science," and
"coordinating and directing
outreach to the scientific and academic
communities."
APCO would also
direct and manage former New Mexico governor Garrey Carruthers,
who had been hired
as TASSC's spokesman. "This includes developing and maintaining
his schedule,
prioritizing his time and energies, and briefing Carruthers and other
appropriate TASSC
representatives," Kraus wrote, outlining a "comprehensive
media relations
strategy" designed to "maximize the use of TASSC and
its members into
Philip Morris's issues in targeted states. . . . This includes using
TASSC as a tool in targeted
legislative battles."
included publishing a monthly
newsletter, frequent
news releases, drafting "boilerplate" speeches and op-ed
pieces to be used by
TASSC representatives, and placing articles in various trade
publications to help recruit
members from the agriculture, chemical, biotechnology and food
additive industries. In
addition to APCO's monthly fee, $5,000 per month was budgeted "to
compensate Garrey
Carruthers." Considerable effort was expended to
conceal the fact that
TASSC was created and funded by Philip Morris. APCO recommended
that TASSC first
be introduced to the public through a "decentralized launch
outside the large
markets of Washington, DC and New York" in order to
"avoid cynical
reporters from major media."
"Increasingly today, one can find examples of junk science that
compromise the integrity
of the field of science and, at the same time, create a scare
environment where unnecessary
regulations on industry in general, and on the consumer products
industry in particular, are
rammed through without respect to rhyme, reason, effect or
cause."
--Michael A. Miles, former CEO of the
Philip Morris tobacco
company In smaller markets, APCO
reasoned, there
would be "less reviewing/challenging of TASSC
messages." Also, a
decentralized launch would "limit potential for counterattack.
The opponents of
TASSC tend to concentrate their efforts in top markets while
skipping the secondary markets.
This approach sends TASSC's message initially into these more
receptive markets--and
enables us to build upon early successes."The plan included a
barnstorming media
tour by Garrey Carruthers of these secondary markets. "APCO
will arrange
on-the-ground visits with three to four reporters in each city. These
interviews, using TASSC's
trained spokespeople, third-party allies (e.g., authors of books on
unsound science), members
of the TASSC Science Board, and/or Governor Carruthers, will be
scheduled for a one to
two day media tour in each city." To set up the
interviews, APCO used
a list of sympathetic reporters provided by John Boltz, a manager of
media affairs at Philip
Morris. "We thought it best to remove any possible link
to PM, thus Boltz
is not making the calls," noted Philip Morris public affairs
director Jack Lenzi. "With
regard to media inquiries to PM about TASSC, I am putting together
some Q and A. We will
not deny being a corporate member/sponsor, will not specify dollars,
and will refer them
to the TASSC '800-' number, being manned by David Sheon
(APCO)."
Other
plans, developed later, included creation of a TASSC internet page
that could be used to
"broadly distribute published studies/papers favorable to
smoking/ETS debate"
and "release PM authored papers . . . on ETS science and bad
science/bad public
policy."
Carruthers began his media tour in December,
with stopovers in
cities including San Diego, Dallas and Denver. News releases sent
out in advance of each
stop described TASSC as a "grassroots-based, not-for-profit
watchdog group of scientists
and representatives from universities, independent organizations and
industry, that advocates
the use of sound science in the public policy arena." As
examples of unsound
science, it pointed to the asbestos abatement guidelines, the
"dioxin scare" in
Times Beach, Missouri, and "unprecedented regulations to limit
radon levels in drinking
water."
In Texas, local TASSC recruits involved in
the launch included
Dr. Margaret Maxey and Floy Lilley, both of the University of Texas.
"The Clean Air Act is a
perfect example of laboratory science being superficially applied to
reality," Lilley said.
Carruthers took the opportunity to inveigh against politicized
uses of science by
the Environmental Protection Agency "to make science
'fit' with the
political leanings of special interests." EPA's
studies, he complained,
"are frequently carried out without the benefit of peer
review or
quality assurance."
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/lie.gif
In Denver, Carruthers
told a local radio station that the public has been
"shafted by shoddy
science, and it has cost consumers and government a good deal
of money."
When asked who was financing TASSC, Carruthers sidestepped the
question.
"We don't want to be caught being a crusader for a single
industry,"
he said. "We're not out here defending the chemical
industry; we're
not out here defending the automobile industry, or the
petroleum industry,
or the tobacco industry; we're here just to ensure that
sound science
is used."
Virtually every news release made some reference
to the so-called "Alar scare," in which consumers
mobilized
to stop apple growers from using the pesticide Alar. The U.S.
EPA has
classified Alar as a "probable carcinogen," and
subsequent reports
from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Public Health
Service
had concurred with that judgment. Pro-industry groups continue
to defend
the chemical, however, as does former U.S. Surgeon General C.
Everett
Koop.
In its news releases, TASSC made a point of
invoking Koop's name whenever possible. In an
"advertorial"
titled "Science: A Tool, Not a Weapon," TASSC noted
that "respected
experts, including then-Surgeon General C. Everett Koop,
said the scientific
evidence showed no likelihood of harm from Alar. . . .
This is not an
isolated case of bad science being used by policymakers,"
it added.
"It's happened regarding asbestos, dioxin and toxic
waste. . . .
It's happening in the debate over environmental tobacco
smoke, or second-hand
smoke. The studies done so far on the topic do not demonstrate
evidence that
second-hand smoke causes cancer, even though that is the popular
wisdom."
To the casual reader, it would almost appear as if Dr. Koop
were a defender of
environmental tobacco smoke, rather than one of its most prominent
public
critics.
EuroTASSC
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/tassc_budget.gif
In
1994, Philip Morris
budgeted $880,000 in funding for TASSC. In consultation with
APCO and
Burson-Marsteller, the company began planning to set up a second,
European organization,
tentatively named "Scientists for Sound Public
Policy" (later renamed the
European Science and Environment Forum). Like TASSC, the
European organization
would attempt to smuggle tobacco advocacy into a larger bundle of
"sound
science" issues, including the "ban on growth hormone for
livestock; ban on
[genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone] to improve milk
production; pesticide
restrictions; ban on indoor smoking; restrictions on use of chlorine;
ban on certain
pharmaceutical products; restrictions on the use of
biotechnology."
The public and policymakers needed to be
"educated,"
Burson-Marsteller explained, because "political
decision-makers are vulnerable to
activists' emotional appeals and press campaigns. . . . The
precautionary principle
is now the accepted guideline. Even if a hypothesis is not 100
percent scientifically proven,
action should be taken, e.g. global warming."
Companies that B-M
thought could be recruited to support the European endeavor would
include makers of
"consumer products (food, beverages, tobacco), packaging
industry, agrichemical
industry, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, biotech
industry, electric power industry,
telecommunications."
A turf war broke out between
Burson-Marsteller
and APCO over the question of which PR firm should handle the
European campaign. Jim
Lindheim of Burson-Marsteller laid claim to the account by stressing
his firm's
already-proven expertise at defending tobacco science in
Europe. "We have the
network, much of which is already sensitized to PM's special
needs," he stated. "We
have a lot of experience in every country working with scientists. .
. . We've got a large
client base with 'scientific problems' whom we can tap for
sponsorship."
APCO's Margery Kraus responded by reminding Philip Morris
regulatory affairs director
Matthew Winokur that Burson-Marsteller's long history of tobacco
industry work was public
knowledge and therefore might taint the endeavor.
"
Given the
sensitivities of other TASSC activities and a previous decision
not to have TASSC work
directly with Burson, due to these sensitivities in other TASSC work,
I did not feel comfortable
having Steig or anyone else from Burson assume primary responsibility
for working with TASSC
scientists," Kraus stated. As for experience handling
"scientific problems," she
pointed to her parent company's work for "the following
industries impacted by
science and environmental policy decisions: chemical, pharmaceutical,
nuclear, waste
management and motor industries, power generation, biotech products,
packaging and
detergents, and paint. They have advised clients on a
number of issues,
including: agricultural manufacturing, animal testing,
chlorine, dioxins,
toxic waste, ozone/CFCs, power generation, coastal pollution,
lead in
gasoline, polyurethanes, lubricants."
TASSC was designed to appear outwardly like
a broad coalition of scientists from multiple disciplines.
The other industries
and interests--biotech, chemical, toxic waste, coastal
pollution, lubricants--served
as protective camouflage, concealing the tobacco money that
was at the
heart of the endeavor. TASSC signed up support from
corporate executives
at Santa Fe Pacific Gold Corporation, Procter & Gamble,
the Louisiana
Chemical Association, the National Pest Control Association,
General Motors,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Exxon, W.R. Grace
& Co., Amoco,
Occidental Petroleum, 3M, Chevron and Dow Chemical.
Many of its numerous news releases attacking
"junk science" made no mention of tobacco
whatsoever.
It
objected to government guidelines for asbestos abatement; said the
"dioxin
scare" in Times Beach, Missouri was a tempest in a
teapot; scoffed
at the need for an EPA Superfund cleanup in Aspen, Colorado;
dismissed
reports of health effects related to use of the Norplant
contraceptive;
denounced the Clean Water Act; and orchestrated a
letter-writing campaign
to oppose any government action aimed at limiting industrial
activities
linked to global warming.
Trash Talk With the
Junkman
In February 1994, APCO vice president Neal
Cohen made the mistake of boasting candidly about some of the
sneaky tactics
his company uses to set up front groups. His remarks were
made at a
conference of the Public Affairs Council (PAC), an exclusive
association of top-ranking
lobbyists and PR people. New York Times political
reporter Jane
Fritsch later used his remarks as the basis for a March 1996
article titled
"Sometimes Lobbyists Strive to Keep Public in the
Dark."
Shortly after APCO suffered this embarrassment,
the responsibility for managing TASSC was quietly transferred
to the EOP
Group,
a well-connected, Washington-based lobby
firm whose clients have
included the American Crop Protection Association (the
chief trade association
of the pesticide industry), the American Petroleum Institute,
AT&T,
the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Dow
Chemical
Company, Edison Electric Institute (nuclear power), Fort
Howard Corp.
(a paper manufacturer), International Food Additives Council,
Monsanto
Co., National Mining Association, and the Nuclear Energy
Institute.
In March 1997, EOP lobbyist Steven Milloy,
described in a TASSC news release as "a nationally
known expert and
author on environmental risk and regulatory policy
issues," became
TASSC's executive director. "Steven brings not only a
deep and strong
academic and professional background to TASSC, but he brings
an equally
deep, strong and passionate commitment to the principle of
using sound
science in making public policy decisions," said Garrey
Carruthers.
"The issue of junk science has become the topic of
network news specials,
major articles in newspapers, and a key topic in Congress and
legislatures
around the country. I look forward to working with
Steven to continue
to drive home the need for sound science in public policy
making."
Although the news release referred to Milloy's
work "over the last six years" on
"environmental and regulatory
policy issues," it did not mention that he had worked
specifically
for the tobacco industry.
During 1992 Milloy worked for James Tozzi at
Multinational Business Services. Tozzi, a former career
bureaucrat at
the U.S. Office of Management and Budget who had spearheaded
the Reagan-era
OMB campaign to gut environmental regulations,
is
described in internal
Philip Morris documents as the company's "primary contact
on the
EPA/ETS risk assessment during the second half of 1992."
During that
period, it noted, "Tozzi has been invaluable in executing
our Washington
efforts including generating technical briefing papers,
numerous letters
to agencies and media interviews," a service for which
Philip Morris
paid an estimated $300,000 in consulting fees.
Philip Morris also paid Tozzi's company another
$880,000 to establish a "nonprofit" think-tank
called the Institute
for Regulatory Policy (IRP). On behalf of Philip Morris, the
IRP put together
"three different coalitions which support sound
science--Coalition
for Executive Order, Coalition for Moratorium on Risk
Assessments, and
Coalition of Cities and States on Environmental Mandates. . .
. IRP could
work with us as well as APCO in a coordinated manner,"
PM's Boland
and Borelli had noted in February 1993.
After leaving
Tozzi's service, Milloy
became president of his own organization called the
"Regulatory Impact Analysis
environmental risks are so small or indistinguishable that their
existence cannot be
proven." Shortly thereafter, he launched the "Junk
Science Home
Page." Calling himself "the Junkman," he offered
daily attacks on
environmentalists, public health and food safety regulators,
anti-nuclear and animal rights
activists, and a wide range of other targets that he accused of using
unsound science to
advance various political agendas.
Milloy was also
active in defense of the
tobacco industry, particularly in regard to the issue of
environmental tobacco smoke. He
dismissed the EPA's 1993 report linking secondhand smoke to cancer
as "a
joke,"
and when the British Medical Journal
published its own
study with similar results in 1997, he scoffed that "it remains a
joke today."
After one researcher published a study linking secondhand smoke to
cancer, Milloy wrote that
she "must have pictures of journal editors in compromising
positions with farm
animals. How else can you explain her studies seeing the light
of day?"
In
August 1997, the New York Times reported that Milloy was one
of the paid
speakers at a Miami briefing for foreign reporters sponsored by the
British-American Tobacco
Company, whose Brown & Williamson unit makes popular cigarettes
like Kool, Carlton and
Lucky Strike. At the briefing, which was off-limits to U.S.
journalists, the company
flew in dozens of reporters from countries including Brazil,
Argentina, Chile and Peru and paid
for their hotel rooms and expensive meals while the reporters sat
through presentations
that ridiculed "lawsuit-driven societies like the United
States" for using
"unsound science" to raise questions about
"infinitesimal, if not
hypothetical, risks" related to inhaling a "whiff"
of tobacco
smoke.
The Legacy
In 1999, University of
Pennsylvania
professor Edward S. Herman surveyed 258 articles in mainstream
newspapers that used the
term "junk science" during the years 1996 through 1998.
Only 8 percent of the
articles used the term in reference to corporate-manipulated
science. By contrast, 62
percent used the term "junk science" in reference to
scientific arguments used by
environmentalists, other corporate critics, or personal-injury
lawyers engaged in suing
corporations.
"What's starting to happen is that this
term, 'junk science,' is
being thrown around all the time," says Lucinda Finley, a law
professor from the State
University of New York at Buffalo who specializes in product
liability and women's health.
"People are calling scientists who disagree with them
purveyors of 'junk.' But
what we're really talking about is a very normal process of scientific
disagreement and
give-and-take. Calling someone a 'junk scientist' is just a way of
shutting them
up."
Like other corporate-funded front groups, the
organizations that
flack for sound science are sometimes fly-by-night organizations.
Called into existence
for a particular cause or legislative lobby campaign, they often dry
up and blow away once the
campaign is over. The tendency of groups to appear and
disappear creates another
form of camouflage, making it difficult for journalists and
everyday citizens to sort out
the bewildering proliferation of names and acronyms.
This was
indeed what
happened with The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, which was
quietly retired in
late 1998. Its legacy, however, continues. Dozens, if not hundreds,
of industry-funded
organizations and conservative think tanks continue to wave the sound
science banner. Milloy's
Junk Science Home Page remains active, claiming sponsorship from
"Citizens for the
Integrity of Science," about which no further information is
publicly available.
The tone of the Junk Science Home Page appears
calculated to lower rather
than elevate scientific discourse. That tone is particularly
notable in its 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 (her implied motive for writing the
book), and refers to
Dianne Dumanoski as "Dianne Dumb-as-an-oxski."
Casual
visitors to
Milloy's Junk Science Home Page might be tempted to dismiss him as
merely an obnoxious
adolescent with a website. They would be surprised to discover
that he is a
well-connected fixture in conservative Washington policy circles.
He currently holds the
title of "adjunct scholar" at the libertarian Cato
Institute, which was rated the
fourth most influential think tank in Washington, DC in a 1999
survey of congressional
staffers and journalists.
Milloy is also highly visible on the
internet. In addition to
publishing the Junk Science Home Page and a website for the
campaign,
Milloy also
operates a "Consumer Distorts" website devoted to
attacking Consumers
Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, which
Milloy accuses of
socialism, sensationalism, and "scaring consumers away from
products."
-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 26, 2001.
-- kjhghhjl (%23$3@oo.gygwe.fu), July 05, 2001.
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
CNN
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
MSN
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
TRUTH
MORETRUTH
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
truth
MORE-TRUTH
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
Telecom
text
text
text
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
Telecom
Daddy is a Fish
what's it going to be this time?
what's it going to be this time?
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
Telecom
Daddy is a Fish
what's it going to be this time?
what's it going to be this time?
what's it going to be this time?
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
surfin the cheap way
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
http://www.xtra.co.nz
-- ht (th@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
http://wwww.ezysurf.co.nz
-- sa (sa@rev.com), July 30, 2001.
-- ez (ez@gt.com), July 30, 2001.
-- piggy (pig@hotpig.com), July 30, 2001.
-- pig (pig@pig.com), July 30, 2001.
text
-- pig (pig@pig.com), July 30, 2001.
Fish
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
Fish
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
Fish
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
Daddy is a Fish
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
Daddy is a Fish
-- hairy terry (hairyt@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.
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