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| "These 12 corporations together cover the whole country and monopolize
and use for private gain every dollar of the public currency..." -- Mr.
Crozier of Cincinnati, before Senate Banking and Currency Committee -
1913
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/ACSH-Koop.htm
Led by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, ACSH bills itself as:
"..a consumer education organization concerned with issues related
to food, nutrition, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle, the
environment and health."
WHOSE INTERESTS DOES ACSH SERVE?
"Who eats my bread dances to my tune.
- Old German Proverb
ACSH is heavily financed by corporations with specific and direct
interest in ACSH's chosen battles. Since it was created in 1978, it has
come to the enthusiastic defense of virtually every chemical or
additive backed by a major corporate interest. In many of these cases,
investigative journalists already have exposed direct connections
between ACSH and its funders. But in almost every instance, it takes
little effort to discover which funder in the list below has a vested
interest in supporting ACSH's message.
Everything Bad is Good Again
Endocrine Disruptors: In 1999 ACSH Scientists found no convincing
evidence that certain synthetic chemicals in the environment endanger
human health by disrupting the human endocrine system.
rBST (rBGH) Milk: In 1998 ACSH called an attack on milk from
rBST-treated cows an unwarranted distortion of science. The report
stated that milk from such cows will lead to elevated levels of a
hormone called IGF-1 which in turn will cause increased risk of
prostate cancer.
Food Irradiation: In the article "Irradiation best way to end E. coli
threat," by Scripps Howard News Service in September 1997, Elizabeth
Whelan is quoted as saying "the unpopularity of irradiation to date in
the United States is not based in science, but is due to
anti-technology advocates who circulate unfounded claims that it poses
a health hazard." She makes no mention of the fact that scientists have
come out against irradiation, but have been silenced by the popular
media. Several of the ACSH funders would benefit if irradiation of food
were a practice accepted by consumers. The way industry and the FDA
have managed to sidestep the issue is to declare it safe, make the
labeling of it obscure, and keep public awareness of it negligible.
Cholesterol: ACSH issued a report in 1991 stating that there is no
proven link between heart disease and a diet high in fat and
cholesterol.
Saccharin: According to a 1985 article in the Washington Post by Howard
Kurtz, ACSH received funding from Coca-Cola, Pepsi, NutraSweet and the
National Soft Drink Association, and attacked reports that saccharin is
carcinogenic.
Formaldehyde: The same article noted that ACSH filed a
friend-of-the-court brief in 1982 in a lawsuit brought by the
Formaldehyde Institute. The suit successfully overturned a federal ban
on insulation made with formaldehyde. Georgia-Pacific Co., a leading
producer of the chemical and member of the Formaldehyde Institute, paid
its Washington, DC, law firm to write the brief ACSH submitted the
brief under its own name.
Global Warming: In its position paper on global warming, ACSH states
that implementation of fossil-fuel restrictions could "weaken the
global economic system, [and] increase the incidence of poverty-related
illness worldwide..." This is a case of selective reasoning-choosing
the facts that fit and discarding the rest. Mainstream scientists
recognize that a primary effect of global warming would be an increase
in poverty-related illnesses such as malaria, cholera and dengue fever
-- diseases dependent upon warm, wet climates.
Love Canal: Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan says, "Was there ever any real
health problem at Love Canal? Yes, there was, in the sense that there
was an enormous amount of media-induced stress placed on residents who
were terrified that they and their children would become ill."
Alar: In many ways, ACSH's work on the Alar issue is exemplary of the
way the group works. Chemical makers-with the assistance of industry
front groups like ACSH-found a gold mine in keeping the decade-old Alar
controversy alive. Although the chemical was banned by the government
in 1991 and the EPA named it a possible human carcinogen, saying that
"long-term exposure to Alar poses unacceptable risks to the public
health," the American public generally recalls the issue as a case in
which environmentalists were wrong. They are incorrect.
In a 1973 study, Alar, a chemical used to lengthen the amount of time
that apples could be left to ripen on the tree, was found to break down
into a product called UMDH that is 1,000 times more carcinogenic than
Alar itself. UMDH is formed when apples are cooked to make applesauce
or apple juice.
When environmental groups claimed that Alar was a danger, ACSH attacked
the groups, maintaining the chemical was safe and the target of a media
scare. Not surprisingly, ACSH receives funding from Uniroyal, the
company that made Alar.
Over the last decade, ACSH has made the Alar controversy a prominent
part of its hallmark "Facts Versus Fears" report. A review of more than
25 "unfounded health scares," including dangers associated with
saccharin, hormones in beef and DDT, the report is a who's who of
products manufactured by ACSH's funders.
ACSH's disinformation campaign on Alar has been alive almost since the
controversy began; dozens of articles in papers from around the country
have published articles on the so-called "health scare." Though one of
ACSH's main points about the incident was that it had a devastating
effect on the apple industry, even the Washington Apple Commission
noted that only two to three percent of consumers still were concerned
about the chemical just a year after the story broke.
Less than a year ago, ACSH and "Facts Versus Fears" even made it into
the pages of the New York Times - twice. The first piece was summary of
the report's highlights. The second was an official correction in which
the Times named Uniroyal as an ACSH funder, and clarified that the Alar
was pulled from the market by the company before an EPA ban could take
effect.
C. EVERETT KOOP'S HISTORY WITH ACSH
Dr. C. Everett KoopFormer U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's
association with ACSH and Elizabeth Whelan is longstanding. In 1992,
the pair joined forces in the same way they would years later in their
partnership on the "blue-ribbon panel" on phthalates.
ACSH sponsored a Washington, DC, press conference on the third
anniversary of the Alar controversy. Koop headed a panel of "experts"
that claimed Alar never posed a health risk. According to an article in
PR Watch, the Hill and Knowlton public relations firm persuaded Koop to
write a statement that apples were safe.
Whelan and Koop teamed up again to denounce Diet for a Poisoned Planet,
a book that warned against the use of pesticides and chemical residues
in foods. That campaign was organized by Ketchum Public Relations
before the release of the book. Lorraine Thelian, the director of the
Washington office of Ketchum, sits on the ACSH Board of Directors.
Thelian is an expert on "environmental PR work," and her office
represents a number of ACSH funders. Koop issued a statement calling
the book "trash."
On May 25 of this year, ACSH announced that it had joined forces with
Koop's new Internet healthcare site, drkoop.com. From the release:
"The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a non-profit,
consumer-advocacy organization is creating an exclusive health wire
service for drkoop.com consumers. Guided by ACSH experts and written by
experienced wire service journalists, the daily ACSH newswire will help
people better understand the health stories they see on the news by
adding the often-missing scientific perspective. This partnership with
drkoop.com gives consumers, who are constantly bombarded with
conflicting and often alarming health news, an unbiased, scientific
analysis of the latest trends in health and medicine, as well as
clarifications of health misinformation found in the mainstream press."
Before consumers or reporters rely on ACSH for an "unbiased" analysis,
they should review the record on the real sources of funding and points
of view.
A final word on the relationship between ACSH and its funders...
A 1992 memo from Whelan, referenced in a Consumer Reports expose,
bemoans the loss of funding from Shell in a particularly revealing way:
"When one of the largest international petrochemical companies will not
support ACSH, the great defender of petrochemical companies, one
wonders who will."
ACSH receives 76 percent of its funding from corporations and corporate
funders, and 17 percent of its funding from private foundations,
according to Congressional Quarterly's Public Interest Profiles.
Some current and past ACSH corporate and foundation funders:
1.
ALCOA Foundation
2.
Allied Signals Foundation
3.
American Cyanamid
4.
American Meat Institute
5.
Amoco
6.
Anheuser-Busch
7.
Archer Daniels Midland
8.
Ashland Oil Foundation
9.
Boise Cascade Corp
10.
Bristol-Myers Squibb
11.
Burger King
12.
Carnation Co
13.
Chevron
14.
CibaGeigy
15.
Coca-Cola
16.
Consolidated Edison
17.
Cooper Industries Foundation
18.
Coors
19.
Coors Foundation
20.
Dow Chemical
21.
Dow Chemical Canada
22.
DuPont
23.
Ethyl Corp
24.
Exxon
25.
Ford Motor Co.
26.
Frito-Lay
27.
G. D. Searle Charitable Trust
28.
General Electric
29.
General Mills
30.
General Motors
31.
Gerber Products
32.
Hershey Foods Corp Fund
33.
Johnson & Johnson
34.
Johnson's Wax Fund
35.
John M. Olin Foundation
36.
Joseph E. Seagrams & Sons
37.
Kraft Foundation
38.
Kraft General Foods
39.
Merck Co Foundation
40.
Merck Pharmaceuticals
41.
Mobil Foundation
42.
Mobil
43.
Monsanto Fund
44.
Monsanto
45.
National Agricultural Chemicals Association
46.
National Dairy Council
47.
National Soft Drink Association
48.
National Starch and Chemical Foundation
49.
Northwood Institute
50.
Nestle
51.
NutraSweet Co. (owned by Monsanto)
52.
Oscar Mayer Foods
53.
Pepsico
54.
Pepsi-Cola
55.
Pfizer
56.
PPG Industries
57.
Procter & Gamble
58.
Rohm & Haas
59.
Salt Institute
60.
Samuel Roberts Nobel Foundation
51.
Sarah Scaife Foundation
52.
Seagrams
53.
The Schultz Foundation
54.
Shell Oil
55.
Starr Foundation
56.
Sterling Drug
57.
Stouffer Corp
58.
Stroh Brewery Co
59.
Sugar Association
60.
Sun Company, Inc
61.
Syntex Corp
62.
Union Carbide Corp.
63.
Uniroyal Chemical Co.
64.
USX Corp.
65.
Warner-Lambert Foundation
66.
Wine Growers of California
Alan
http://lordcerneabbas.blogspot.com/...t-predicts.html
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