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'''Steven Milloy''' is currently a columnist for [[Fox News]]. He is also a paid advocate for [[Phillip Morris]][http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/junkman.html], and [[ExxonMobil]][http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060206&s=thacker020606]. From the 1990s until the end of 2005, he was an adjunct |
'''Steven Milloy''' is currently a columnist for [[Fox News]]. He is also a paid advocate for [[Phillip Morris]][http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/junkman.html], and [[ExxonMobil]][http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060206&s=thacker020606]. From the 1990s until the end of 2005, he was an adjunct scholar at the [[libertarian]] [[Cato Institute]]. |
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Milloy runs the website [[Junk science|Junkscience]].com, which is dedicated to debunking what he alleges to be false claims regarding [[global warming]], [[DDT]], [[passive smoking]] and [[ozone depletion]] among other topics.[http://www.junkscience.com/define.htm] His other website, CSRWatch.com, is focused around attacking the [[corporate social responsibility]] movement. He is also head of the [[Free Enterprise Action Fund]], a mutual fund he runs with tobacco executive Tom Borelli, who is listed as the secretary of the [[Advancement of Sound Science Center]], a nonprofit Milloy operates from his home in Potomac, Maryland . |
Milloy runs the website [[Junk science|Junkscience]].com, which is dedicated to debunking what he alleges to be false claims regarding [[global warming]], [[DDT]], [[passive smoking]] and [[ozone depletion]] among other topics.[http://www.junkscience.com/define.htm] His other website, CSRWatch.com, is focused around attacking the [[corporate social responsibility]] movement. He is also head of the [[Free Enterprise Action Fund]], a mutual fund he runs with tobacco executive Tom Borelli, who is listed as the secretary of the [[Advancement of Sound Science Center]], a nonprofit Milloy operates from his home in Potomac, Maryland . |
Revision as of 01:33, 6 September 2006
Steven Milloy is currently a columnist for Fox News. He is also a paid advocate for Phillip Morris[1], and ExxonMobil[2]. From the 1990s until the end of 2005, he was an adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute.
Milloy runs the website Junkscience.com, which is dedicated to debunking what he alleges to be false claims regarding global warming, DDT, passive smoking and ozone depletion among other topics.[3] His other website, CSRWatch.com, is focused around attacking the corporate social responsibility movement. He is also head of the Free Enterprise Action Fund, a mutual fund he runs with tobacco executive Tom Borelli, who is listed as the secretary of the Advancement of Sound Science Center, a nonprofit Milloy operates from his home in Potomac, Maryland .
In January 2006, Paul D. Thacker reported in The New Republic that Milloy has received thousands of dollars in payments from the Phillip Morris company since the early nineties, and that NGOs controlled by Milloy have received large payments from ExxonMobil. A spokesperson for Fox News stated, "Fox News was unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris. Any affiliation he had should have been disclosed." The payments are seen as another example of "pundit payola."
Background
Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center. [4]
Junk Science
Milloy has been one of the most prominent popularizers of the idea that scientific research suggesting that corporate activities may damage health or the environment is junk science, which should be replaced by sound science. These terms are used primarily by corporate special-interests and have no definition within the scientific community.
Milloy has been critical against what he views as "radical environmentalists". He has been outspoken about the "banning" of DDT, which he claims could save millions of lives a year in fighting malaria in Third World nations; however, DDT is not banned [5].
Milloy has also claimed to expose fraudulent claims of environmentalists, most notably Ben & Jerry's claim about overexposure to dioxin from manufacturing. Ben and Jerry's promotional literature claimed that "the only safe level of dioxin exposure is no exposure at all." Milloy sent samples of Ben and Jerry's ice cream to independent laboratories to test for dioxin levels. He claimed that the results found that dioxin levels were .79 parts per trillion toxic equivalents of dioxin in the ice cream. [6]. This finding illustrates the point that, given sufficiently sensitive tests, almost any food item will contain traces of dioxin, DDT and other pervasive pollutants, but would be viewed by most environmentalists as little more than a quibble.
Steven Milloy also criticised the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment as "debunking itself."
Criticism
As a controversial figure, Milloy has made many claims that have come under criticism.
In 1993, Milloy dismissed an EPA report linking secondhand tobacco smoke to cancer as "a joke," and when the British Medical Journal published a similar study in 1997, Milloy said, "it remains a joke today." When another 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?" [7] Of note, on June 27, 2006, the United States Surgeon General issued a comprehensive scientific report which concludes that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30 percent and lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent. The report also stated that secondhand smoke exposure is a known cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), respiratory problems, ear infections, and asthma attacks in infants and children.[8]
In 1998 a Federal District Court found the EPA report to be badly flawed and castigated the EPA for a variety of inexplicable exclusions of contrary studies from its analysis, unexplained methodology changes, and an unjustified change in statistical significance standard, apparently made to support a predetermined conclusion. [9] However, this judgement was overturned on appeal in December 2002. [10]
In 1999, David Platt Rall, a prominent environmental scientist, died in a car accident. According to Grist Magazine writer Ben White, Milloy celebrated Rall's tragic death on junkscience.com, writing: "Scratch one junk scientist who promoted the bankrupt idea that poisoning rats with a chemical predicts cancer in humans exposed to much lower levels of the chemical—a notion that, at the very least, has wasted billions and billions of public and private dollars." Cato Institute President Edward Crane called Milloy's attack an "inexcusable lapse in judgement and civility," but Milloy refused to apologize. The Washington Post covered the dispute. On October 12, Milloy continued to attack Rall, writing: "As far as David Rall is concerned, he was a bad guy when he was alive—shamelessly promoting the bankrupt notion that human cancer risk can be predicted by poisoning rats with chemicals. …Death did not improve his track record—no matter how many letters the Environmental Working Group sends to the Cato Institute." Since that time, Milloy has removed the attacks from his website. [11]
In 2000, Milloy claimed that between 1961 and 1990, the CDC could not link any cancer clusters with environmental causes. [12] Milloy's statement is false, as the CDC has linked cancer clusters with environmental causes and they are not the only agency to do so. In fact, work-related cancer clusters are well documented and the linkages between occupational exposures and disease are sound. During that restricted period of time, the CDC and other agencies acknowledged specific clusters, such as angiosarcoma of the liver among polyvinyl chloride workers in Kentucky [13], the linkage between clusters of clear cell adenocarcinoma (CCA) of the vagina and cervix with diethylstilbestrol (DES) ingestion [14], and the linkage between lung cancer and mesothelioma in workers exposed to tremolite, a form of asbestos [15].
The Free Enterprise Investment Fund has been criticised by investment analyst Chuck Jaffe as being "an advocacy group in search of assets." Jaffe concludes "Strip away the rhetoric, and you’re getting a very expensive, underperforming index fund, while Milloy and his partner Thomas Borelli get a platform for raising their pet issues." [16]
See also
External links
Critical links
- "The Trashman Speweth" and "How Big Tobacco Helped Create "'the Junkman'" at PR Watch
- Junkscience at the Skeptic's Dictionary
- Steven Milloy at SourceWatch
- "The Junkman Climbs to the Top" at Environmental Science & Technology
- "Smoked Out" at The New Republic
- Strange bedfellows: Politics and investment fund in the Boston Herald