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Trust Us, We're Experts, Sheldon Rampton excerpt 

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, D.C., in a 1999 survey of congressional staffers and journalists.

Milloy's vitriolic style may seem strange to outsiders, but it generates and channels the anger that right-wing pseudopopulists have become adept at mobilizing against environmentalists. . . .

The conflicts of interest involving Frederick Seitz are even more telling. Shortly before his retirement from Rockefeller University in 1979, he went to work as a "permanent consultant" to the R. J. Reynolds tobacco company, a hiring that was deliberately not publicized. The tobacco industry eagerly traded on Seitz's reputation, even though R. J. Reynolds CEO William Hobbs privately advised executives at Philip Morris in 1989 that Seitz was "quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice." In June 1993, the CNN news network ran a report citing claims by Philip Morris that "prominent scientists privately agree" with its opinion of the EPA risk assessment of secondhand smoke. "We asked for specifics, promising anonymity if necessary," stated CNN correspondent Steve Young. "The only name Philip Morris provided was the former president of this prestigious institution, Rockefeller University, in New York." Although CNN never discovered Seitz's background as a tobacco industry consultant, he did not perform well in his role as third-party spokesperson. When Young called Seitz to ask directly if he had said that EPA's report was based on flawed science, Seitz responded, "No, I have not."

"You have not said that?" Young asked again.

"I have not said that, no," Seitz replied.

"Well, why not?"

"I haven't read it," Seitz replied.

That same month, however, Multinational Business Services (Jim Tozzi's lobby shop and Steven Milloy's former employer) reported to Philip Morris that it had "initiated discussions with Dr. Seitz of Rockefeller University to support MBS findings on ETS." The following year, a report appeared with Seitz listed as the author, concluding that "there is no good scientific evidence that moderate passive inhalation of tobacco smoke is truly dangerous under normal circumstances."

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