If you're going to shill for the world's deadliest corporations, be a bit stealthy about it

Posted by Joshua Holland at 10:17 AM on January 30, 2007.

Hmmm, let's see what's in the paper this morning [takes a sip of that sweet liberal latté]…

Oh, here's an article in the Washington Post about the "bogus science" behind all that second-hand smoke stuff. Apparently, "some policymakers and activists are even claiming that the government should crack down on secondhand smoke exposure, given what 'the science' indicates about such exposure."

You have to put "science" in scare quotes -- those egg-headed "scientists" are all squarely behind that insidious and ever-growing Nanny State.

It says here that not only is second-hand smoke harmless, it actually makes your breath minty-fresh and gives men harder, longer-lasting erections. I did not know that.

I wonder who penned this little piece?

Gio Batta Gori, an epidemiologist and toxicologists [sic], is a fellow of the Health Policy Center in Bethesda. He is a former deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention, and he received the U.S. Public Health Service Superior Service Award in 1976 for his efforts to define less hazardous cigarettes. Gori's article "The Surgeon General's Doctored Opinion" will appear in the spring issue of the Cato Institute's Regulation Magazine.

Well, the Health Policy Center is in Bethesda -- it must be legit. A former director of the National Cancer Institute … won an award … sounds like a serious scientist and not one of those guys with an axe to gr … [doorbell rings]

I wonder who that is …

Oh, it's a stripper-gram from the good folks at Sourcewatch!* What's it say? [Click here for soundtrack]

Dr. Gio Batta Gori has a doctorate in biological sciences and a masters degree in public health. He was a former scientist and top official at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), where he specialized in toxicology, epidemiology and nutrition […]

After Gori left the NCI in 1980 he traded on the professional credibility he had accumulated, aligned himself with tobacco industry interests and reaped significant financial rewards in the coming years.

In 1980 Gori became Vice President of the Franklin Institute Policy Analysis Center (FIPAC), a consulting firm funded initially by a $400,000 grant from the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation (B&W). Following its initial formation, FIPAC continued to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding annually from B&W. Gori worked on R&D projects for B&W, such as analysis of the sensory perception of smoke and how to reduce the amount of tobacco in cigarettes. By 1989, Gori was a full time consultant on environmental tobacco smoke issue for the Tobacco Institute in the Institute's ETS/IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) Consultants Project. In May 1993, Gori entered an exclusive consulting arrangement with B&W, reaping pay at the rate of $200/hour an day to $1,000/day for attending conferences.

Activities in which Gori engaged on behalf of the tobacco industry included attending conferences, writing and publishing books and papers, and lobbying.

Nice of the damn Washington Post to mention that little potential source of bias, no?

*No, Sourcewatch won't send you stripper-grams -- use the inter-web-tubes like everyone else!

Tagged as: media, tobacco lobby, pseudo-science

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.