Front Man Steven Milloy, and Other Non-Profit Front Organizations with Ties to Industry

Steven Milloy, author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them, and owner and operator of Junkscience.com⁸ — a site dedicated to denying environmental and health concerns related to pollutants and chemicals, including those used in agriculture and food production — appears to have been registered as a lobbyist with The EOP Group, a lobbying firm based in Washington, DC. Clients of the firm have included the American Crop Protection Association, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, and Edison Electric Institute.⁹
Milloy’s clients¹⁰ included both Monsanto and the International Food Additives Council (IFAC). Milloy has denied ever being a lobbyist, claiming that he was “a technical consultant" for the lobbying firm.

“However, Milloy shows up in federal lobbyist registration data for 1997 as having lobbying expenditures on his behalf, indicating his firm, the EOP Group, believed him to be an active lobbyist, 'technical' or otherwise,” TRWNews¹¹ states in its expose of the industry front man.

Milloy also headed up the now defunct corporate front group, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC). According to TRWNews,¹² TASSC and the Junkscience.com site were one and the same. Integrity in Science,¹³ which lists non-profit organizations with close ties to industry, reports that TASSC received financial support from hundreds of corporations, including the likes of Procter & Gamble, Exxon, Dow Chemical, and Philip Morris. I’ll leave it up to you to guess what kind of ‘sound science’ was advanced by those sources...

“Its objective is to act as a speakers bureau to deliver the corporate message that environmental public policy is not currently based on 'sound science,' and to counter excessive regulations that are based on what it considers 'junk' science,” Integrity in Science states. [Emphasis mine]

Other non-profit organizations that are in actuality doing the bidding of various industry giants include:

• Air Quality Standards Coalition, “created specifically to battle the clean air proposals, the coalition operates out of the offices of the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based trade group. Its leadership includes top managers of petroleum, automotive and utility companies”
• Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, while sounding like it would work for your benefit, actually gets “unrestricted grants” from a long list of pharmaceutical companies
• Alliance to Save Energy, which “supports energy efficiency as a cost-effective energy resource under existing market conditions and advocates energy-efficiency policies that minimize costs to society and individual consumers,” was founded by, among others: BP...
• American Academy of Pediatrics receives $1 million annually from infant formula manufacturers. Other donors include (but is not limited to) the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products, both Wyeth’s and Merck’s vaccine divisions, the Food Marketing Institute, the Sugar Association, and the International Food Information Council (IFIC) — which you will see below, is not only a front group for the glutamate industry; it’s also the coordinating agent for a new alliance of over 50 industry groups aimed at directing the dialogue and altering public opinion about large-scale, genetically engineered and chemical-based food production
• American Council for Fitness and Nutrition. This one takes the cake with a member list that includes the American Bakers Association, the American Meat Institute, the Biscuit & Cracker Manufacturers Association, Chocolate Manufacturers Association, Coca-Cola, Hershey’s, National Confectioners Association and many others that are FAR from suited to devise appropriate “comprehensive, long-term strategies and constructive public policies for improving the health and wellness of all Americans”

IFIC Created 'Crisis Management' Protocol in Case Truth Would Be Exposed

Although their names may differ, many of the functions of these groups overlap, as they’re really serving the same industry. TruthInLabeling explains how front groups such as these serve the distinct interests of the industry, not your or your children’s health, even when their well-chosen name may mislead you to think otherwise.¹⁴ Take the International Food Information Council (IFIC) for example:

“In 1990, faced with the threat of a '60 Minutes' segment... that might expose the toxic potential of monosodium glutamate, IFIC became actively involved in representing the interests of the glutamate industry. The IFIC represents itself as an 'independent' organization. It sends attractive brochures to dietitians, nutritionists, hospitals, schools, the media, and politicians, proclaiming the safety of monosodium glutamate. In 1990, an anonymous person sent us a copy of a 'Communication Plan' dated July-December 1991, that detailed methods for scuttling the '60 Minutes' segment on MSG, or, failing that, provided for crisis management.

...Depending on the roles they play, researchers might be considered agents of the glutamate industry. In addition, there are those who promote the products of those they work for, just as public relations firms do, but these organizations highlight the fact that they are nonprofit corporations, while minimizing the fact that they promote the products of those who financially support them. The International Food Information Council (IFIC) and the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) are examples of such glutamate-industry agents.”