Hank Campbell was until this week president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a group that claims to be a “pro-science consumer advocacy organization,” but according to leaked internal documents and emails released via litigation, ACSH offers its advocacy not to consumers but to chemical, tobacco and pharmaceutical corporate interests (and others) that provide financial backing. For more about ACSH’s work as a corporate front group, see our fact sheet.
Campbell took over the leadership of ACSH in July 2015 from acting president Gil Ross, MD, a convicted felon who was jailed for Medicaid fraud. Tax records show that Dr. Ross was still on the ACSH payroll as of 2017 with $111,618 in compensation as “former senior director of medicine and public health,” while Campbell received $224,358. Campbell’s career history includes working in software development, writing a 2012 book about the “anti-science” left and running a series of questionable science websites, including one that posted anti-Semitic materials that Campbell tried to defend.
NYU Professor Charles Seife posted documents in November that shed light on Campbell’s network of science blogs that help promote the American Council on Science and Health. In a Twitter thread he called “Mapping a Monsanto-loving octopus,” Seife reported:
Seife summed up his Twitter thread: “this is how a once-admired science blogging site, @scienceblogs, was acquired by a complex and, IMO, shady network of for-profits and non-profits helping Monsanto.”
According to documents released via litigation, Monsanto paid the American Council on Science and Health in 2015 to defend glyphosate and help discredit the scientists of the World Health Organization’s cancer research panel for their report raising cancer concerns about the herbicide.
The documents indicate that Monsanto executives were uncomfortable about working with ACSH but did so anyway because “we don’t have a lot of supporters and can’t afford to lose the few we have,” Daniel Goldstein, Monsanto’s senior science lead, wrote in an email to colleagues. Goldstein provided links to two books, a pamphlet, a pesticide review and 53 articles on the ACSH.org website that he described as “EXTREMELY USEFUL” (emphasis Goldstein’s).
Some former writers for ScienceBlogs.com refused to grant rights for their work to remain on the site due to its association with Campbell and Science 2.0, and other observers called on writers to do the same. At issue was Science 2.0’s publishing of anti-Semitic material, which Campbell tried to explain and defend.
In response to the criticism, Campbell removed some posts by the physicist Sascha Vongehr, including one titled, “One Thing Hitler Did Wrong.” The removal noticedescribes Vongehr’s work as “satire” that came off as offensive due to the “the author’s imperfect grasp of the English language.” Science 2.0 continues to display dozens of articles by Vongehr, including some that contain various anti-Semitic sentiments, such as a post in which Vongehr describes himself as “a Germanic racist” and another titled “Advanced Racism For Dr Duke And Prof Slattery: Why Hate Jews?”
In February 2017, two dozen health, environmental, labor and public interest groups wrote to the editors of USA Today with concerns that the paper regularly publishes science columns authored by ACSH staff, including Campbell, without disclosing ACSH’s funding from multiple corporate interests. ACSH Vice President of Scientific Affairs Alex Berezow, who co-authored Campbell’s 2012 book, remains on the USA Today Board of Contributors but his bio there does not disclose his leadership staff position at ACSH.
Global Justice Ecology Project
