A little noticed NY state appellate court decision in 2013, which appears to have been covered by only a single independent blog at the time, alleges that Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia Pacific (GP) submitted "science" for publication, designed to show that its Asbestos is not carcinogenic, without properly disclosing its financial support for and direction of the research.
A subsequent PubMed-published study, which cites this appeals case, describes GPs possible motive:
Recently defense lawyers have been involved in the production of studies, the sole purpose of which is to impact litigation. For example, it has been alleged that Georgia Pacific entered into a special employment relationship with Stewart Holm, its Director of Toxicology and Chemical Management. Separate from his regular duties, Mr. Holm confidentially performed research projects under the auspices of its in-house counsel, who also was involved in the pre-publication review process. When studies are conducted for corporate counsel, the results do not have to be produced during legal discovery and this allows the companies to selectively publish favorable results.
According to the previously cited court opinion:
Holm coauthored nearly all of the studies, which were intended to cast doubt on the capability of chrysotile asbestos to cause cancer. On the two articles that he did not coauthor, he [*3]and GP's counsel participated in lengthy "WebEx conferences" in which they discussed the manuscripts and suggested revisions. Despite this extensive participation, none of the articles disclosed that GP's in-house counsel had reviewed the manuscripts before they were submitted for publication. Two articles falsely stated that "[GP] did not participate in the design of the study, analysis of the data, or preparation of the manuscript." For articles lead-authored by David M. Bernstein, Ph.D., and coauthored by Holm, the only disclosure was that the research was "sponsored" or "supported" by a grant from GP. The articles did not disclose that Holm was specially employed by GP for the asbestos litigation or that he reported to GP's in-house counsel. Furthermore, there were no grant proposals, and Dr. Bernstein was hired by GP on an hourly basis. Nor did the articles reveal that Dr. Bernstein has been disclosed as a GP expert witness in NYCAL since 2009, that he had testified as a defense expert for Union Carbide Corporation in asbestos litigation, or that he had been paid by, and spoken on behalf of, the Chrysotile Institute, the lobbying arm of the Quebec chrysotile mining industry. Although GP belatedly endeavored to address the inadequacies of certain of its disclosures, its corrections failed to acknowledge its in-house counsel's participation and did not make clear that Dr. Bernstein's testimony as an expert witness preceded the publication of the first GP reformulated joint compound article in 2008.
Earlier this year, the New York Times
reported that the fossil fuel industry was secretly funding junk climate science performed by Wei-Hock Soon, designed to cast doubt on man's role in impacting climate change. In that episode, the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation was implicated to the tune of $230,000, and was merely one of multiple Soon backers.
It is our belief that these incidents, coupled with our own revelations of secret shills in the media (which has since been followed by another one being called out by the Muncie Voice), are merely the tip of the iceberg. Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest (and possibly willful non-disclosure) seem to be a vital component of the right-wing astroturf playbook.
We are calling on Daily Kos to set up a section of its site devoted to profiles of journalists, academics, and others who do not properly disclose their financial conflicts of interest. Exposing and publicly shaming those who secretly trade away their professional integrity would both have a chilling effect on unethical conduct and provide a valuable resource to readers who want to know whether the purportedly unbiased content they rely on is actually corrupted by special interests.