One Award I Wouldn't Want

Steven J. Milloy, publisher of JunkScience.com, uses his corporate-funded perch to attack scientists whose work offends tobacco companies, polluters, junk food peddlers and other corporate miscreants. He is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and a featured voice on FoxNews.com. And now, much to the chagrin of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he was a judge of their annual science journalism awards.

The AAAS, publisher of Science magazine and the pinnacle of the nation’s science establishment, apparently chose Milloy by pulling his name from a media guide. Yet even after learning of his Cato connections, the organization posted his quotes praising one of the winners on its website, according to Environmental Science & Technology (EST) magazine. When the EST reporter inquired why the prestigious science group had embraced the well-known corporate flack, who on a daily basis trashes things most of its members hold dear, the AAAS pulled down the quote.

Some other juicy tidbits in the EST article: Milloy in the late 1990s took money from ExxonMobil to debunk global warming and used it to dabble in Exxon’s stock (he lost money apparently). This year, he set up a booth at the National Association of Broadcasters trade show in Las Vegas to tout his latest for-profit venture – a consulting company that advises manufacturers about the “dangers looming in mandates by the EU and others which prohibit lead and other substances in products.”