An amiable response from Beth Whelan

I've lost track of precisely when I left ACSH, but it was in March or April of 1989. I felt liberated from the cult of personality (which the subsequent regimes have labored to preserve), and the atmosphere that was anything but convivial, and from observing a very badly run organization. But I am not a grudge holder, so even though I didn't hold Elizabeth Whelan in high esteem and recognized her as occasionally venomous, I still didn't dislike her. Of course she was the boss, but I was always frank and never obsequious with her as others have been. 

Within months of exiting I created the Consumer Health Education Council (CHEC) and got to work doing what I could have done at ACSH had the circumstances been propitious. By February 1990, I had an op-ed featured in a Sunday edition of the New York Daily News titled, "Don't be a health paranoid." On May 1, 1990 a speech I had delivered at Houston's B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation in January was published in Vital Speeches of the Day. CHEC was off to a decent start, and I knew I could easily generate publishable material, but I also knew that funding would be a problem since I would never be beholden to any funder. Unlike Beth Whelan, I couldn't sell out.

I sent a copy of the speech to Beth along with what I remember to have been a simple and formal letter, and I asked for ACSH to help with some modest funding for my nascent organization. She responded with a "Dear Nicolas" letter in June which began, "Congratulations on the VITAL SPEECHES publication. I am impressed." [Her underline.] She asked if I "would be interested in specific projects...," and ended by saying, "We would be pleased to sit down and talk about options with you if you are in New York. Please let us know." She declined the funding request, as I expected. That was the last communication between us, and it puts the lie to the idea that I was fired from ACSH. I don't know if Beth Whelan liked me, but I know that she respected the quality of my work and my contributions to ACSH and thereafter. For one thing, I significantly reduced overall expenses. She trusted me, as she did others, to ghostwrite for her (an article for Reason magazine). She trusted me to edit materials by other writers, such as Stephen Barrett, for publication. She never said anything negative to me about my work. If she said anything to anyone else, I never heard about it. After I jumped ship she would naturally have been perturbed.

On defending "sound science"

Perhaps the American Council on Science and Health was created by Whelan, Stare, and Borlaug with earnest idealism. The problem is that it is impossible to do what ACSH was designed to do without industry funding, and that funding is a corrupting force. Either you are transparent and honest about the pressures from funding sources, or you are oblique and dishonest, as ACSH has been for too long.

I know too well the trouble in defending "sound science" (a favorite ACSH cliche) because I created a 501(c)(3) after I quit ACSH. I was hired to do the fundraising for ACSH, a task to which I was (am) ill-suited, and I quickly took on other tasks and the title of administrative director, which divided my time and energies. To most funders Elizabeth Whelan was ACSH, and she was the person who should have devoted her full energies to fundraising, but she did little of anything that I could detect. (Frankly, I never saw her do a damned thing that amounted to work, unless you count a couple of hours on TV shows.) She answered to no one regarding her scant work output.

Of necessity, the organization that I created would have needed to accept corporate and industry-related funding. Like ACSH, it would have had to work hand-in-glove with funders, as ACSH did when it allowed two of them to participate in the funding and editing of pamphlets on sugar and alcohol. Funders are more interested in promoting their products than in "sound science," so even though Beth Whelan sold her soul at the company store, ACSH has never received much money. ACSH could have done better by having only one employee and using contractors to do specific projects, but it seemed important to Beth to be perceived to be in charge of an organization that seemed substantial. ACSH has always been a sort of Potemkin village of activism.

At the other end are those who attack industries. They are disproportionately funded by trial lawyers who stand to gain a great deal by convincing the media and public that they are threatened by products, which is quite easily done since few Americans know much about science. If anything, the anti-industrialists engage in an even more corrupt grift. The products of industrialization, which make us safer and give us longer and healthier lives, are under constant attack in the courts, and few judges are savvy about science. I'm pessimistic about the future, and I believe that ACSH's paranoid and hostile approach to profound issues and its critics does more harm than good.

ACSH presidents say the darndest things

 When I learned in 2019 that Hank Campbell was out as ACSH's president, I sent a note to someone at the organization asking the reason for his departure. I can't find that email, but I don't think I addressed it to Campbell's replacement, Thom Golab. But maybe I did, and he responded to me at some length on November 14, 2019, a portion of his email reading thusly:

When Hank Campbell assumed the presidency of the American Council on Science and Health in June of 2015, he said that he planned on being with ACSH for three years. He would then return to his family in California. He stayed on a few months longer to help ACSH celebrate its 40^th Anniversary, and in early November of last year, the Board accepted Hank’s official resignation. We are grateful to Hank for his service to ACSH over his three years period.

Who knows what went on behind the scenes as that was the same year ACSH was successfully sued for non-payment of New York office rent and closed its Washington office. Eight of the ten preceding years ACSH suffered proportionately large operating losses, including three of the four years that Campbell was president, according to IRS 990 filings.

But on the face of it, the publicly vulgar liar Campbell was and remains an esteemed former president of the organization. 

Golab ended his 2019 letter with this invitation to me: "If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me."  So, after finding Golab's inaccurate claim that I was "terminated" among the uploads by ousted trustee James Enstrom, I did not hesitate to take him up on his invitation. On December 12, 2022 I wrote this: "I do now have a question. Why did you lie to Dr. Enstrom by stating that I was terminated from my position?"

The next day Golab responded tersely, "I never told him that." I emailed him back with the following:

Mr. Golab,

Thank you for your reply. A few days ago I discovered that Dr. Enstrom has posted online a letter from you to him on ACSH letterhead and bearing your signature, dated April 6, 2021, which includes the following statement:

In August 2018, you expressed your willingness to have a conversation about ACSH's "problems" in an email to Nicolas Martin, a former terminated employee who hosts a website with the sole mission of tarnishing the legacy of Elizabeth Whelan and ACSH.

Is this letter not authentic? 

If the letter is genuine and you didn’t know at the time you wrote it that I chose to quit my ACSH job without Beth or anyone else threatening to fire me or or proposing that I quit, I hope you know it by now. As you know, when he was ACSH president Mr. Campbell falsely claimed that I never had a job at ACSH. It does no harm to me, but it harms ACSH to spread falsehoods, if even inadvertently.

I’ve attached a copy of the letter.

Incidentally, I still have a copy of a cordial and congratulatory reply from Beth to a letter I sent her in 1990, along with a copy of my speech, “Environmental Myths and Hoaxes,” that was published in Vital Speeches.

Regards,

Nicolas Martin

He then responded with a perplexing email:

For some reason I read your email about firing as coming from Hank Campbell. I wrote to Dr. Enstrom that you were fired because that is what I was told, by more than one ACSH employee.

Please do not communicate with me anymore, except through my attorney.

Thom Golab

President

American Council on Science and Health

135 Madison Ave, 5th Fl, #06-114

New York, NY 10016

Phone: 212-362-7044

Phone direct: 301-980-4579

My email contains my name, and my email address also includes my name, so he would have had to have read it with remarkable carelessness to think, as he claims, that it came from Hank Campbell. The subject still contained "Hank Campbell" from our 1999 exchange, so it is possible that he read the rest carelessly. Or, he regretted having said that I was terminated after I provided him with proof of his having done so. Facts are inconvenient things, and one never knows what to believe when someone at ACSH is the source. CYA is always a possibility.

Given that I stated in my email that the bogus claim that I was terminated "does no harm to me," it's baffling that Golab would direct me to his attorney (whose name and contact information he didn't include in his email). Though Golab and Campbell told falsehoods about my resignation from ACSH, I don't think of their fictions as libelous, just puerile and irresponsible. Perhaps he fears differently. A huge percentage of the time "contact my attorney" is bluster and bluff, and merits a horse laugh. If Golab has a complaint, let his anonymous attorney contact me.

ACSH, as it limps along, remains a source of entertainment. I suggest that no scientist with self-respect would remain a scientific advisor for the organization. During my time there was no contact with the great majority of advisors, and it wasn't clear that most of them knew what ACSH was up to. Best let sleeping dogs lie.

Update (Dec. 15, 2022):

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a follow-up email from Mr. Golab today. The subject is, "I now know that you were not fired." The text says, "I will correct the record in the future. I apologize." 

It is to Mr. Golab's great credit that he checked into the matter and apologized for his error. I have thanked him for doing what he was under no obligation to do. I also want to thank whoever told him the truth about my leaving.

 

James Enstrom resigned as ACSH trustee in 2022: management appalled he communicated with this blogger

Near the start of this highly irregular blog, I published an exchange with James Enstrom, a trustee of the American Council on Science and Health.

Now, I've noticed that Enstrom resigned from the ACSH board on July 1, 2022. His resignation was requested by ACSH's president, Thom Golab, in a letter dated April 6, but Enstrom at first refused to submit. 

Of Enstrom, Golab wrote: "Your actions in the past 2+ years have only served to undermine the interests of ACSH, including repeatedly denigrating the staff, diverting other Trustees' attention to your personal vendettas, and communicating your complaints to persons outside ACSH."

One of Golab's four proofs of Enstrom's heresies against ACSH is this:

In August 2018, you expressed your willingness to have a conversation about ACSH's "problems" in an email to Nicolas Martin, a former terminated employee (sic) who hosts a website with the sole mission of tarnishing the legacy of Elizabeth Whelan and ACSH.

And, so, the heretic was to be cancelled, because that's how "sound science" organizations work.

Nearly 34 years after I resigned from ACSH, without any suggestion by Whelan or anyone else that I do so, the current president of ACSH (not with the cult in 1989), claims, entirely falsely, that I was "terminated," which is to say fired. This falsehood is an advance over the fiction of his predecessor, Hank Campbell, who said of me, "the guy was an intern for a few months 30 years ago and resents not getting a job offer." Golab's version is that I was fired from the job I resent not getting. Dishonesty is embedded in ACSH's DNA. 

Enstrom eventually resigned on July 1 and posted online his resignation letter to the board chairman. In part it says this:

I am ending my involvement with ACSH because I am now working with several other organizations that appreciate my epidemiologic expertise and that allow me to express my views. In spite of my status as a Trustee and Scientific Advisor, ACSH has not allowed me to publish my views on ACSH.org. In addition, I have been unable to communicate with certain ACSH staff and my suggestions for improving ACSH have been rejected. Finally, I was informed on April 6, 2021 by President Golab that I have “lost the confidence of every other Trustee.”

Enstrom says that "to end my relationship with ACSH positively, I request that President Golab respond to my April 8, 2021 letter and correct the false statements that he made about me in his April 6, 2021 letter." ACSH ended up treating Enstrom much the same as UCLA had before. But when UCLA fired Enstrom, ACSH published a short but energetic note of support for him, saluting him for his "stellar reputation" and for being "someone who has dared to step outside the party line..." Unless the party line is ACSH's, naturally. Enstrom notes in one of his letters that he was a trustee and science advisor to ACSH for 37 years.

Dr. Enstrom also placed other materials online which surely mortified ACSH's board and management, including minutes of the June 2019 board meeting. The minutes mention the termination of the lease for a Washington, D. C. office, and, stunningly, of "the results of the May 2019 court proceedings with the 110 E. 42nd St NY landlord, SL Green that resulting (sic) in the court awarding landlord ACSH's security deposit of $76,000 for rent arrears, acknowledged the surrender of premises to SL Green, and allowed landlord to preserve right to pursue future arrears of the lease." Ouch!

ACHS's most recent IRS financial disclosure

A 501(c)(3) non-profit like the American Council on Science and Health, is required to file IRS form 990 each year. The group's latest 990 filing is for fiscal year July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021. 

In that filing, which was submitted February 24, 2022, one finds that ACSH had total revenue of $901,398, of which $875,665 came from contributions and grants and $25,932 was investment income. The prior year contributions and grants amounted to $1,262,446, so ACSH experienced a roughly 30 percent year-to-year drop. 

Employee compensation consumed slightly over $500,000 of the total revenue, or 56 percent. Legal, accounting, professional fundraising, and investment management fees totaled $94,000; another 10 percent of total revenue. Total functional expenses were $980,000. Total assets dropped from $811,720 to $702,306.

ACSH's annual revenue bounces up and down, but among the past five years the revenue in fiscal year ending 2021 was the second worst — the year after what was easily ACSH's best performance of the five years. Perhaps covid accounts for the downturn.

To put ACSH's recent finances in context, its total revenue for fiscal year ending 1985 was $856,216. So, to have merely kept pace with inflation over 36 years, the small group — which in 2020-2021 consisted of four employees — would have had needed total revenue of $2.16 million. In real dollars ACSH's revenue shrank by nearly 60 percent from 1985 to 2021. In the best of the six recently filed years, ACSH fell about $800,000 short of inflation adjusted parity with its 1984-1985 revenue. ACHS's revenue has dropped dramatically since it reached $2.4 million in 2015.

Center for Science in the Public Interest, which Elizabeth Whelan considered her major adversary, had total revenue of $12.7 million in the fiscal year ending June 2021, and far higher revenue than ACSH in all of the years for which data are provided.

See more extensive ACSH financial data at ProPublica.