TASSC, the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, is a defunct organization claiming to promote “sound” science. It sided with the tobacco industry and once played an important role in the tobacco war.

It all started in the earlier 1990s, when Phillip Morris Company (the PM Company, the maker of Marlboro cigarette) was in a battle against the EPA ruling on the environmental tobacco smoke (ETS the passive smoking).

The PM Company had long been contemplating to found third party organizations which could defense the tobacco industry. For example, through a public relation company, the PM Company founded the “National Smoker’s Alliance”(NSA) whose goal was to advocate the freedom and rights of smoking. The PM Company paid millions of dollars to NSA for newspaper ads, telemarketing, and other national activities.

This “grassroots” third-party strategy worked. Although it didn’t help PM Company win the court, it did confuse the public and reduced the tobacco company’s liability. With this success, the PM Company decided to found another organization to fight against the ETS ruling.

Through another PR company, APCO Associates, the PM Company launched TASSC in 1993. In order to conceal the PM Company as the founding company, TASSC disguised itself as a multi-discipline coalition of scientists. It sought sponsorship from biotechnical, chemical, and waste pollution industries. Partners of TASSC included Santa Fe Pacific Gold Corporation, Procter & Gamble, the Louisiana Chemical Association, the National Pest Control Association, General Motors, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Exxon, W.R. Grace & Co., Amoco, Occidental Petroleum, 3M, Chevron and Dow Chemical.

Thus, the TASSC broadened its mission to “clean up” the scientific community. TASSC actively issued news release and newsletters, created reports, and published articles in many news media. It aggressively recruited people from various scientific backgrounds. Because TASSC adopted a decentralized approach in media campaign, local TASSC successfully launched various attacks on scientific research.

It also organized media tour for celebrities such as Garrey Carruthers, the former governor of New Mexico. During the Garruthers’ tour, TASSC was pictured as a “grassroots-based, not-for-profit watchdog group of scientists and representatives from universities, independent organizations and industry, that advocates the use of sound science in the public policy arena.” It attacked environmental research in asbestos reduction, dioxin, and radon level in drinking water.

Michael A. Miles, former CEO of the PM Company, ranted about the status quo of science, “Increasingly today, one can find examples of junk science that compromise the integrity of the field of science and, at the same time, create a scare environment where unnecessary regulations on industry in general, and on the consumer products industry in particular, are rammed through without respect to rhyme, reason, effect or cause.” This was exactly the rational endorsed by TASSC. The key was that what junk science was. For TASSC and the PM Company, that ETS hurts people was “junk science.”

The PM Company remained the heart and major funding source for TASSC. For example, TASSC received $880,000 from the PM Company in 1994. It distributed articles authored by the PM Company on the ETS issue.

But TASSC didn’t stay long. Founded by a corporation, its existence served a particular purpose. When the ETS war was over, TASSC quietly demised in 1998. Most corporate-funded organizations had a similar fate. Like a shooting star in the night sky, they shine just for a few minutes.

However, its legacy lives. There are hundreds of industry-funded organizations claimed they are “critically evaluating science and promoting sound science.” Their sole purpose is not to educate people but to confuse people. Maybe that’s the price of freedom of speech we have to pay.