Anatomy of a Scam
How Tort Law Firms Pay NGOs to Create Evidence
On February 15, the US NGO, The Environmental Working Group (EWG), published a paper claiming that a little known chemical, chlormequat, was detected in the urine of 4 out of 5 Americans. Such exposure levels, of course, would be an issue of concern so the media, of course, piled in and amplified the pro-organic food NGO’s key messages. But so many things smell off about this event that it is worth a closer look than what the media have chosen to parrot.
Here is what the mainstream media, from USA Today to CBS, reported on:
The research was published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology
Chlormequat is suspected to be linked to reproductive issues
It was detected in 80% of urine samples tested
The level of exposures are increasing
23/25 oat-based products were found to contain traces of chlormequat.
EWG highlighted Quaker Oats in its press briefing
Here is what the mainstream media did not report on:
The journal is a pay-to-play publisher with a low impact factor ranking (56th in its category); it charges $3000 to publish a paper.
The study only analysed 96 single-point urine samples that had been frozen from three different regions in the US over three years.
EWG’s self-designated safe limit of 30 parts per billion for chlormequat is not a scientifically accepted benchmark
Funding for this EWG research came from The Skyline Foundation. This group offers dark, donor-advised funding (ie, a third party can give the fund money anonymously earmarked for EWG)
Two working days after the publication of the EWG paper, the New York based law firm, Bursor & Fisher, filed a class action lawsuit against Quaker Oats solely on the basis of the EWG report
The plaintiffs in the class action are not claiming any health consequences from the products, just that they had bought the bars on said dates and that Quaker Oats did not have a warning label on their products of the risk of toxic exposure
The court case documents against Quaker Oats reveal data referencing EWG that was not published in their study, website or press material.
It is clear that the media dropped the ball on this one by only playing up the EWG campaign objectives. But why should these journalists have bothered to do any investigative work? This is a chemical. There might be health effects. Quaker Oats is a big company. Nobody else is going to bother going into details.
But the main story the media is missing here is how tort law firms are anonymously paying NGOs to produce (fabricate) evidence they can then use to generate lucrative class action lawsuits. The Firebreak revealed how such law firms had set up a research NGO, the Heartland Health Research Alliance, for this purpose. In the case of this EWG report, the press briefing even left the smoking gun pointing directly at Quaker Oats to make any legal process more efficient and more targeted.
The Skyline Foundation will not come clean and publish the source of the funding for the EWG report. Like other donor-advised funds covered in The Firebreak’s series entitled Foundations for Activism, their donor commissions depend on their ability to protect the anonymity of EWG’s third party donors. Likewise, the EWG will not admit whether the source of this funding is also the ultimate beneficiary, the law firms who stand to profit from decades of lawsuits and their out-of-court settlements. The NGO is relying on continued media complacency and the inherent stupidity of their followers.
A Scam?
This has all of the hallmarks of a scam that is becoming worryingly more common. For much of the past decade, a few American scientists working with NGOs, and paid handsomely by law firms, were able to get the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to declare glyphosate a probable carcinogen. Despite the fact that no other scientific agency before or after has supported IARC’s conclusion, this little trick was enough for US tort law firms to extort a settlement with Bayer (owner of Monsanto) for $11 billion with thousands more cases in the pipeline. The media ignored this light-of-day heist.
With the Bursor & Fisher class action against Quaker Oats, how is it possible for a law firm to do the research and prepare more than a thousand plaintiffs to file a class action suit in just two working days? It can only be assumed they had access to the EWG document months before publication (implying a breach of research ethics and possible collusion between the law firm and the NGO). And why did the EWG focus their communications only on Quaker Oats products? As wheat and oats are used in a very wide range of food products, it can only be assumed that this concentration was done for potential litigation objectives.
Now there is no direct evidence linking the law firm with EWG, and we are entirely reliant on blindly trusting their word that the parties involved did not have a conflict of interest (as none was declared in the paper). But if this coincidence does not catch your attention, then you are not very intelligent. The media seemed to have missed this coincidence.
Is this a Harmless Theft
Many may argue:
So what! Quaker Oats, owned by PepsiCo, Inc, is a big multinational. They can afford it. They need to be more careful about the dangerous chemicals consumers are being exposed to. As the regulators are not doing their job protecting us, the tort system is the best we have, even if some actors do behave improperly.
But this potential EWG scam is not a harmless theft. Many will suffer.
It is most likely that litigation insurance will be covering any settlement in this case so the costs will be spread over a wider base of food products. Ask any American if they are getting value for money for their medical insurance compared to the healthcare on offer in any other developed country and the costs of such spurious litigations should become clear. That law firms are apparently now funding NGOs to create more cases should worry people demanding affordable access to quality food.
Bogus research is increasingly being produced to create unnecessary fear of synthetic chemicals and mistrust of the agricultural system. This of course benefits the organic food industry lobby, that also finances EWG, but it puts price pressures on consumers who have to decide whether they can still afford healthy options like fresh fruit and vegetables.
It amplifies the various activist campaigns against Big Business, portraying companies like Quaker Oats as not concerned with a safe food chain and of putting profits before health. In reality, the law firms are the ones reaping billions for their private jets, but EWG won’t tell that story. That would imply having to return to flying coach.
In a perfect world, EWG would be dragged into court for spreading false fears, conspiring with law firms to extort settlements while hiding the degree of their complicity in this scam. In a perfect world, the media would look carefully at groups like EWG, the weakness of their research, who funds them and their motives for spreading false fears. In a perfect world, lawyers trying to pull off a stunt like this would have their licenses revoked.