Center honored for revealing chemical industry influence over science
The Center for Public Integrity's "Toxic Clout" series on the chemical industry's questionable influence over science has won an award from the Society of Environmental Journalists.
The series won the Kevin Carmody Award for outstanding in-depth reporting from a small-market outlet.
"This year-long investigation convincingly revealed how chemical industry influence and regulatory malaise create uncertainty and delay, putting public health at risk," the judges said.
The series included a story on a prominent public-health scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who quietly made millions of dollars working for chemical companies without disclosing conflicts. Another story uncovered how scientists with financial conflicts on an EPA peer-review panel delayed a scientific assessment of hexavalent chromium. The story prompted the the agency to reform its peer-review process.
The series also revealed how the American Chemistry Council, the industry's largest lobbying group, routinely seeks to relax regulations in states. And it showed how Georgia Pacific hired scientists to publish articles that would help the company in litigation, a scheme that a New York appeals court concluded “could have been in furtherance of a fraud.”
The writers were David Heath, Ronnie Greene and Jim Morris.
The Society of Environmental Journalists received 313 entries for seven categories of awards.
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Inside Publici. Click here to read more stories in this topic.
Related stories
Cancer-cluster study seeking to debunk 'Erin Brockovich' has glaring weaknesses
EPA adds safeguards to spotlight conflicts on scientific panels
Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
