Or How Irving Selikoff and His Lobby (the Collegium Ramazzini) Fooled the Monsanto Corporation
Anyone who litigates occupational or environmental disease cases has heard of the Collegium Ramazzini. The group is named after a 17th century Italian physician, Bernardino Ramazzini, who is sometimes referred to as the father of occupational medicine.[1] His children have been an unruly lot. In Ramazzini’s honor, the Collegium was founded just over 40 years old, to acclaim and promises of neutrality and consensus.
Back in May 1983, a United Press International reporter chronicled the high aspirations and the bipartisan origins of the Collegium.[2] The UPI reporter noted that the group was founded by the late Irving Selikoff, who is also well known in litigation circles. Selikoff held himself out as an authority on occupational and environmental medicine, but his actual training in medicine was dodgy. His training in epidemiology and statistics was non-existent.
Selikoff was, however, masterful at marketing and prosyletizing. Selikoff would become known for misrepresenting his training, and creating a mythology that he did not participate in litigation, that crocidolite was not used in products in the United State, and that asbestos would become a major cause of cancer in the United States, among other things.[3] It is thus no surprise that Selikoff successfully masked the intentions of the Ramazzini group, and was thus able to capture the support of two key legislators, Senators Charles Mathias (Rep., Maryland) and Frank Lautenberg (Dem., New Jersey), along with officials from both organized labor and industry.
Selikoff was able to snooker the Senators and officials with empty talk of a new organization that would work to obtain scientific consensus on occupational and environmental issues. It did not take long after its founding in 1983 for the Collegium to become a conclave of advocates and zealots.
The formation of the Collegium may have been one of Selikoff’s greatest deceptions. According to the UPI news report, Selikoff represented that the Collegium would not lobby or seek to initiate legislation, but rather would interpret scientific findings in accessible language, show the policy implications of these findings, and make recommendations. This representation was falsified fairly quickly, but certainly by 1999, when the Collegium called for legislation banning the use of asbestos. Selikoff had promised that the Collegium
“will advise on the adequacy of a standard, but will not lobby to have a standard set. Our function is not to condemn, but rather to be a conscience among scientists in occupational and environmental health.”
The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883); artwork by Enrico Mazzanti
Senator Mathias proclaimed the group to be “dedicated to the improvement of the human condition.” Perhaps no one was more snookered than the Monsanto Corporation, which helped fund the Collegium back in 1983. Monte Throdahl, a Monsanto senior vice president, reportedly expressed his hopes that the group would emphasize the considered judgments of disinterested scientists and not the advocacy and rent seeking of “reporters or public interests groups” on occupational medical issues. Forty years in, those hopes are long since gone. Recent Collegium meetings have been sponsored and funded by the National Institute for Environmental Sciences, Centers for Disease Control, National Cancer Institute, and Environmental Protection Agency. The time has come to cut off funding.
[1] Giuliano Franco & Francesca Franco, “Bernardino Ramazzini: The Father of Occupational Medicine,” 91 Am. J. Public Health 1382 (2001).
[2] Drew Von Bergen, “A group of international scientists, backed by two senators,” United Press International (May 10, 1983).
[3] “Selikoff Timeline & Asbestos Litigation History” (Feb. 26, 2023); “The Lobby – Cut on the Bias” (July 6, 2020); “The Legacy of Irving Selikoff & Wicked Wikipedia” (Mar. 1, 2015). See also “Hagiography of Selikoff” (Sept. 26, 2015); “Scientific Prestige, Reputation, Authority & The Creation of Scientific Dogmas” (Oct. 4, 2014); “Irving Selikoff – Media Plodder to Media Zealot” (Sept. 9, 2014).; “Historians Should Verify Not Vilify or Abilify – The Difficult Case of Irving Selikoff” (Jan. 4, 2014); “Selikoff and the Mystery of the Disappearing Amphiboles” (Dec. 10, 2010); “Selikoff and the Mystery of the Disappearing Testimony” (Dec. 3, 2010).
