Back in 1997, Francis Douglas Kelly Liddell, a real scientist in the area of asbestos and disease, had had enough of the insinuations, slanders, and bad science from the minions of Irving John Selikoff.[1] Liddell broke with the norms of science and called out his detractors for what they were doing:
“[A]n anti-asbestos lobby, based in the Mount Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York, promoted the fiction that asbestos was an all-pervading menace, and trumped up a number of asbestos myths for widespread dissemination, through media eager for bad news.”[2]
What Liddell did not realize is that the Lobby had become institutionalized in the form of an organization, the Collegium Ramazzini, started by Selikoff under false pretenses.[3] Although the Collegium operates with some degree of secrecy, the open and sketchy conduct of its members suggest that we could use the terms “the Lobby” and “the Collegium Ramazzini,” interchangeably.
Ramazzini founder Irving Selikoff had an unfortunate track record for perverting the course of justice. Selikoff conspired with Ron Motley and others to bend judges with active asbestos litigation dockets by inviting them to a one-sided conference on asbestos science, and to pay for their travel and lodging. Presenters included key expert witnesses for plaintiffs; defense expert witnesses were conspicuously not invited to the conference. In his invitation to this ex parte soirée, Selikoff failed to mention that the funding came from plaintiffs’ counsel. Selikoff’s shenanigans led to the humiliation and disqualification of James M. Kelly,[4] the federal judge in charge of the asbestos school property damage litigation,
Neither Selikoff nor the co-conspirator counsel for plaintiffs ever apologized for their ruse. The disqualification did lead to a belated disclosure and mea culpa from the late Judge Jack Weinstein. Because of a trial in progress, Judge Weinstein did not attend the plaintiffs’ dog-and-pony show, Selikoff’s so-called “Third Wave” conference, but Judge Weinstein and a New York state trial judge, Justice Helen Freedman, attended an ex parte private luncheon meeting with Dr. Selikoff. Here is how Judge Weinstein described the event:
“But what I did may have been even worse [than Judge Kelly’s conduct that led to his disqualification]. A state judge and I were attempting to settle large numbers of asbestos cases. We had a private meeting with Dr. Irwin [sic] J. Selikoff at his hospital office to discuss the nature of his research. He had never testified and would never testify. Nevertheless, I now think that it was a mistake not to have informed all counsel in advance and, perhaps, to have had a court reporter present and to have put that meeting on the record.”[5]
Judge Weinstein’s false statement that Selikoff “had never testified”[6] not only reflects an incredible and uncharacteristic naiveté by a distinguished evidence law scholar, but the false statement was in a journal, Judicature, which was, and is, widely circulated to state and federal judges. The source of the lie appears to have been Selikoff himself in the ethically dodgy ex parte meeting with judges actively presiding over asbestos personal injury cases.
The point apparently weighed on Judge Weinstein’s conscience. He repeated his mea culpa almost verbatim, along with the false statement about Selikoff’s having never testified, in a law review article in 1994, and then incorporated the misrepresentation into a full-length book.[7] I have no doubt that Judge Weinstein did not intend to mislead anyone; like many others, he had been duped by Selikoff’s deception.
There is no evidence that Selikoff was acting as an authorized agent for the Collegium Ramazzini in conspiring to influence trial judges, or in lying to Judge Weinstein and Justice Freedman, but Selikoff was the founder of the Collegium, and his conduct seems to have set a norm for the organization. Furthermore, the Third-Wave Conference was sponsored by the Collegium. Two years later, the Collegium created an award in Selikoff’s name, in 1993, not long after the Third Wave misconduct.[8] Perhaps the award was the Collegium’s ratification of Selikoff’s misdeeds. Two of the recipients, Stephen M. Levin, and Yasunosuke Suzuki, were “regulars,” as expert witnesses for plaintiffs in asbestos litigation. The Selikoff Award is funded by the Irving J. Selikoff Endowment of the Collegium Ramazzini. The Collegium can fairly be said to be the continuation of Selikoff’s work in the form of advocacy organization.
Selikoff’s Third-Wave Conference and his lies to two key judges would not be the last of efforts to pervert the course of justice. With the Selikoff imprimatur and template in hand, Fellows of the Collegium have carried on, by carrying on. Collegium Fellows Carl F. Cranor and Thomas Smith Martyn Thomas served as partisan paid expert witnesses in the notorious Milward case.[9]
After the trial court excluded the proffered opinions of Cranor and Smith, plaintiff appealed, with the help of an amicus brief filed by The Council for Education and Research on Toxics (CERT). The plaintiffs’ counsel, Cranor and Smith, CERT, and counsel for CERT all failed to disclose that CERT was founded by the two witnesses, Cranor and Smith, whose exclusion was at the heart of the appeal.[10] Among the 27 signatories to the CERT amicus brief, a majority (15) were fellows of the Collegium Ramazzini. Others may have been members but not fellows. Many of the signatories, whether or not members or fellows of the Collegium, were frequent testifiers for plaintiffs’ counsel.
None raised any ethical qualms about the obvious conflict of interest on how scrupulous gatekeeping might hurt their testimonial income, or their (witting or unwitting) participation in CERT’s conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.[11]
The CERT amici signatories are listed below. The bold names are identified as Collegium fellows at its current website. Others may have been members but not fellows. The asterisks indicate those who have testified in tort litigation; please accept my apologies if I missed anyone.
Nicholas A. Ashford,
Nachman Brautbar,*
David C. Christiani,*
Richard W. Clapp,*
James Dahlgren,*
Devra Lee Davis,
Malin Roy Dollinger,*
Brian G. Durie,
David A. Eastmond,
Arthur L. Frank,*
Frank H. Gardner,
Peter L. Greenberg,
Robert J. Harrison,
Peter F. Infante,*
Philip J. Landrigan,
Barry S. Levy,*
Melissa A. McDiarmid,
Myron Mehlman,
Ronald L. Melnick,*
Mark Nicas,*
David Ozonoff,*
Stephen M. Rappaport,
David Rosner,*
Allan H. Smith,*
Daniel Thau Teitelbaum,*
Janet Weiss,* and
Luoping Zhang
This D & C (deception and charade) was repeated on other occasions when Collegium fellows and members signed amicus briefs without any disclosures of conflicts of interest. In Rost v. Ford Motor Co.,[12] for instance, an amicus brief was filed by by “58 physicians and scientists,” many of whom were Collegium fellows.[13]
Ramazzini Fellows David Michaels and Celeste Monforton were both involved in the notorious Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP) organization, which consistently misrepresented its funding from plaintiffs’ lawyers as having come from a “court fund.”[14]
Despite Selikoff’s palaver about how the Collegium would seek consensus and open discussions, it has become an echo-chamber for the rent-seeking mass-tort lawsuit industry, for the hyperbolic critics of any industry position, and for the credulous shills for any pro-labor position. In its statement about membership, the Collegium warns that
“Persons who have any type of links which may compromise the authenticity of their commitment to the mission of the Collegium Ramazzini do not qualify for Fellowship. Likewise, persons who have any conflict of interest that may negatively affect his or her impartiality as a researcher should not be nominated for Fellowship.”
This exclusionary criterion ensures lack of viewpoint diversity, and makes the Collegium an effective proxy for the law industry in the United States.
Among the Collegium’s current and past fellows, we can find many familiar names from the annals of tort litigation, all expert witnesses for plaintiffs, and virtually always only for plaintiffs. After over 40 years at the bar, I do not recognize a single name of anyone who has ever testified on behalf of a defendant in a tort case.
Henry A. Anderson
Barry I. Castleman
Martin Cherniack
David Christiani
Arthur Frank
Lennart Hardell
David G. Hoel
Stephen M. Levin
Ronald L. Melnick
David Michaels
Celeste Monforton
Albert Miller
Brautbar Nachman
Christopher Portier
Steven B. Markowitz
Christine Oliver
Colin L, Soskolne
Yasunosuke Suzuki
Daniel Thau Teitelbaum
Laura Welch
[1] “The Lobby – Cut on the Bias” (July 6, 2020).
[2] F.D.K. Liddell, “Magic, Menace, Myth and Malice,” 41 Ann. Occup. Hyg. 3, 3 (1997).
[3] See “The Dodgy Origins of the Collegium Ramazzini” (Nov. 15, 2023).
[4] In re School Asbestos Litigation, 977 F.2d 764 (3d Cir. 1992). See Cathleen M. Devlin, “Disqualification of Federal Judges – Third Circuit Orders District Judge James McGirr Kelly to Disqualify Himself So As To Preserve ‘The Appearance of Justice’ Under 28 U.S.C. § 455 – In re School Asbestos Litigation (1992),” 38 Villanova L. Rev. 1219 (1993); Bruce A. Green, “May Judges Attend Privately Funded Educational Programs? Should Judicial Education Be Privatized?: Questions of Judicial Ethics and Policy,” 29 Fordham Urb. L.J. 941, 996-98 (2002).
[5] Jack B. Weinstein, “Learning, Speaking, and Acting: What Are the Limits for Judges?” 77 Judicature 322, 326 (May-June 1994) (emphasis added).
[6] “Selikoff and the Mystery of the Disappearing Testimony” (Dec. 3, 2010).
[7] See Jack B. Weinstein, “Limits on Judges’ Learning, Speaking and Acting – Part I- Tentative First Thoughts: How May Judges Learn?” 36 Ariz. L. Rev. 539, 560 (1994) (“He [Selikoff] had never testified and would never testify.”); Jack B. Weinstein, Individual Justice in Mass Tort Litigation: The Effect of Class Actions, Consolidations, and other Multi-Party Devices 117 (1995) (“A court should not coerce independent eminent scientists, such as the late Dr. Irving Selikoff, to testify if, like he, they prefer to publish their results only in scientific journals.”).
[8] See also “The Selikoff – Castleman Conspiracy” (Mar. 13, 2011).
[9] Milward v. Acuity Specialty Products Group, Inc., 664 F.Supp.2d 137, 140 (D.Mass.2009), rev’d, 639 F. 3d 11 (1st Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S.Ct. 1002 (2012).
[10] See “The Council for Education and Research on Toxics” (July 9, 2013).
[11] “Carl Cranor’s Inference to the Best Explanation” (Dec. 12, 2021).
[12] Rost v. Ford Motor Co., 151 A.3d 1032, 1052 (Pa. 2016).
[13] “The Amicus Curious Brief” (Jan. 4, 2018).
[14] See, e.g., “SKAPP A LOT” (April 30, 2010); “Manufacturing Certainty” (Oct. 25, 2011); “David Michaels’ Public Relations Problem” (Dec. 2, 2011); “Conflicted Public Interest Groups” (Nov. 3, 2013).
