Kathy Jean Hayes - The Corporate Corruption of Science website

Kathy Hayes was working for the Tobacco Institute as a consultant before the formal recruitment of economist into the clandestine network. She only remained within the network for a few years.

These were academic economists who secretly worked on commission for the tobacco industry through the Tobacco Institute. The network was set up in November 1982 by James Savarese (working through his own company and Ogilvy & Mather PR) with later expansion nationwide through Professor Robert Tollison of George Mason University.

Tollison and Savarese acted as contractors and cut-outs, using the Center for the Study of Public Choice at GMU, which supplied the adminstration staff. They recruited ultra-libertarian economics professors at the major state universities through the Public Choice Society and various regional economics societies.

The problem is not that these scientists were ultra-libertarians, and that many of them were Tea-Party disciples of Ayn Rand, Frederick Hayek and/or Ludwig von Misen. Nor was it necessarily made worse by the fact that the industry they helped prosper made a product that caused the premature death of about four million people globally each year.

Over a hundred professors of economics at major American universities were successfully recruited by Tollison and Savarese, and many of them remained in service to the tobacco industry for many years. Others only served for a short time, and then dropped out voluntarily ... or were found to be unreliable or unsatisfactory.

They were not paid retainers or salaries, but were erratically commissioned to perform specified functions (usually for $1000 to $3000 per project) when the tobacco industry came under attack. Some earned much more — often in the $20-40,000 range — for producing 'independent research' which was customised to produce the desired results.

Payments were never made directly from the tobacco industry to the economists. Commissions were all carefully laundered through Savarese's company or Tollison's GMU operations — and so the economist (wrongly) assumed this would provide deniability if ever challenged over selling out their academic credibility to the merchants of death.

Network beginnings:

1979 Jan: Academic economists Professor Robert Tollison and Richard Wagner have been recruited by George Berman of Devon Management Resources to provide material supporting the International Committee on Smoking Issues (ICOSI... later INFOTAB)
1980: Tollison and Wagner had been commissioned by ICOSI's Social Acceptability Working Party (SAWP) to write a monograph "Consumer Protection, Public Policy and Cost-Benefit Analysis"
1982: Under Tollison and Public Choice guru James Buchanan, the team of Public Choice economists at Virginia Polytechnic/State University resign en masse and migrate over to the break-away, corporate funded, George Mason University (including their think-tank Center) — thus providing the tobacco industry with a Washington DC pool of unfettered free-market Randian-political economists who are all looking for outside commissions.
1982 Nov: A labor economic lobbyist working for his own company (through via Ogilvy & Mather PR), James Savarese, proposes to the Tobacco Institute that they use academic economists (mainly Kenneth Greene of SUNY and Harold Hochman of CUNY) to prepare papers opposing cigarette tax excise increases in New York State.
1983: The Tobacco Instittue puts the Tollison/Wagner team (which has the resources of the Center for Study of Public Choice, together with Savarese and Ogilvy & Mather PR to prepare a book "Free to Smoke" and later a propaganda booklet Smoking & Society
1984 Jan /E. The Tobacco Institute is now expanding the Savarese-run network of economist to other States — mainly recruiting academic economists to write op-eds for their local newspapers. Tollison is able to provide the recruitment services through his Center for the Study of Public Choice and the Public Choice Society.
1984 April: The Tobacco Institute has again put Tollison together with Savarese and his associates to prepare a pseudo-study which will become their economic defence against proposed smoking bans in New York resturants. The TI's Excise Tax Plan for this month lists 14 Public Choice economists in other States who have been recruited to help in the fight against excise increases.
1984 Jun: The network has now been formalised under the name Committee on Taxation and Economic Growth. with Savarese as administrator. They have about 15 members overall and 10 active op-ed writers.

Some key documents

• Professor of Economics, North Illinois University, Illinois. In here early years she worked extensively with Shawna Grosskopf, of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

1980 June: Assistant Professor Department of Economics, Northern Illinois University

1981 Jan: - July 1982 Visiting Professor at Southern Illinois University [with Shawna Grosskopf]

1982 May: to September: consultant to the Illinois State Tax Reform Commission which was looking into the potential of higher cigarette taxes (among others). The researchers supporting the commission are listed as including

1982 Sept: Shawna Grosskopf and Kathy Hayes have prepared a Report to the Excise and Consumption Taxes Task Force of the Tax Reform Commlssion [in Illinois]. There is no obvious slant towards support for the tobacco industry although they do conclude:

1983 June: She becomes a Consultant to the Tobacco Institute
[Admission in C/V]

1983 July 5: Tobacco Institute regional director's activities records show for the Illinois Region that

1984 June 2: The Tobacco Institute has cleared some testimony with their legal advisors (Covington & Burling). It is titled "Economic Analysis of Illinois State Cigrette Tax" and the authors are Shawna Grosskopf and Kathy Hayes. It was...

1985 Jan 31: Hurst Marshall has distributed this Tobacco Institute list of economists from the cash-for-comments network to their Regional VPs and Directors. It has been organise by State, and includes the names of Congressmen they wish to influence.

1985 Jan 31: A Tobacco Institute list of economists in the cash-for-comments network, which has been ordered by State, and includes the names of Congressmen they wish to influence. It give the details of the economist who will be detailed to make the contact... probably via sending him/them a published op-ed. It lists:

1985 Feb 6: Fred Panzer writes to Hurst Marsahll on "Change to List of Economists"

1985 Feb 7: Judy Wiedemeier of the Tobacco Institute is writing to the regional lobbyists.

1986 Oct 3: A Tobacco Institute report on the economists network, lists the Congressmen they are expected to influence,and the economist's various academic specialities.

This early list is probably the most detailed of all. A later section of this 43 page document also runs through the 28 main states giving the names and details of witnesses willing to speak to legislators on Taxes (almost exclusively economists), and those available as witnesses for the tobacco industry on Public Smoking issues (economists and a range of others)

A major effort had also been made recently to enlist fire officers and brigades to counter demands for a 'fire-safe' cigarette which had low ignition propensity.

1986 Oct 3: The State Directors for the Tobacco Institute have been reviewing all economics network witnesses in their territories, and culling those who are not actively participating. The Washington DC office is now circulating to its State Directors a list of the economists available who...

1990: The Annual Report of the Southern Economic Association has her listed as a Trustee with the Southern Methodist University

1990 June: /E John E Chubb, (Brookings Institute — Center for Education Innovation... a subset of the Manhattan Institute) has been proposing a educational voucher system to privatise US education (also Edison Project). This report says:

1998 June: RJ Reynolds is running its own organised letter-writing campaign in Illinois against excise tax increases. Their lobbyists have convinced a large number of Democratic politicians, academics and bureaucrats to oppose the Federal tax increases by writing letters to their Congressmen (copies enclosed):

USA

Kathy Jean Hayes [Prof]

(aka Cathy (not Katherine))

— A cash for comments economist from Northern Illinois University who worked briefly for the tobacco industry. —

Some key documents