WARNING: This site deals only with the corporate corruption of science, and makes no inference about the motives or activities of individuals involved.
    There are many reasons why individuals become embroiled in corporate corruption activities - from political zealotry to over-enthusiastic activism; from gullibility to greed.
    Please read the OVERVIEW carefully, and make up your own mind.

OPINION ONLY

APCO Associates (later APCO & Associates, then APCO Worldwide) was a company established by Arnold & Porter, the boardroom lawfirm of Philip Morris, specifically to provide the tobacco industry with an under-cover way to influence public opinion by establishing 'astroturf' operations.

APCO is clearly exposed in the tobacco archives as setting up The Advancement of Sound Science Coaltion (TASSC) and the junk-science.com website for the tobacco industry in the early 1990s. And it largely controlled the coalition-funded American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) through Neal Cohen from about 1991, and it is known to have had a hand in S Fred Singer's Science and Environmental Public Policy (SEPP) operation a little later.

In the mid 1990s it migrated to become a more 'normal' public relations and influence-retailing organisation [hiring many ex-Diplomats and Congressmen] after a complex series of management take-overs engineered by Margery Kraus and her lawyer husband. It is not clear how much control Philip Morris still had over the company during the 1995 - 99 years, or how much influence it has now.

Some key documents

• APCO staffer running an issue management practice, and also involved in grassroots and grasstop programs. He promotes Tort Reform.
    His history was with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and as a Finance Director for Congresswoman, Lynn Woolsey

1995: Joined APCO

1998: Puff Piece from APCO.

The Y2K Task Force is headed by Robert Schooling, senior vice president in charge of Issues Management in APCO's Washington headquarters. Schooling has been involved in client work on this issue for the past two years and is an expert in communications and litigation support services.

    "Y2K is a global problem," Schooling said "The issue goes beyond the U.S borders, and global companies must have a plan that extends around the globe and considers implications where partners suppliers and customers live."

1999 Dec 22: Geoff Freeman of APCO has sent Philip Morris PR executive Beverly McKittrick a parcel of document headed "Foreign Litigation Briefing Materials" about legal attacks on the tobacco industry (mainly Latin America). Freeman and Robert Schooling were in charge at APCO.

CONTRIBUTORS:lrt3 dlo2 in22