Gerhard Stöhrer

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Gerhard Stöhrer Ph.D. (Gerhard Stohrer) is a former Department Head at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research.

Dr. Gerhard Stöhrer was working at the Biological Chemistry division of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, when he wrote together with Bosworth Brown an article called "The Metabolism of Guaninie 3-Oxide by the Rat" published by The Journal of Biological Chemistry on May 10, 1969 (received November 29, 1968). [1]

Gerhard Stöhrer was in 1991 director 'Chemical Risk Project' at the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, a now-defunct think tank affiliated with Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. He wrote on March 15, 1991 a letter to the Council for Tobacco Research (created by Philip Morris) to ask support for a Arsenic related study [2]. In that same year he wrote an article called "Arsenic: opportunity for risk assessment" for that 'Washington Institute' [3].

He wrote in 1993 on behalf of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) a speech called "Toxic Policy at Dead End: The Case of Arsenic" [4]. Gerhard Stöhrer held that speech at a seminar in Paris on May 10, 1993, organized by the International Center for a Scientific Ecology and co-sponsored by SEPP. SEPP, founded in 1990 by S. Fred Singer who also held a speech at that seminar, received startup funding and a one-year donation of office space from the same 'Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy'.

Dr. Gerhard Stöhrer's letter to the editor was published in the September 1993 edition of Cancer Research. [5]

Dr. Gerhard Stöhrer and Dr. Frederick Seitz (now chairman of the Science and Environmental Policy Project) wrote in July 1994 a letter to the editor in Chemical & Engineering News called "A pause on environmental policy" metioning 'SEPP'. [6]

Mr. Stöhrer was Director at SEPP of the 'Chemical Risk Program' when he was on the 'Academic Advisory Board' for the pro-tobacco junk science report "Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination" published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI) on August 11, 1994. Philip Morris was a sponsor of AdTI (see AdTI-Funding).

Mr. Stöhrer's name can be found on two lists related to the 'Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management' which was mandated by Congress in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. On the list for 'Individuals Who Presented Testimony at Commission Meetings' it says:

Gerhard Stohrer Science and Environmental Policy Project [7]

On the list 'Individuals and Organizations Who Provided Comments on the Commission’s June 1996 Draft Report' that changed to:

Gerhard Stohrer
President
Risk Policy Center
Larchmont, NY [8]

Documents & Timeline

1994 Aug A Alexis de Tocqueville report "The EPA and the Science of ETS" has been funded by the Tobacco Institute. The author was Adjunct Scholar Kent Jeffreys, and the senior reviewer was S. Fred Singer, a Professor of Environmental Science (on leave from the University of Virginia) and a Senior Fellow at the Institute. The final report was scheduled to be complete mid-June and it would be entitled "Science and Environmentalism".

A confidential memo by the president of the Tobacco Institute, Samuel D. Chilcote, Jr., described how this secret tobacco-funded report was being used in legislative lobbying:

This morning Reps. Peter Geren (D-TX) and John Mica (R-FL) held a press conference announcing the release of a study by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution that evaluates the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) scientific principles used to justify policy decisions. Geren and Mica were joined by Cesar Conda, executive director of the de Tocqueville Institution and coauthors Dr. S. Fred Singer and Kent Jeffreys." [9]

"Press coverage included States News Service, Stephens Publishing and Cable Congress. Several congressional staffers also attended, copies of the Geren/Mica "Dear Colleague" letter, press release and the study are enclosed."

[10]

This report is part of a larger coordinated effort to blindside the EPA. A "panel of experts" was assembled to "peer-review" the report. Naturally the majority were people with identified links to tobacco-funded institutes and think tanks, and some who share the same small set of funders.

Academic Advisory Board:

Senior Staff and Contributing Associates
Rachael Applegate,   Bruce Bartlett,   Merrick Carey,   Cesar Conda,   Gregory Fossedal,   Dave Juday,   Felix Rouse,   Aaron Stevens

Ten of the 19 names of the Academic Advisory Board are members of the Cash for Comments Economists Network. At this time S. Fred Singer was a Senior Fellow at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, but they chose not to credit him with such close links.

These attempt to link the tobacco industry's problems to arguments about climate change were part funded by the Olin Foundation, Koch Family Foundations and Scaife Foundations.

  • 20 page Draft document sent to the Tobacco Institute [11]
  • The release about the final report (August 11 1994) It is now an attack on "environmental regulation" -- ETS, radon, pesticides and agricultural regulation, and the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program ... and based, supposedly, on the quality of the science used by the EPA. [12]
  • The final report was called Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination.' It had the approval of the Cash for Comments Economists Network. [13]

1996 Nov 29 He wrote a small article in 'Science Magazine' on November 29, 1996 called 'Low-Level Radiation' and at the bottom of that article it says

Gerhard Stöhrer
Risk Policy Center,
20 Stafford Place,
Larchmont, NY 10538, USA [14]


2001: On the 'Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine' site, you can read

"The Risk Policy Center, an informal committee of scientists including Frederick Seitz, petitioned for [the new arsenic standards for drinking water] withdrawal" [15]

Frederick Seitz is the chairman of SEPP.


2001 Dec-Jan 2002 It seems that in December 2001 [16] and January 2002 [17] Stöhrer was still active at the 'Risk Policy Center'.

An overview of articles by him can be seen at the National Center for Biotechnology Information.