Eastern Mediterranean Indoor Environment Society

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The Eastern Mediterranean Indoor Environment Society (EMIES) was yet another of the fake scientific societies created by Philip Morris to support their recruitment of WhiteCoats around the world. It was run by Professors Aly Massoud of the Faculty of Medicine, Ain Sham University, Abbassia in Cairo, with the help of his brother (another 'consultant' to Philip Morris) Ahmed Massoud who was a professor of Architecture.

Documents & Timeline

1992 Apr 1 Mayada Logue at Philip Morris in New York advises all the main disinformation executives (both at PM and at the other companies and lawyers) about an upcoming conference on indoor air pollution to be held in Cairo in May 1992. This program has all the elements of that listed below (Held a year later -- including the same sponsors). [2]

[Note the name of the University is Ain Sham University (the third in Cairo, founded 1950)]
WhiteCoats Orgs.
IAPAG   (Nth America)
ARIA   (UK & Europe)
IAI, IAIAQ & ISBE
EGIL   (Scandanavia)
EMIES (E Med/N.Africa)
ARTIST   (S.E. Asia)
AAOH SCIA (Asia)
APTRC   (East Asia)
APAIAQ (Asia-Pacific)

1993 Sep 20 This is a Covington & Burling (C&B) lawyer's memo about a conference to be held in Cairo. It lists George Leslie's Indoor Air International (IAI) as the key society which is to be said is sponsoring the operation. He wants someone to organise press coverage. The conference was to be held:

November 15-17 at Ain Shams University, and is supported there by the Medical Faculty. It is called "Occupational Hazards from Air Pollution". As co-sponsors, it has the Eastern Mediterranean Indoor Environment Society (EMIES) and Indoor Air International (IAI). It will cover a wide variety of topics, both indoor and outdoor.

It goes on to stress the public relations requirements:

We want simple PR help, done carefully at arm's length, and of the kind that plausibly could be sought by a scientific society. We do not want to publicize the conference itself, or Ain Shams, or the Medical Faculty, except incidentally and as necessary to publicize some of our speakers. There may be things at the conference we will want ignored.

The client would be IAI, and the PR man should at some point be in direct contact with them. The bill should go to them, and they should send the check. IAI is an international society open to everyone interested in IAQ issues, with members all over the world. It publishes a major scientific journal from Switzerland which goes to libraries, etc., and conducts conferences throughout the world. Its major 1993 meeting will be in October in London at the Royal College of Physicians.

[Indoor Air International (IAI) was, in fact, a sham scientific organisation run by the two speakers being promoted.]

We will have several speakers, but there are two to concentrate on, and two others who might be fallbacks. The two choices are George Leslie and Roger Perry. [Fallbacks were John Gorrod of Kings College and Ann Spurgeon of Birmingham University]

The writer of the memo, Charles Lister (a lawyer with Covington & Burling in London) says he will be attending the conference personally and give a paper on European Community legislation, <font-color=green> " so as not to look like an odd outsider." He wants the PR company to set up...

"interviews, joint or separate, with GeorgeLeslie and Prof. Roger Perry. They play off each other well, and between them cover both health and IAQ questions. I can imagine stories to the effect that two eminent British scientists are in Cairo to attend an international conference regarding air pollution, and kindly expressed their views regarding those issues.

A press conference would be fine, but I would hold it at a hotel or other place away from the conference centre itself. Otherwise, others at the conference will be aware of it, and may want to become involved.

If it were possible to line up courtesy visits (in other words, informal lobbying) to government people, so much the better. Leslie could do them on the 16th or 17th, or they could both do them on the 14th. [3]


1993 Nov 15 - 17 Reference to this in upcoming meeting is on Covington & Burling's meetings list. It is to be held at the Conference Center Cairo, Egypt and contact details are given at the University. [4]

[After this conference, the society appears to have disappeared off the map]