Geoffrey Kabat, PhD, is a cancer epidemiologist and author of two books arguing that that health hazards of pesticides, electromagnetic fields, secondhand tobacco smoke and other environmental exposures are “greatly overblown.” He is often quoted in the press as an independent expert on cancer risk. Reporters who use Dr. Kabat as a source should be aware of (and disclose) his longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and involvement with groups that partner with the chemical industry on PR and lobbying campaigns.
Front group leader and advisor
Dr. Kabat is a member of the board of directors of the Science Literacy Project, the parent group of Genetic Literacy Project, which works behind the scenes with Monsanto to promote and defend agrichemical products. Dr. Kabat is also a member of the board of scientific advisors of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a group that receives funding from chemical, tobacco and pharmaceutical companies.
Both Genetic Literacy Project and ACSH partnered with Monsanto on a public relations campaign to attempt to discredit the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) for its report that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is a probable human carcinogen. According to documents released via litigation:
- A Monsanto PR plan (February 2015) named Genetic Literacy Project among the “industry partners” Monsanto planned to engage in its efforts to “neutralize [the] impact” of the IARC report. The goals of Monsanto’s plan were to “protect the reputation and FTO of Roundup” and “provide cover for regulatory agencies…” GLP has since posted more than 200 articles critical of the cancer agency.
- Emails from February 2015 show that Monsanto funded ACSH on an ongoing basis and reached out to give ACSH the “full array” of Monsanto information about the IARC report on glyphosate. In the emails, Monsanto staffers discussed the usefulness of ACSH’s materials on pesticides, and one wrote, “You WILL NOT GET A BETTER VALUE FOR YOUR DOLLAR than ACSH.” (emphasis in original)
- ACSH staffers told Monsanto the IARC glyphosate report was on their radar, and noted, “We are involved in a full-court press re: IARC, regarding ag-chemicals, DINP [phthalate] and diesel exhaust.”
These groups used similar messaging to attack the IARC cancer researchers as “scientific frauds” and “anti-chemical enviros” who “lied” and “conspired to misrepresent” the science on glyphosate. They cited Dr. Kabat as a key source for claims that IARC is “discredited” and “only enviro-fanatics” pay attention to reports on cancer hazard. Dr. Kabat has written that “there are literally no more studies we can do to show glyphosate is safe,” based on an interview with an anonymous expert.
Attacking scientists who raise cancer concerns
Another example of how Dr. Kabat aids the Monsanto-connected groups can be found in his efforts to discredit a different group of scientists who raised cancer concerns about glyphosate in a February 2019 meta-analysis. The meta-analysis, co-authored by three scientists who were tapped by EPA to serve on an expert scientific advisory committee on glyphosate, reported “compelling links” between exposures to glyphosate-based herbicides and increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Dr. Kabat skewered the analysis in an article that was first published on Forbes but was later removed after Forbes editors received complaints about Kabat’s lack of disclosure about his ties to ACSH. When questioned about the issue, Forbes said the article was pulled because it violated Forbes standards and Kabat would no longer be a contributor to Forbes.
Dr. Kabat’s deleted Forbes article can still be read on Science 2.0, a website run by the former director of ACSH, and a version appears on Genetic Literacy Project. GLP Executive Director Jon Entine promoted Dr. Kabat’s article along with suggestions that the scientists may have committed “deliberate fraud.”
For more information about industry-orchestrated attacks on IARC, see:
- Secret Documents Expose Monsanto’s War on Cancer Scientists, by Stacy Malkan, TruthOut (7.16.18)
- Monsanto Relied on These ‘Partners’ to Attack Top Cancer Scientists, USRTK fact sheet
Dr. Kabat’s longstanding tobacco ties
Dr. Kabat has published several papers favorable to the tobacco industry that were funded by the tobacco industry. He and his co-author on some of those papers, James Enstrom (a trustee of the American Council on Science and Health), have longstanding ties to the tobacco industry, according to a 2005 paper in BMJ Tobacco Control.
In a widely cited 2003 paper in BMJ, Kabat and Enstrom concluded that secondhand smoke does not increase the risk of lung cancer and heart disease. The study was sponsored in part by the Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR), a tobacco industry group. Although that funding was disclosed, a follow-up analysis in BMJ Tobacco Control reported that the disclosures provided by Kabat and Enstrom, although they met the journal’s standards, “did not provide the reader with a full picture of the tobacco industry’s involvement with the study authors. The tobacco industry documents reveal that the authors had long standing financial and other working relationships with the tobacco industry.”
Enstrom countered these claims in a 2007 article in Epidemiological Perspectives and Innovation, arguing that his funding and competing interests were clearly and accurately described in the 2003 BMJ paper, and that tobacco industry funding did not impact his research. “To date, no impropriety, bias or omission has been identified in the review process and no error in the results has been identified in the paper,” Enstrom said. The University of California does not ban tobacco industry funding of researchers but does now prohibit researchers from soliciting funding from the tobacco industry.
Financial ties to the tobacco industry reported in the BMJ Tobacco Control paper included:
In 2019, a search for Geoffrey Kabat in the UCSF Tobacco Industry Documents brings up over 800 documents, including a 2007 invoice to Phillip Morris for over $20,000 for “consulting on the health effects of low-yield cigarettes” billed at $350 an hour.
In 2008, Kabat and Enstrom published a paper partly funded by Phillip Morris reporting that previous assessments appeared to have overestimated the strength of the association between environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease.
In 2012, Dr. Kabat co-authored a paper finding that mentholated cigarettes were not an important contributor to esophageal cancer. For that paper, Dr. Kabat declared he had “served as a consultant to a law firm and to a consulting firm on the health effects of menthol cigarettes.”
For more information from U.S. Right to Know about front groups and academics with undisclosed ties to food and chemical companies, see our Pesticide Industry Propaganda Tracker.