(
)
It’s the science of getting rich.
A Manhattan-based nonprofit sucked in nearly $1.3 million from donors last year — even though critics charge it pays its employees high salaries to do little work and touts advisers who are deceased.
The American Council on Science and Health is shelling out a $323,000 salary to its president and founder, Elizabeth Whelan, and $225,270 to medical director Gilbert Ross, tax filings show.
“They were once defenders of sound science,” one former board member told The Post. “Now you’d be foolish to give them money.”
The group spent $1.03 million of its $1.35 million in revenue from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, on employee compensation and benefits but failed to list specific projects in its tax forms.
Tax forms list just four paid employees. Two staffers were given $40,000 bonuses “based on revenue and performance,” although the nonprofit earned $1 million less than the previous year in 2009.
Whelan, 69, who has a doctorate from the Harvard School of Public Health and founded the nonprofit in 1978, brushed off criticism.
“We are more active than ever before,” she said. “Our budget is going to salaries that produce products. It’s our Web page and programs.”
The nonprofit’s mission is to release scientific reports that debunk health scares on food, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and it was once known among conservatives as a voice of reason.
When Greenpeace released a report in 1998 saying that vinyl toys contain high levels of toxins, the council responded with an opposing study, led by former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop.
But it released only two publications this year — a 24-page summary of summer health tips and a 32-page mix of employees’ op-eds.
Current projects include “ACSH Dispatch,” an online commentary of breaking medical stories, and Ross’ testimony on “reduced-risk tobacco” at an FDA hearing on Dec. 17.
One scientist who collaborated with ACSH for many years said he left the group because it has become a “glorified blog” unwilling to pay for innovative research.
“You might look at what they do and say this is pretty decent productivity for a one-person shop,” said the scientist. “Yet they have over $1 million! It’s astonishing to think of what you could do with that money. You could be doing three or four pieces of new serious research.”
ACSH stopped revealing its donors in the 1990s after it was denounced as a manufacturers’ front group. In the 1980s, it admitted at least a third of its funding came from corporations including Dow Chemical, Shell Oil, Coca-Cola and Eli Lilly, according to news reports. It now claims 90 percent of its money comes from individual donors.
Former chairman Glenn Swogger, a Kansas physician, said he resigned from the group in 2009 after arguments over staffing and leadership became “intolerable.”
Critics slammed the council for trumpeting an outdated board of 350 scientific advisers — many of whom are retired or dead — on its Web site and fund-raising videos.
The still-listed Dr. Charles Gallina, a nuclear physicist, died seven years ago. Addiction expert Dr. Morris Chafetz and Penn State agriculture professor Dr. Christopher Raines both died last year.
Kenneth Green of the Canadian think tank Fraser Institute was on the list against his wishes.
“I had myself removed [from the organization] three years ago,” said Green. “I was never significantly involved with them.”
Ross, the council’s medical director, admitted the group is overdue for some Web updates, but said it’s far from being sham science.
In the 1990s Ross was convicted of Medicaid fraud and served nearly four years in a federal slammer. He got back his license to practice medicine in 2004.
“If someone is giving you the impression that we’re sitting around here getting rich, it’s an absolute lie,” Ross said. “We’re running a bare-bones operation. For people with advanced degrees, [it’s] a very modest salary.”