BF: Public Citizen's Quarrel

The consumer advocates at Public Citizen say they are worried about Graham's corporate ties.

Their report, titled "Safeguards at Risk: John Graham and Corporate America's Back Door to the While House," claims that if the Senate approves Graham's nomination, "he will be in a position to wield enormous power, and to undercut public health, safety, and environmental protections for years to come."

The report's author, Laura MacCleery, characterizes Graham as a consultant and lobbyist for the industry, not an academic interested doing good science.

"There are several levels of our complaint," MacCleery says. "[Graham] does not hold degrees in any hard sciences yet he refers to himself repeatedly in stories as a scientist. It's fair to say that if you're evaluating the health effects of dioxin, you should know something about biology."

The report criticizes both Graham himself and the work that he oversees at the HCRA. It characterizes the center as corrupted by the corporate money that finances it.

Graham's supporters counter by saying the report is highly selective in what it chooses to present, ignoring cases when research done under Graham's oversight gave results that were not favorable to companies that sponsored the studies.

Graham is not allowed to comment to the press under the terms of his nomination process, but according to spokesperson for the OMB Chris Ullman, Graham intents to combat the conclusions of the report when he is again able to speak publicly.