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Wednesday, May 7, 2008
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Wednesday, May 7, 2008
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The Union League Club New York, N.Y.
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The first Henry I. Miller Award for Excellence in Public Health Education was presented to Dr. Henry Miller Wednesday, May 7, 2008. The Award luncheon, which took place at the Union League Club, was a huge success. People from all over the country and from Canada flew in to attend the event, and to celebrate Dr. Miller's accomplishments.
The award was established to recognize physicians and scientists who have, by their writing and media appearances, rendered exceptional service in promoting sound science in public health.
Melanie Kirkpatrick (from the Wall Street Journal's editorial board) and Ned Crabb (the Wall Street Journal's letters-to-the-editor editor for nearly twenty years) related their personal experiences on working with Dr. Miller's op-eds and letters over the past two decades. Other guests from the media also offered tributes: John Stossel from ABC's 20/20 related how Dr. Miller's commentaries (and other commentaries from ACSH) inspired him to take on junk science at ABC. And longtime radio commentator Barry Farber described Dr. Miller and other ACSH scientists as his "heroes" in fighting hyperbole about health risks.
ACSH was pleased and proud to honor Dr. Henry Miller for his prolific career in producing editorial commentaries on public health issues. It is our hope that the creation of this award -- to honor scientists who speak out on health issues -- will provide an incentive to other scientists to come out of their classrooms and laboratories to take on those who distort science.
In her opening comments, ACSH's Dr. Whelan noted that in the early 1980s when she first met Robert Bartley, the long-term editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, he asked a very pertinent question: "Why are scientists mute? Why don't they speak up when science is misrepresented?" She explained that Mr. Bartley had hit on the essence of the reason she founded ACSH: to motivate scientists to enter the public dialogue. Dr. Henry Miller, she noted, is the "poster scientist" for the original goals of ACSH: fighting daily in the media for the cause of sound science.
ACSH was pleased and proud to honor Dr. Henry Miller for his prolific career in producing editorial commentaries on public health issues. It is our hope that the creation of this award -- to honor scientists who speak out on health issues -- will provide an incentive to other scientists to come out of their classrooms and laboratories to take on those who distort science.
In her opening comments, ACSH's Dr. Whelan noted that in the early 1980s when she first met Robert Bartley, the long-term editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, he asked a very pertinent question: "Why are scientists mute? Why don't they speak up when science is misrepresented?" She explained that Mr. Bartley had hit on the essence of the reason she founded ACSH: to motivate scientists to enter the public dialogue. Dr. Henry Miller, she noted, is the "poster scientist" for the original goals of ACSH: fighting daily in the media for the cause of sound science.
During Dr. Miller's award acceptance speech he said, "I am often asked how it is that I publish so much. Well, I write better than most scientists, and I know more science than most journalists." He also noted that "this award is profoundly important to me, not the least because I have such admiration for the people who bestowed it, my colleagues at ACSH...As I see this group assembled, so many people I like and admire, I am reminded of something written by Doris Lessing. She wrote: 'Very few people really care about freedom and liberty, about truth, very few -- very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts, a free society dies or cannot be born.' Many people, especially Dr. Whelan and her colleagues, have that sort of guts."
We once more give our thanks to the members of the committee who supported the award presentation luncheon.
Henry I. Miller Award Committee Members
ACSH gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the following
individuals, corporations, and foundations in making this event possible:
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Dr. Nigel and Mrs. Helen Bark
Elloine M. Clark
Coca-Cola Company
Kent Davis
Eric Dezenhall
Becky Fenger (widow of advisory board member John B. Fenger, M.D.)
Lorraine H. Finch
Jack Fisher, M.D.
Christian Josi
Thomas Campbell Jackson, M.P.H.
Patricia A. & William E. LaMothe Foundation
Joe R. Lee
Chuck P. McQuaid
Rodney W. Nichols
Paul Offit, M.D.
Gerry Ohrstrom
Elizabeth Rose
Leslie Rose
Schering-Plough Corporation
S. Fred Singer, Ph.D.
David M. Smith
Stephen Sternberg, M.D.
Thomas Stossel, M.D.
Glenn Swogger Jr., M.D.
Triad Foundation
Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and Stephen T. Whelan, Esq.