Early Career
Bate founded the Environmental Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a conservative British think tank, in 1993. In 1994, he started the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF), which has been described as "a clearinghouse for skeptical scientists and conservative opinion-molders … a go-to resource for anyone wishing to question the validity of proposed health and environmental regulations." While there is no solid evidence that ESEF was funded by the tobacco industry, the World Health Organization concluded that it "likely" was a product of the industry, and the organization bore a strong resemblance to The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, the Philip Morris front group run by Steven Milloy. In 1996, Roger Bate approached R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for a grant of £50,000 to fund a book on risk, containing a chapter on passive smoking, (i.e. "second hand smoke") but the grant request was denied and the money was never received. (The Tobacco Institute, was nonetheless, "involved in" the publication of the book, according to internal industry documents.) That same year he wrote the article "Is Nothing Worse Than Tobacco?," for Wall Street Journal, and later ESEF published What Risk? Science, Politics and Public Health, edited by Bate, which included a chapter on passive smoking. After the publication of this chapter, according to Bate, he undertook a brief period consulting for the Philip Morris corporation He then approached Philip Morris seeking funding for the project on DDT and malaria, but received no reply.
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