So-called "socially responsible" businesses make money by launching irresponsible and groundless health scares says a new report from the National Center for Public Policy Research and Junkscience.com.

"Fear Profiteers: Do Socially Responsible Businesses Sow Health Scares to Reap Monetary Rewards?" describes a number of major health scares of the last decade and links them to Fenton Communications - a slick, for-profit public relations business that, along with its clients, makes money by alarming the public:

-- The Natural Resources Defense Council hired Fenton in 1988 to coordinate the scare about the use of the growth regulator alar on apples. Fenton worked with the staff of the television show "60 Minutes" to launch a national scare and develop the NRDC as an ongoing client.

-- Lawyers for silicone breast implant plaintiffs worked with Fenton to convert the Command Trust Network, a women's support group, into a mechanism for recruiting plaintiffs. One of Fenton's current clients, lawyer John O'Quinn, has made tens of millions of dollars for himself from breast implant litigation.

-- Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc. worked with Fenton to implement a marketing scheme implying that its ice cream was "all natural" and better for the environment because its milk and cream was not from cows treated with bovine growth hormone and its packaging was made from unbleached paper.

-- Public relations activity for "Our Stolen Future" - a 1996 book promoting a scare about manmade chemicals allegedly disrupting hormonal systems - was managed by Fenton.

-- Health Care Without Harm hired Fenton to scare the public about the use of vinyl intravenous (IV) bags.

"Fenton is the hub of many of the biggest health scares of the last 12 years," said John Carlisle, director of the National Center's Environmental Policy Task Force. "From the deep pockets of charities like the W. Alton Jones Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Tides Foundation to businesses like Ben & Jerry's and personal injury lawyers to the on-the-ground activist groups like the NRDC, Environmental Working Group and Public Citizen," Fenton makes money making the scares work," added Carlisle.

"Fenton will say and do anything to achieve its clients' misanthropic goals," said Steve Milloy, publisher of Junkscience.com. "Fenton once even misrepresented itself as working on behalf of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet to disguise its actual client - breast implant plaintiff attorneys.

"We urge the media to stop giving the fear profiteers a free ride," said Carlisle.

Milloy announced that Junkscience.com will dedicate a web site, NoMoreScares.com to follow the escapades of Fenton and the other fear profiteers. "The media seems reluctant to investigate and report to the public about how these fraudulent health scares are orchestrated and who benefits from them -- leaving in the dark a terrified public, " said Milloy.