Cooper was on the editorial board of Executive Health, 1974, along with Leonard Hayflick, RJ Huebner's contractor from the NCI Virus Cancer Program, and a correspondent of Florence Mahoney between 1973 and 1981; and Alton Ochsner, author of numerous lung cancer studies. The article by Domingo Aviado, a major recipient of the tobacco industry's Special Projects funding, is an example of the kind of lame response that helped encourage executives to quit in droves.

Strategic Withdrawal From Cigarette Smoking, by Arden G. Christen and Kenneth H. Cooper. CA Cancer J Clinicians 1979 Mar-Apr;29(2):96-107.

Cooper Aerobics Center at Oral Roberts University

The facility was dedicated in 1973. "ORU is unique in its longstanding requirement of students to complete a physical fitness class each semester as well as earn aerobic points and run a field test. Dr. Cooper was pleased to see the ongoing impact of his life's work on the ORU campus!"

Cooper rant from Christian Health magazine, via LifeWay Christian Resources

3 Steps to a Healthier Home, by Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D. The usual plus Cooper's version of Christianity.

Peddling religion is a very profitable business: The financial support behind Lifeway Christian Resources, 1999-00 revenue $369,791,000. [dead link http://www.lifeway.com/about_finances.asp]

The Darkness to Light Ministry

Should Christians be Concerned About Physical Fitness? by Gary F. Zeolla of Darkness to Light ministry. Zeolla reveres Cooper as if he's the new messiah. Also, this article indicates that Cooper has performed at Billy Graham crusades. [dead link http://www.dtl.org/health/article/should.htm]

Christianity.com

The Rewards of a Disciplined Life, by W. Terry Whalin, Christianity.com. Another sycophantic interview. [dead link]

Cooper praises Christian folksinger Ruth McGinnis, who is also a "certified wellness advisor."

"Ruth's recommendations, if applied to all of our lives, could enrich, enhance, and prolong (them) beyond all belief," blah blah. (I wonder if she is related to J. Michael McGinnis, the author with William Foege of the Sacred Lie of Health Fascism, JAMA 1993.)

Cooper was on the Board of Reference of the American Tract Society

Also Billy Graham. [link dead http://www.atstracts.org/general.html]

Hour of Power interview with Cooper

Hour of Power interview with Cooper by Lydia P. Boyle, with health lies about heart disease: "There was a dramatic drop in deaths from heart attacks between 1960 and 1980. But about one third of that drop was because of modern medical technology and two thirds because of lifestyle changes." Cooper apparently wants to credit himself!

In fact, the decline in heart attack deaths began well before there were any such lifestyle changes. It affected all ages, females as well as males, both blacks and whites, and smokers as well as nonsmokers. And medical technology in the form of treatment of heart attacks played no role at all, because the percentage of victims dying before they reached the hospital has stayed the same. So the decline in death rates was actually due to a decline in the incidence of new cases. Furthermore, cohorts born after 1930 have never experienced death rates as high as earlier generations, including in their young adult years. Most of the heart deaths in those age groups were formerly due to acute infections which could now be treated with antibiotics. Presumably, the use of antibiotics was reflected in lower death rates at older ages as well.

Cooper's Healthtrac Foundation Prize noted

Lester Breslow, crony of both Mary and Roz Lasker, received this $50,000 prize in 1995. "Past recipients of the prize include international health leader William Foege, fitness innovator Kenneth H. Cooper and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop." Anti-smoker Michael Pertschuk got it in 1997. Healthtrac is the creation of rheumatologist James F. Fries from the profits of his mass market books such as "Take Care of Yourself" and "The Arthritis Help Book."

Cooper propagandizes on Yahoo! Broadcast

"Cooper Wellness," billed as "Scientifically Based Health Research and Information," is the same old worthless junk based on lifestyle questionnaires and confounding by infection.

The Harvard School of Public Health

William H. Foege, M.P.H. '65, and Kenneth H. Cooper, M.P.H. '62, President Bush's personal physician, were on the Visiting Committee of the Harvard School of Public Health in 1998 and 1999, and major Harvard benefactor Vincent L. Gregory Jr. Also Frank Stanton and former Rep. Paul G. Rogers has been on the Dean's Council since 1998, and Deeda Blair (Mrs. William McCormick Blair Jr. of the Lasker Foundation) joined the Dean's Council in 1999.

The Future of Public Health, by Harvard School of Public Health Dean Barry R. Bloom. (Where have we seen that title before?) Harvard Public Health Review 2000 Fall. Bloom exults that "such is the success of immunization that this year, for the first time, infectious diseases are no longer the largest cause of death worldwide." It is another of the many despicable traits of the Lasker crowd to misappropriate the successes of the war against acute infectious disease unto themselves. In fact, they have relegated Germ Theory to that realm by political means, while stultifying progress in chronic disease under their pseudo--moralisitic Lifestyle Theory. And he cites the Sacred Lie of Health Fascism, McGinnis & Foege in JAMA 1993 (Actual causes of death in the United States. JM McGinnis, WH Foege. JAMA 1993 Nov 10;270(18):2207-2212.).

McGinnis & Foege's "Actual Causes of Death in the United States" is actually based on the CDC's SAMMEC for smoking, which falsely blames smoking for diseases that are really caused by infection. It is flagrantly out of date. Likewise for the deaths blamed on toxic agents, primarily pollution (perhaps he should have called them "Miasma deaths"), and those blamed on diet and lack of exercise, which are vastly inflated by this means. But, deaths from microbial causes (which are 4% of their total) parsimoniously include only those deaths due to acute infection, and are further reduced by not including HIV and "those otherwise estimated to be attributable to tobacco use, alcohol use, sexual behavior, and illicit use of drugs." For example, only 25% of deaths from primary liver cancer are attributed to the hepatitis B virus. And never mind that sex in the absence of pathogens causes death in virtually no one.

McGinnis & Foege - JAMA 1993 abstract / PubMed
McGinnis & Foege, JAMA 1993 / tobacco document
McGinnis & Foege, JAMA 1993 / Philip Morris tobacco document (pdf, 6pp)
Confounding By Infection
The Percentage of Cancer Caused By Infection

The Cooper Clinic etc.

"The Cooper Clinic is one of a handful of medical institutions that have served the well-heeled for years. Others include the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, the medical center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and, of course, the world-famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn...." (The Standard Checkup? Well, not exactly. By David Tuller. New York Times 2001 Jun 24.)

A Cooper business crony: Joseph F. McKinney, retired chairman and CEO of Tyler Corp; BS St. Joseph's University 1952; Harvard MBA 1957. 1971 founded Tyler Corp., "a diversified company that he molded into a Fortune 500 company with over $1 billion in sales." On the board of Kidde Corp. in NY; Dorsey Corp. in TN; St. Joseph's Univ. in PA. "In addition, Tyler Corp. sponsored Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper in the establishment of the Cooper Aerobics Center and the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research."

nTouch Research Collaborates with The Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research

"Under this agreement, nTouch Research will partner in the conduct of clinical trials in diabetes, behavior change, hypertension, smoking cessation, obesity, nutrition, hyperlipidemia, and other health issues... 'This partnership will leverage our many years of experience in clinical and behavioral research with organizations such as the National Institutes of Health into new pharmaceutical-related projects, aiding the approval of many new medications that can be complemented with behavioral interventions,' states Steven Blair, Director of Research at the Cooper Institute." nTouch Company press release, 2000 Aug 21.

Texas A&M affiliation agreement with Cooper Institute

"A&M-Commerce offers M.S. and M.Ed. degrees in health and kinesiology and will consider offering a specialization or a new master's degree that will focus on the preventive medicine area, said Dr. Fred Blohm, head of the department of health, kinesiology, and sports studies. 'We are interested in this area from a broad perspective which can range from traffic safety, exercise, stress management, diet and nutrition, to the cessation of cigarette smoking,' Blohm remarked."

Donald Ardell interview with Kenneth Cooper, Nov 13 2000

"I asked about the recent presidential election, wondering if he was frustrated by the focus on prescription drugs but there was little or no mention of prevention or wellness initiatives or personal responsibility in his reply. He said that was unfortunate but just politics, that there was no mass audience for these matters just yet ut that his candidate, George W. Bush, would promote such things, if elected. (At the time of the interview, we did not know who our next president would be.) Cooper is Bush's personal physician and a suite is named in the governor's honor at the Center guest lodge. This is a 62-room colonial-style facility with a conference center and restaurant. He hinted that he might be asked to be Surgeon General in a Bush Administration, but that he might not accept, prefering to reamin in Dallas to look after the Cooper business operations and research efforts. However, he would assist the new Administration in designing a prevention center as part of NIH.

"Cooper did not think that there was any conflict of interest in recommending his own brand of vitamins and mineral supplements, saying that this aspect of his program was integral to on-going research being done at the Center."

"Building Health Promotion into the National Agenda" Conference 2001 - Our Enemies Gather to Plot and Scheme Against Us!

Keynote speakers were David Satcher, Kenneth H Cooper, and Dean Ornish; Ralph Nader was invited as well. Other speakers included Matthew Myers of Tobacco-Free Kids; Mary Woolley of the Lasker lobbying organ Research!America; Steven N. Blair of the Cooper Institute; Lasker crony Lester Breslow; Michael P. Erickson, director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the CDC; Lawrence W. Green, also of OSH; William R. Harlan, Associate Director for Disease Prevention, Office of Disease Prevention, NIH; Rep. Bernard Sanders; Randolph F. Wykoff, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, DHHS; Reed Tuckson representing the AMA; and other big wheels of health fascism. [dead links]

"During the past year, we have made some very encouraging progress in our efforts to Build Health Promotion into the National Agenda including creating the basic framework of an advocacy alliance, and discussing the importance of health promotion with all of the senior senators and representatives who lead the Congressional committees responsible for health issues in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. During 2001, we will introduce legislation into Congress and work to pass it. This will include legislation to increase funding for health promotion research and dissemination of information, and a resolution calling for a broad array of legislation for health promotion in the next decade. As part of our February 12-16, 2001 Art and Science of Health Promotion Conference, we traveled enmass to Capitol Hill to advocate for this legislation. Given the lack of political advocacy experience for most people in the health promotion field [Sic! These are fanatical activists compared to the citizens they victimize with their schemes], the progress we have made is very encouraging. However, these efforts are just the beginning. During the next decade, we need to continue our advocacy efforts at an intensified level. We need to create a cascade of legislation that does indeed build health promotion into American society." 2002 Conference Theme: Creating a New Vision for Health Promotion, by Michael P. O'Donnell, Editor-in-Chief and President, American Journal of Health Promotion. [dead link]

Various mostly clueless reactions to Cooper's proposed nomination for Surgeon General

"Bush's Exercise Guru. Will our next surgeon general make us all as fit as fiddles? Andrew Ferguson, The Weekly Standard, 2001 May 7;6(32).

Ferguson describes current Surgeon General David Satcher as "a competent and inoffensive public servant," and notes that there is only one named choice of his possible successor: "Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D., of North Dallas, Texas, founder and head of the Cooper Aerobics Center, the Cooper Institute, the Cooper Fitness Center, Cooper Ventures Inc., the Cooper Wellness Program, the Cooper Clinic, and Cooper Concepts, Inc., and developer and chief salesman of the Cooper Complete Joint Maintenance Formula and Cooper Complete Multivitamins, as well as the author of Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper's Antioxidant Revolution and more than fifteen other books, some of which do not have his name in the title."

"...For more than a decade Dr. Cooper has served as personal physician to George W. Bush, who has been a regular visitor to the doctor's various eponymous centers and clinics. Cooper coined the term 'aerobics' more than thirty years ago, and since then he has grown fabulously successful as a 'fitness guru,' which turns out to be a lucrative line of work.

"He moves with ease among the wealthy and powerful in Texas, and he really, really wants the job. Even now, almost a year before a possible vacancy, there is a Cooper campaign under way...

Ferguson, suckered into the health fascist bilge himself, believes that "There's no evidence that he's a charlatan," and objects only to Cooper's zealotry. "The harangues will be fierce, the guilt tripping ferocious. Will there be anyone left, any dissident non-healthist, who will have the nerve to raise a shaky hand and ask, 'Can we bring back the masturbation lady, please?'" [dead link http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_6_32_01/ferguson_art_6_32_01.asp]

$1,000 tax credit for healthy behavior? The proposal makes Libertarians sick. DeWeese Online.

"However, while improving the health of Americans is an admirable goal [SIC], politicians have no business forcing people who choose unpopular or unhealthy lifestyles to pay higher taxes, and no business making the tax code even more complex than it already is," said Steve Dasbach, national director of the Libertarian Party, another unsuspecting dupe. [dead link http:;//www.deweeseonline.com/article_1000.html]

Suckerbait

"If you call it a tax break, $60 billion a year sounds like a lot of money, and when you are talking about federal waistline and cholesterol police, you are treading on an invasion of privacy unheard of since 'Porky's.'" Editorial - Cut taxes for the fittest? By Ira R. Allen, who is identified as "director of public affairs for the Center for the Advancement of Health, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C." The editorial was distributed by Knight Ridder Tribune.

Do you think these people are libertarians? Hah! They subscribe to every delusion and goal of Kenneth Cooper et al. They merely object to the tax break on the grounds that so many of their targets don't make enough money to pay taxes. CFAH was founded in 1992 by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Nathan Cummings Foundation for the same old health fascist behavioral manipulation purposes. Its director, Jessie C. Gruman, designed and directed the National Cancer Institute's $150 million American Stop Smoking Intervention Study for Cancer Prevention (ASSIST), and is a former National Director of Public Education for the American Cancer Society. Their Board of Trustees includes former Surgeon General Julius Richmond, and their Advisory Committee includes former Assistant Secretary for Health Edward Brandt. Their "Health Behavior Change in Managed Care Initiative" is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and J Michael McGinnis is on its Advisory Committee and is credited for its conception. All their editorial amounts to is another sales pitch for health fascism, falsely pretending to be a difference of opinion, and illustrating how their media propaganda machine delivers a range of opinion all the way from A to A#. Whoopie.

Health fascists introduce "obesity bill"

Inside track: The scary fat end of the wedge. By Neil Buckley and Victoria Griffith. Financial Times 2002 Jul 12. Senators Bill Frist (R-TN) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) plan to introduce a bill authorizing federal agencies to waste more of our tax dollars on spreading lies and propaganda. And just like the tobacco industry, instead of challenging the scientific fraud, the despicable corporations (McDonald's, Kraft, CocaCola, Pepsico and Kellogg's) pander to them by funding their disinformation. "Pepsico in April teamed up with Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the fitness campaigner and so-called 'father of aerobics,' to work with his Cooper Aerobics Center on promoting healthy lifestyles [sic] and developing healthy products."

The US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions - Subcommittee on Public Health was stacked with true believing health fascist zealots. Chaired by Ted Kennedy (D-MA), with Democrats Tom Harkin, Barbara Mikulski, James Jeffords, Jeff Bingaman, Paul Wellstone, Jack Reed, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton, and Republicans Bill Frist, Judd Gregg, Michael Enzl, Tim Hutchinson, Pat Roberts, Susan Collins, Jeff Sessions, and Christopher Bond. [dead link]

Action on Smoking and Health

Cooper is a member of the Board of Sponsors I of demented anti-smoker lawyer John F. Banzhaf III's group ASH. Banzhaf's boards are notable for the number of dead people on them, including Ann Landers and Joseph L. Melnick. Former HEW Secretary Joseph A. Califano and former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan are among the members who are not yet deceased.

President George W. Bush's "Healthier Us Initiative"

"In the midst of some of those Ranger losing streaks I would get all anxious and I would go over and visit with my friend, Ken Cooper, who's got a fantastic facility which promotes exercise. He'd just say, run until it doesn't hurt anymore. (Laughter.) And I'm honored you're here, Ken. Thanks for setting such a good example. See, he's on the leading edge of research. He's determined a lot of simple facts. One of them is that if you exercise, like, 20 minutes a day, the incident of heart disease drops dramatically. That doesn't seem like much of a challenge, does it, to convince people to exercise 20 minutes a day? And that's what we're here to do. And so I put together a group of really strong American citizens who understand the value of exercise, understand the value of health for our society, to help spread the message. And the chairman of that, of course, is a fabulous person who happened to be a very good football player, named Lynn Swann. And I appreciate you, Lynn. (Applause.)" (President Bush Highlights Health and Fitness Initiative, Lakewest Family YMCA, Dallas, Texas, July 18, 2003. Whitehouse.gov)

There is a powerful and overriding reason that Cooper and his ilk are totally unacceptable: Their drivel about diet and exercise and smoking is worthless for anything but stroking the egos of the healthy by blaming the victims. Their propaganda factory of junk science takes funding away from worthwhile research on infection that is the real cause of most death and disability. THEY ARE USELESS TO THOSE IN THE MOST NEED.

cast 07-16-06