Elizabeth Whelan

Whelan continued publishing personally, as well. Some examples include The One-hundred-percent Natural, Purely Organic, Cholesterol-free, Megavitamin, Low-carbohydrate Nutrition Hoax; A smoking gun: how the tobacco industry gets away with murder; and Toxic terror, published in 1983, 1984 and 1985 respectively.

After several years of writing, Whelan, along with her likewise controversial coauthor Frederick J. Stare, said that she created the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) in 1978 as way of helping scientists reach the public. The ACSH describes itself as a consumer education consortium targeting policy issues with a large scientific component, but critics contend it has a pro-industry bias. It says that one of its goals is to use the media to bring sound science to public debates. Whelan initially invited 50 scientists to the organization. One of the first to respond and a founding director was agronomist Norman Borlaug. The ACSH reported in 2003 that it had grown to nearly 400 scientists.

After graduating, Whelan began writing on health issues for consumer magazines. She said she became increasingly concerned by the gap between scientific knowledge and public discourse on health related topics. She began writing books as a response. Panic in the pantry: facts & fallacies about the food you buy, published in 1975 and Eat OK--feel OK!: Food facts and your health, published in 1978.

She earned a bachelor's degree from Connecticut College and went on to receive a master's degree in public health from Yale University and both a master's in science and a Ph.D. from Harvard University, in 1971. After graduating Elizabeth Whelan began work studying modern marriages and family relationships. She published several papers on the subject. That work lead to her first book, Sex and sensibility: a new look at being a woman. The next year she published two more, A Baby?... Maybe: A Guide to Making the Most Fateful Decision of Your Life and Making Sense Out of Sex: A New Look at Being a Man. The latter was cowritten with her father-in-law, Stephen T. Whelan Sr., and was meant as a companion to her first book.

Elizabeth M. Whelan (/ˈhwiːlən/; December 4, 1943 – September 11, 2014) was an American epidemiologist best known for promoting science that was favorable to industry and for challenging government regulations of consumer products, food, and pharmaceuticals industries that arose from what she said was "junk science." In 1978, she founded the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) to provide a formal foundation for her work. She also wrote, or co-wrote, more than 20 books and over 300 articles in scientific journals and lay publications.

Before her marriage, her name was Elizabeth Ann Murphy. Born in Manhattan in 1943, she was the daughter of Marion Barret Murphy and Joseph F. Murphy and had two brothers, Kevin and Brian Murphy. Her father was a lawyer and the Commission of Insurance of New Jersey from 1982 to 1984.