'Junk science': Former tobacco lobbyist claims wildfire smoke poses no health risk

A former tobacco lobbyist-turned-Fox News contributor bucked health experts by claiming on air that smoke billowing over the Northeast from Canadian wildfires will do people no harm.

Speaking on The Ingraham Angle Wednesday, Steve Milloy said that the warning about the smoked-filled air was "junk science."

"We have this kind of air in India and China all the time. No public health emergency," he said.

Canadian wildfires have sent clouds of smoke that have drifted over to New York City, blanketing the city in an orange haze and causing its air quality to be ranked in the world. Health officials in that city told residents to stay indoors.

"This (New York City's smoke-filled air) is like clean air in China. It's really that in the winter they never turn on their scrubbers for the air pollution because they don't care," he said.

"This doesn't kill anybody. This doesn't make anybody cough. This is not a health event. This has got nothing to do with climate...this is wildfire smoke. This is natural. This is not because of climate change, fossil fuel [or] internal combustion engines," he added.

"This is total junk science."

As Newsweek points out, Milloy was the executive director of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition back in the 1990s -- a group that was launched by the tobacco giant Phillip Morris and was allegedly designed to disprove science that linked cigarette smoking to harmful health effects.

"Dear Fox News Staff and Guests: Please start smoking. By your logic and reasoning, the experts who claim this smoke is harmful are also probably wrong about cigarettes," tweeted humorist George Hahn in response to the Fox News segment.

"Fun fact: The Fox News fake expert who declares that there is no health risk from wildfire smoke has also long been paid by the tobacco industry to downplay the health effects of cigarette smoke," tweeted political commentator Nathan Robinson.

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