Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP)

Background

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP) is a 501(C)(3) non-profit located in Tucson, Arizona. It has ties to the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, a conservative advocacy group that shares the same address and administrative staff¹

Arthur B. Robinson is Vice President and past President of DDP, as well as founder of the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine (OISM). The DDP page on the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) website offers the following description:²

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP) “promotes homeland defense and prudent preparedness for disasters of all kinds, including war or terrorism. Its annual meeting brings together America’s foremost authorities on strategic and civil defense as well as prominent scientists speaking on real threats or manufactured scares. Recent topics: global warming, ozone ‘depletion,’ radiation hazards and radiation hormesis.”

In addition to mailing address, the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness website is registered to Jeremy Snavely of AAPS.³ Mother Jones magazine offered the following description of the AAPS‘s journal, called the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons:⁴

“The publication’s archives present a kind of alternate-universe scientific world, in which abortion causes breast cancer and vaccines cause autism, but HIV does not cause AIDS. Cutting carbon emissions represents a grave threat to global health (because environmental regulation would make people poorer and, consequently, sicker) … The organization opposes some of the most accepted practices in health care, including mandatory vaccine regulations. Peer review, a long-standing hospital practice that helps doctors learn from and prevent errors, is viewed as the source of great injustice by AAPS, which fights attempts to micromanage doctors with such bureaucratic nuisances as medical evidence about what works and what doesn’t. Computers, too, are an ominous threat. The organization has resisted the use of electronic medical records—which, naturally, represents an attempt by the government to acquire masses of private information about American citizens. (AAPS‘ executive director claims to keep all her patient notes in longhand.)”

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP) offers a “Disaster Preparedness Library,” which includes a “Global Warming Seminar” by Arthur B. Robinson as well as coverage of “Nuclear War Survival Skills.”⁵

Topics on DDP‘s website include: “Ozone hole, Global warming, and other Environmental Scares,” Chem/Bio Terrorism, Vaccines, DDT, Low Dose Radiation, Civil Defense, Chemical Hysteria, Physician Oaths, Nuclear Fear, among others.

Stance on Climate Change

DDP lists climate change as an “Environmental Scare,” and links to a variety of skeptical authors and organizations from their website including the Oregon Petition, which was associated with the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM).⁶

Funding

According to Doctors for Disaster Preparedness’s most recent 990 tax forms (EIN 59-2414338), DDP reported $70,887 in net assets at the end of 2014 with $51,256 in total revenue. Approximately 40% of their revenue came from membership dues, and they reported 59% from “program service revenue.” View publicly available 990 forms below.

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP) requires that members pay dues based on the following membership tiers:⁷

Regular (Doctoral) Membership $100
Associate Membership $50
Sponsoring Membership $250
Student Membership $10

Willie Soon and DDP

Willie Soon, who has had more than $1.2 million in contributions from the fossil fuel industry while failing to report that information in many of his scientific papers,⁸ has been a regular speaker at the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness annual meetings. DeSmog reported on Soon’s speeches from 2000 to 2014.⁹

See John Mashey’s spreadsheet on DDP Speakers for more details (Chron lists talks chronologically and Speakers is sorted by name, putting Willie Soon near the end.)

Willie Soon at DDP 2000-2014, #18-#32.

Key People

According to Doctors for Disaster Preparedness’ most recent 990 tax forms (2014 990-EZ):

Jane M. Orient — President
Paul Morris — Vice President
Arthur Robinson — Vice President
Donald Miller — Director
Howard Hayden — Director
John Kasch — Director
Norbert Rempe — Director
Robert Cihak — Director
Steven Hatfill — Director

Former key employees, according to 2010’s publicy-filed 990 tax forms, (2010 990-EZ):

Jane M. Orient — President
Claud Boyd — Secretary-Treasurer
Howard Long — Vice President
Paul Morris — Vice President
Arthur Robinson — Vice President, and past President.¹⁰
Robert Cihak — Director
Gerald Looney — Director
Howard Maccabee — Director (Now Deceased)

DDP has awarded its “Petr Beckmann award for courage and achievement in defense of scientific truth and freedom” to numerous climate change skeptics. See DeSmog‘s report, “Weird Anti-Science – Donna Bethell, SEPP and Sandia National Laboratories” (page 19), for more information:

Actions

December 20, 2021

DDP filed a brief in West Virginia v. EPA, a U.S. Supreme Court case that reduced the EPA’s ability to regulate power plants under the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. DDP’s brief was alongside the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund.¹⁸ In June 2022, the court ruled 6-3 against the EPA.¹⁹

July 8–11, 2016

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness hosted it’s 34th Annual Meeting, co-sponsored by Access to Energy, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, and Physicians for Civil Defense. Keynote speakers at the event featured many prominent climate change deniers.

Full list of speakers and available videos below:²⁰

Jane Orient
Willie Soon
David Legates
Mohan Doss
Arthur Levy
Geoffrey L. Shapiro
Steven Hatfill
S. Fred Singer
Tony Heller (AKA Steven Goddard)
Patrick Frank
Joe Leimkuhler
Donald W. Miller
Howard Hayden
Yuri Maltsev
Stephen Jones
Matthew Robinson
Arthur Robinson

Willie Soon’s talk was titled on “Beethoven’s Ice Cream, Tolstoy’s Fire, Happer’s Picosecond Pedestal—and Climate”:

Tony Heller’s (AKA Steven Goddard) talk was titled “Evaluating The Integrity Of Official Climate Records”:

August 1, 2015

Kenneth Haapala of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) spoke at the 33rd Annual Meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP) in Ontario, California. His video, titled “Debunking Claims about Climate Change and Health” is below.

A number of other prominent climate change skeptics also spoke at DDP‘s 33rd Annual Meeting, including those below:

S. Fred Singer on “Shifting the Focus of Climate Change: From Warming to Cooling.”
Jay Lehr (the Heartland Institute’s Science Director) on “Replacing the EPA.”
Willie Soon on ”Clean Air, Water and Soil: A Study of the Scientific Evidence.”

In his presentation, Fred Singer discussed why we should be “abandoning all mitigation of the greenhouse (GH) gas carbon dioxide,” while Haapala described CO2 limitations as “policy in search of a problem.” Willie Soon was defensive regarding funding, saying that “I do not care where the funding is coming from, I am only interested in the scientific truth.”²¹ ²²

July 13, 2013

Dr. Willie Soon, a regular presenter at the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness annual meetings (see above) presented at the DDP‘s 31st Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas. His presentation was on “Five or More Failed Experiments in Measuring Global Sea Level Change” (video below).

May 21–23, 2012

DDP is listed as an official Co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Chance (ICCC7) in Chicago, IL.²³

DeSmog researched co-sponsors behind the conference and discovered that they had received a total of over $67 Million from ExxonMobil, Koch, and Scaife Family Foundations.²⁴

June 2, 2010

Willie Soon presented his “Endangering the Polar Bear” talk at the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness 26th Annual Meeting (view video here).²⁵

“I really don’t think that you can find or argue convincingly that there are any significant worries about the sea ice condition in the Arctic,” Soon told the group. “I would suggest that the current condition today is nowhere near optimal for the polar bear, which means it can grow a little bit warmer.”

May 16–18, 2010

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP) was an official co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute‘s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC4) in Chicago, IL.²⁶

DeSmog investigated sponsors of the event, and found that they had received a combined total of over $40 million in funding from ExxonMobil since 1985, and/or Koch Industries foundations, and/or the Scaife family foundations.²⁷

June 2, 2009

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP) was a co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute‘s Third International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC3).²⁸

April 1998

DDP has sent letters both promoting (PDF) and defending (PDF) the Oregon Petition which purports to have collected the signatures of 16,000 “scientists” who deny man-made global warming.²⁹ ³⁰

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM), which appears to have been a part of organizing the petition project, also appears to be connected to DDP.

Their letter to the Senate and House of Representatives discounted a previous letter written by the group Ozone Action to the Washington Times which cast doubt on the 16,000 “scientists” letter. DDP suggests that the Kyoto Treaty’s scientific issues “need to be discussed by grownups,” implying that “Global Warmers” are “childish.”³¹

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Contact & Location

As of April 2016, Doctors for Disaster Preparedness listed the following contact information on its website:³²

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
1601 N. Tucson Blvd. Suite 9
Tucson, AZ 85716
520.325.2680
www.ddponline.org

As reported by John Mashey at DeSmog, DDP President Jane Orient has connections to at least six other nonprofit groups, some dormant, and most with tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status. View attached spreadsheet (.xls) for more details on connections between the groups.³³

Jane Orient has also had previous dealings with the tobacco industry, having met with Phillip Morris, and with many references to her name in a search of the tobacco archives.³⁴

With regards to President Clinton’s budget proposal that would fine cigarette companies for underage smokers, Orient is quoted as saying that “Concern about health does not justify using Third Reich measures against corporations engaged in a legal Business.”³⁵

Orient’s connections include the following organizations:

EIN: 860852791 | AAPS Educational Foundation — Apparently dormant.

EIN: 860884230 | Southwestern Institute of Science LTD — Apparently dormant.

EIN: 860691180 | Physicians for Civil Defense — Still has active website (physiciansforcivildefense.org). At least once DDP sent money there. The two organizations are located in the same office.

EIN: 362991388 | American Health Legal Foundation (AHLF) — Has over $500K in assets (as of 2014) and 2 officers/directors shared with AAPS, plus Orient.

EIN: 362059197 | Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS, 501(c)(6)) — Has nearly $1M assets (as of 2014), paid Jane Orient $182,600 in 2012 (Form 990), has a few thousand members, website, and entries in Wikipedia, SourceWatch and RationalWiki.

AAPS publishes the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPandS), not an indexed, peer-reviewed journal. The Journal published “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” in 2007 by Art Robinson, Noah Robinson, and Willie Soon. It has often published Robinsons, as well as other climate-relevant pieces. Besides Jane Orient, it has shared several offices/directors with DDP, as enumerated in attached spreadsheet.

According to WHOIS results for DDP’s website, the registrant is Jeremy Snavely of AAPS. DDP also lists the same physical address as AAPS.³⁶

EIN: 592414338 | Doctors for Disaster Preparedness INC (DDP)

EIN: 930814898 | The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM), IRS, has about $5M in assets, a website, a SourceWatch entry. Two of its “faculty” are deceased. The Board consists of Art Robinson, his sons Noah and Zachary, Jane Orient, and one more person. OISM is known for the Oregon Petition.