Morton Mintz

Morton Mintz was a reporter with the Washington Post from December 1958 to October 1988.

"Morton Mintz has been a reporter since 1946, first in St. Louis and then at The Washington Post from 1958 to 1988. Mr. Mintz has received numerous awards and honors including the Columbia Journalism Award; the Playboy Foundation's Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for Lifetime Achievement; the Worth Bingham, Heywood Broun, Raymond Clapper, and George Polk Memorial Awards; and twice, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild award for Public Service."

"A major focus of Mr. Mintz while at The Washington Post was grave corporate crime and misconduct. He conducted investigations into numerous issues including thalidomide, the sedative/tranquilizer that caused several thousand children worldwide to be born without arms or legs; the disastrous Dalkon Shield contraceptive device and Cu-7 intrauterine device; the tobacco industry; the tailing of [Ralph Nader] by a private eye retained by General Motors; the cholesterol-lowering drug MER/29 that afflicted thousands of users with cataracts and other maladies; and Oraflex, a dangerous anti-arthritis drug withdrawn by the manufacturer only a few months after sales began.  He has written and co-authored several books including At Any Cost: Corporate Greed, Women, and the Dalkon Shield and America, Inc.: Who Owns and Operates the United States."

In a 1971 Face the Nation television interview, Morton Mintz, representing the Washington Post, confronted Joseph Frederick Cullman, III, (then Chairman of the Board of Philip Morris, with information about a massive study done in the United Kingdom that showed that babies of smoking mothers had a greater incidence of low birth weight than non-smoking mothers, and that babies of smoking mothers had an increased risk of stillbirth and death within 28 days of birth. Cullman acknowledged that he was aware of the study and its results. His response: "Some women would prefer having smaller babies."

When Mintz asked Cullman "What about the higher rate of death?" Cullman replied,

"I'm not familiar with that."

The passages of interest are on Pages 14-15 of the transcript. Interviewers are: George Herman, CBS News, Morton Mintz, The Washington Post, Earl Ubell, Science Editor, WCBS-TV News.

Affiliations

 * Director, Project On Government Oversight
 * Former Chair, Fund for Investigative Journalism

Resources and articles

 * Morton Mintz,Parsing an op ed ad in the Times Commentary. May 9, 2009. Article criticizing the Washington Legal Foundation for its tobacco industry ties.

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Joseph Frederick Cullman, III, at Face the Nation appearance, 1971