A November 22, 2006 item on the website of the Heartland Institute features a response from Heartland's science director, Jay Lehr, Ph.D., responding to Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser's charge that Schlosser critics such as Heartland and ACSH are corporate tools:
Schlosser uses worst-case, or perhaps even non-existent, examples of ugliness in food production and agriculture to persuade his readers, rather than presenting a meaningful statistical sample of what goes on in both industries. Moreover, he then has the audacity to accuse those organizations critical of his methodology as being "front organizations" for industry. He encourages the assumption these organizations are paid mouthpieces for some industry or lobby. I cannot speak for all of them, but I can say for certain that neither the Heartland Institute nor the American Council on Science and Health takes money to do anyone's bidding. That Schlosser so cavalierly besmirches the reputations of outstanding institutions with such a broad black brush must call into question the credibility and veracity of his work.