American Council on Science and Health

What it reported doing in 2024

Acsh achieves its mission through ongoing general educational programs and activities that include: producing peer-reviewed publications; producing and distributing a daily e-news brief and feed that presents acsh's scientific perspective on current and/or emerging health and science-related news stories, events and/or medical breakthroughs; producing informative video commentaries, podcasts, and films; writing op-eds, commentaries and letters-to-the editor that are published in leading national and local newspapers, popular magazines and/or journals; hosting an educational website at acsh.org that provides scientific assessments of current trends and studies in health and medicine, and free download of acsh scientific publications; appearing on radio and tv to dispel myths and confront controversies head on; cultivating partnership opportunities with like-minded institutions and organizations; providing oral and written testimony at regulatory and legislative hearings and forums; hosting social media portals and channels on youtube, x/twitter, instagram, spotify, linkedin, and facebook.highlights of the 2025 fiscal period: 1) published more than 590 articles on our www.acsh.org website. In fy 2025, our website had nearly 1 million unique visitors and more than 2 million page views. Published more than 156 issues of our dispatch daily and 51 issues of our weekend dispatch edition e-newsletters that are read by nearly 16,000.2) promoted its scientific conclusions on current public health topics related to food and nutrition, chemicals and the environment, biology and biotech, health and medicine, harm reduction, disease, neuroscience and social sciences, parents and children.3) partnered with organizations to reach broader audiences, such as: agbioworld, atlantic legal foundation, black valley films, board on environmental studies and toxicology, cato institute, center for consumer freedom, the center for countering digital hate, center for truth in science, competitive enterprise institute, consumers' research council of america, council for agricultural science and technology, fgs global, genetic literacy project, the heritage foundation, immunologic, national association of scholars, pearson education, pm 2.5 group, realclearhealth, realclearpolicy, realclearscience, stanford university school of medicine, and university of California, berkeley.4) published numerous health and science editorials and commentaries in major, popular newspapers and online journals read by millions, such as usatoday, issues & insights, philadelphia inquirer, the wall street journal, the baltimore sun, the New York times, bloomberg business week, the Washington times, the Washington examiner, law360, harvard bill of health newsletter, New York times, npr, New York post, chicago times, boston globe, and others. Through these commentaries and mentions in articles acsh's reach was more than 3 billion people.5) appeared on radio and tv media to publicize acsh's scientific positions on programs such as lars larson (weekly appearance on a syndicated radio show), john batchelor cbs eye on the world (nationally syndicated), mark hahn kscj radio, and others. We reached nearly 5 million through broadcast media such as television, radio, and podcasts.6) our experts met with policymakers in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. In addition, we testified before agency panels and congressional committees, including: centers for disease control, drug enforcement administration, the environmental protection agency's clean air scientific advisory committee, food and drug administration, and others.7) promoted acsh's conclusion via social media and internet outreach activities that reach millions of online users via acsh.org website; our acsh dispatch e-news briefs; the distribution of informative video commentaries on acsh youtube channel "matter of facts;" facebook pages (the general acsh.org page and others related to vaccine and immu

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
• Program expense ratio: 70.5%; rating input score 70
• Fundraising efficiency: $5.63 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 21; 21st percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Pass
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 88.9%; rating input score 89; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -36.6%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.5; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.11; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 55.8%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: -4.7% per year; rating input score 0; 8th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: -4.8% per year; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: -11.8% per year; rating input score 0; 3rd percentile among comparable filings