James Enstrom is a hired-gun scientist whose work has repeatedly served tobacco and fossil fuel interests. After taking $700,000 from the tobacco industry in the late 1990s, he published a 2003 BMJ paper claiming the link between secondhand smoke and disease was “considerably weaker than generally believed,” drawing sharp rebukes from the American Cancer Society for misusing its data. He later became a go-to contrarian on air pollution and climate, arguing that deadly fine-particle pollution (PM2.5) is not linked to premature death, and his fringe conclusions were cited by the Trump EPA to justify keeping weak soot standards and to attack the use of mainstream public-health studies. Enstrom’s pattern is consistent: industry-aligned funding, outlier findings, and heavy promotion in right-wing policy circles to undermine regulations that protect public health and the climate.