[3] According to Bloomberg News, the group was "founded to promote civil defense during the Cold War", and has been "transformed over the years into a forum" on "fringe-science topics" such as global warming denial.
The award is named for Petr Beckmann, an electrical engineer and libertarian who challenged Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.
Presentations at the 2015 meeting included a theory about links between John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the deaths of his brother and son; a prediction that the aim of Obamacare was to cause the collapse the U.S. health-care system and a recommendation "that the audience start stockpiling medications and finding doctors who would work for cash"; a sympathetic discussion of the theory that low doses of radiation are "beneficial to human health"; and an argument that the HIV virus does not cause AIDS, but instead was invented by government scientists who wanted to cover up other health risks of “the lifestyle of homosexual men.”[3] The meeting was covered by conservative website Breitbart, attended by George Gilder, and the conservative Heartland Institute sent its science director to present his plan to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.
[3] Doctors for Disaster Preparedness President Jane Orient has asserted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports are unreliable and that relevant data was "hidden, locked in the clutches of the elite few" because the data would "decisively disproves their computer models and shows that their draconian emission controls are based on nothing except a lust for power, control and profit.
"[16] After a reported increase in fallout-shelter construction since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, she was quoted as saying, "They're treating me less like a crazy woman than they did before.