Whelan's advocacy encompassed numerous high-profile cases, including the Delaney Clause used by the Food and Drug Administration to eliminate use of the sweetener saccharin.

[2] She worked to promote industry-friendly science and to suppress the influence of other science on regulators, and was condemned by activists for promoting industry interests, for example with respect to pesticides, growth hormones for dairy cows (rBST), PCBs, hydraulic fracturing, and the proposed limit on soda sizes in New York City.

[1] She was critical of many public interest groups that she said "frightened" people away from making personal choices in cases where "no danger had been proved.

After several years of writing, Whelan, along with her likewise controversial coauthor Frederick J. Stare, said that she created the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) in 1978 as way of helping scientists reach the public.

The ACSH describes itself as a consumer education consortium targeting policy issues with a large scientific component, but critics contend it has a pro-industry bias.

Some examples include The One-hundred-percent Natural, Purely Organic, Cholesterol-free, Megavitamin, Low-carbohydrate Nutrition Hoax; A smoking gun: how the tobacco industry gets away with murder; and Toxic terror, published in 1983, 1984 and 1985 respectively.