Ex-Reuters reporter Carey Gillam: Anti-Monsanto crusader or obsessed anti-GMO activist?

[Carey Gillam] the longtime reporter, who now works for a consumer advocacy group, is pegged by her detractors as an activist at war against pesticides and genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. She’s spent years raising concerns about the weedkiller glyphosate in particular.

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She has continued to write about the pesticide and Monsanto Co., the company that invented it, as research director for U.S. Right to Know and in “Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science” …. The book has won acclaim among environmentalists and consumer health advocates, as well as attention from investors and legislative officials in the United States and Europe ….

Critics, however, question her transparency and accuse her of blurring the lines between journalism and advocacy. She published her book while she was on the payroll of U.S. Right to Know, a group that’s critical of glyphosate and advocates for organic foods, and downplayed that fact while overlooking some of the problems with research tying glyphosate to cancer.

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Genomics scientist Mary Mangan raised a series of questions about “Whitewash” earlier this year in a blog post for the nonprofit Biology Fortified Inc. Gillam’s book, Mangan said, “sets up a cartoonishly false dichotomy between heroes and villains” and “systematically omits industry funding and affiliations of her own organization.”

Read full, original article: Meet the crusading reporter brawling with Big Ag