Part I: Carey Gillam — Reporter turned organic propagandist who twists science in campaign to discredit biotechnology and conventional agriculture

With links to the Church of Scientology, anti-vaccine glyphosate litigator Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Organic Consumers Association, US Right to Know, and Environmental Working Group, this former Reuters reporter has spearheaded the effort by organic promoters to discredit GMOs, glyphosate, and other agri-technological tools, claiming the weedkiller causes cancer and it should be banned.

Yet, according 19 global independent regulatory and chemical oversight agencies, glyphosate is not  carcinogenic. And according to the United Nations and many other independent research organizations, advances in transgenics and gene editing are effective tools to feed a growing global population and address climate change. What does the independent evidence say? How does this influential journalist-turned activist report this nuanced issue? Here is Carey Gillam’s story.

[Editor’s note: This is Part I of a two-part series. Read Part II: Web of Disinfomers]

Senator Corey Booker has a new-found campaign: Capitalizing on public concerns about the weedkiller glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, made originally by Monsanto (now Bayer) and since 2001 found in dozens of other generic weed control products. Its critics claim it causes cancer.

In mid-July, the New Jersey senator, chair of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, participated in a webinar highlighting its alleged dangers. It featured a panel billed as independent experts; in reality it consisted of five activists, all harsh critics of conventional agriculture. The moderator, who co-organized the event, was Carey Gillam, a former reporter for Reuters who worked for the anti-GMO group US Right to Know for seven years and now writes a column in partnership with the Environmental Working Group [both activist groups are funded primarily by the organic industry; see Part II].

The event was organized by Farmer’s Footprint, a group that promotes regenerative and organic agriculture, to — on the words of the organizers — put “dialogue over consensus” and “allow for the nuance” and present “all the different perspectives” on “how glyphosate affects planetary health”.

image

That would have been a constructive conversation to have; that’s the opposite of what happened. No farmers, soil experts or independent regulators were invited. No epidemiologists or toxicologists. Just activists, including one person who goes by the name Glyphosate Girl. And Senator Booker. And in case you weren’t sure about where Farmer’s Footprint, the hosting organization, stands on the glyphosate controversy, whether it indeed focused on “dialogue over consensus”, if you scrolled down on its event page, there was this:

image

What prompted the glyphosate panel?

The glyphosate seminar traces to an article by Carey Gillam in the UK The Guardian in early July. Her piece reported on the routine release of Centers for Disease Control data of Americans from 2013-2014. The CDC found traces in the urine — she claimed the level was 80% but that figure not cited in the CDC report. Gillam framed the story darkly: the title and the report were based on the premise that trace levels of the weedkiller glyphosate found in our food and which show up in micro-traces in urine pose a cancer threat to humans. 

imageAlthough she presents this story as a dispassionate recitation of facts, Gillam deliberately left out of her reporting the science consensus on glyphosate summarized in the CDC abstract:

[T]he European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)/World Health Organization (WHO) Meeting on Pesticide Residues (EFSA 2015, FAO/WHO 2015) determined that glyphosate is unlikely to be a carcinogen. The US EPA concluded that “available data and weight-of-evidence clearly do not support the descriptors “carcinogenic to humans,” “likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” or “inadequate information to assess carcinogenic potential” (US EPA 2017a).

The EFSA, FAO, WHO and the EPA are by no means the only global chemical oversight agencies to weigh in on glyphosate. Every prominent international regulatory or oversight agency — 20 of them — has concluded that vanishingly-low-yet-detectable levels of glyphosate in urine samples are not a cause for alarm. Why should this routinely-released raw data summary be viewed any differently?

Gillam’s reporting biases showed up in other ways. Scientists were particularly critical of the headline which characterized the findings as “tied to cancer”, which is true only if you ignore the global consensus. “disturbing” and — hyperbolic claims not found in the report. In the headline, She also quoted Professor Lianne Sheppard who characterized the 8 year old data as “disturbing”. The University of Washington scientist was previously called on the carpet by independent scientists for twisting the interpretation of a multi-year government survey of famers that found the glyphosate did not lead to an uptick in cancer. And in the body of the story, she writes that the samples were “laced” with glyphosate, a clunky attempt at manipulating the reader.

Gillam’s article flogged both Bayer and the US government in one swoop, reinforcing a popular meme: “Big Ag” is coddled by ‘corrupt’ governments failing to take action as children’s lives hang in the balance. To advocates of organic farming, crop biotechnology is a clever but dangerous tool for corporations to ‘take over’ the global food system; glyphosate is a hidden killer; the ag industry conspires to hide the facts; and the US EPA and other global agencies that have determined the herbicide is ‘safe as used’ are part of a global conspiracy — leftwing or rightwing depending upon your ideological leanings.

Both extremes suspect the government is untrustworthy and on the take, although they disagree about who is the puppet master. No surprise her story resonated on leftwing channels but also became a favorite of far right outlets such as the Gospel News Network and The Epoch Times. screen shot at pm

To those ill-informed about the science, Carey Gillam’s ‘story’ read as a 5-alarm chemical fire. Booker bit. Three days later, he released a statement co-signed by eight Democratic senators, urging the US Fish and Wildlife Service to sharply restrict the use of glyphosate and other long-approved pesticides used to clear weeds on National Wildlife Refuges without suggesting alternatives. Most scientists contend there are no safer and as effective substitutes.

Follow the latest news and policy debates on sustainable agriculture, biomedicine, and other ‘disruptive’ innovations. Subscribe to our newsletter.

The glyphosate controversy: The Courts

Glyphosate has become a touchstone in the debate over the future of farming. Is the herbicide cancer causing as the Gillam-Booker panel contended? Scientists and juries are split on that issue.

Although there has been no class action filing, individual plaintiffs claiming glyphosate caused their cancers filed an estimated 126,000 cases against Monsanto (which was acquired by Bayer in 2018). Bayer reached an agreement in 2020 to pay roughly $11 billion to settle about 100,000 of these. Of the cases that have gone to trial, Bayer lost the first three and was acquitted on the four most recent. More are on the docket.

The initial suits were filed by plaintiffs working with California-based Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, the firm that represents the Church of Scientology. Baum Hedlund, which is staffed by Scientologists, partners with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. notoriously known for his outspoken rejection of COVID-19 and childhood vaccines. They worked hand-in-glove with Carey Gillam and her former employer, US Right to Know. [Read GLP profile of USTRK] More on this ‘web of connections’ in Part II.)

maxresdefault

The suits were precipitated by a monograph issued by a sub-group of the United Nations, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2015. IARC is one of about two dozen agencies around the world that assess the potential health dangers of chemicals. The US Environmental Protection Agency, Health Canada, European Food Safety Authority and the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization are some of the other independent agencies that do similar work. Only IARC concluded that glyphosate if used according to guidance poses a threat of cancer. But that anomalous determination was enough to spark a tsunami of lawsuits.

Do the three convictions and the settlements prove glyphosate causes cancer? Of course not. Legislators and trials do not define the validity of science. Disputes over science do not reside on a court’s docket in a vacuum. The classic example is evolution, which is settled science but was banned from being taught in many jurisdictions throughout the US by legislative decree and jury trials; in some jurisdictions it is still restricted or mandated to be paired with “creationism” as a scientifically equal theory.

In science-related trials, judges take on the role of ‘chief scientist’. Sometimes they do a decent job. But study after study shows that’s not often. As Jim Hilbert wrote in a seminal article on this issue — “The Disappointing History of Science in the Court Room”, what he calls “junk science” has taken up permanent residence in the courtroom. Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has written, “A judge is not a scientist, and a courtroom is not a scientific laboratory.” [emphasis is Breyer’s]

The CDC report: The Science

The webinar and Gillam’s reporting in The Guardian were challenged by independent scientists. Why? Isn’t the presence of a weedkiller in the human body something to be concerned about? Without more context, yes. But as independent scientists Geoffrey Kabat and Kevin Folta wrote in separate articles on the Genetic Literacy Project, the numbers as reported by the CDC underscore the relative safety of glyphosate, not its possible harmfulness. Traces at infinitesimally small levels in the parts per billion (equivalent to 1 drop of impurity in 500 barrels of water or 1 cent out of $10 million) are not cause for alarm. 

The human body is always carrying potentially harmful substances, but at levels too low to be actually harmful. Advanced chemical detection devices in any lab could identify thousands of purportedly toxic chemicals in our system if parts per billion is the threshold. For example, human tissues and blood normally contain various radioactive isotopes, which are harmless because the levels are so low. Specifically, kidneys are designed to eliminate potential toxins. The presence of micro-traces of any of thousands of toxins in urine, including glyphosate, is seen by scientists as a sign that our body is functioning properly. The level of glyphosate found in the CDC glyphosate data is detectable — but negligible and harmless, as regulatory agencies worldwide have determined.

world kidney day

Since ancient times, it has been known that “the dose makes the poison.” Chemical risk is determined by how much of a chemical we are exposed to and for how long. Thousands of ‘toxic’ chemicals show up in parts per billion in urine, with almost none of them posing harm. As the chart below illustrates, Vitamin D is hundreds of times more toxic than glyphosate. Table salt is also more toxic. The caffeine in a morning cup of coffee is 22 times more toxic than the weedkiller — but like glyphosate, “toxic caffeine” is excreted from our bodies, harmlessly. That’s a healthy kidneys doing its job.

imageGlyphosate is one of the most researched chemicals in history with thousands of studies by industry scientists, activist opponents, and independent researchers. That’s a lot of data. Is there a consensus? It’s the responsibility of global regulatory and oversight agencies, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency, European Food Safety Authority, and the Food Safety Commission of Japan to assess these studies, issue risk reports, and in some cases make regulatory recommendations. In all, there have been 20 major reports. What have they found?

glyphosatedangersinfographic genetic literacy project june

                                                        [View/download hyperlinked GLP infographic to review findings by global agencies]

Nineteen of the world’s leasing independent regulatory and oversight agencies have found that glyphosate is not carcinogenic either to those who apply it or in micro-trace amounts in our food. The most extensive report involving more than 50,000 participants — the state-of-the-art National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Agricultural Health Study (the data that was misinterpreted by Dr. Sheppard) — tracked farm workers exposed to glyphosate over decades. It showed no association of glyphosate with any of more than twenty types of cancer. Farmers exposed daily to the weedkiller actually had a lower rate of cancer than the average American, according to the NCI.

image

Gillam conspicuously makes no mention of the global consensus in her articles; nor do blogs on advocacy websites critical of GMOs and conventional agriculture (except an occasional reference to the EPA’s “unlikely to cause cancer” conclusion). Organic advocates never cite these exculpations of glyphosate. Nor does Gillam or any of these group acknowledge that independent surveys of scientists believe genetically engineered crops and their associate products are safe. The PEW Research Center survey found that more top US scientists believe that GMOs, many of which are tied to the use of glyphosate, are safe than embrace the fact that global warming is driven by human activity — 88% to 87%.screen shot at pmRather, Gillam and other organic farming advocates point myopically to the research of one controversial agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). It is noteworthy that three primary UN agencies more recently concluded that glyphosate is safe as used, including FAO, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN. But IARC, in 2015, singularly strayed from the risk consensus and issued a ‘hazard’ finding.

In contrast to a risk analysis, which evaluates the likelihood of getting cancer under real-life conditions, a hazard study does focuses on the possibility that an agent or action theoretically could cause cancer — it explicitly does not reach a judgement based on actual exposure. Risk analysis of chemicals is the gold standard for regulations in almost every country, including the United States. [For an explanation of the difference between risk and hazard analyses, read this and this].

As a result of its use of a hazard standard, IARC classifies almost everything as a cancer threat. It has evaluated more than 1,000 substances or life-situations and in every case but one they are labeled as a carcinogen. IARC’s cancer threats include getting a suntan or haircut; eating crispy food or processed meat; or drinking coffee or beer. Not surprisingly, considering its hazard framework, IARC concluded that glyphosate poses a theoretical hazard to everyday agricultural or garden professionals who applied it over many years or decades. The brouhaha that IARC’s glyphosate decision stirred led many scientists to question the agency’s credibility, citing its variance with the global consensus and IARC’s extensive conflicts of interest and bias.

iarc

Many of the independent agencies subsequently reviewed IARC’s glyphosate hazard conclusion, including the UN’s FAO, and have challenged its research as incomplete or outright wrong; many sharply questioned its research methodology. As Health Canada, the Canadian government’s independent health agency, recently noted (2019) after twice reviewing IARC’s 2015 claim that glyphosate could cause cancer:

No pesticide regulatory authority in the world currently considers glyphosate to be a cancer risk to humans at the levels at which humans are currently exposed.

In a series of investigative reports (here, here, here), Reuters accused IARC of conflicts-of-interest and grossly mishandling its review. It later came to light that Christopher Portier, the IARC scientist who oversaw the glyphosate monograph, became a paid consultant for Baum Hedlund, the US law firm that spearheaded the litigation of the glyphosate-Monsanto cancer cases in the US. (As we will read in Part II, Portier consulted on behalf of the lead law firm and its partner RFK, Jr., and participated in strategy meetings with US Right to Know and Carey Gillam.)screen shot at pm

Although Gillam does not mention it in her The Guardian piece, even IARC conspicuously did not conclude that traces of glyphosate in food, which is the focus of the CDC study and Gillam’s overwrought headline, are known to pose any cancer risk. No reputable risk oversight agency in the world — not one (including IARC) — considers that trace levels of glyphosate in urine at the levels cited by the CDC are harmful. The scientific consensus that our food is safe has not stopped the debate over the weedkiller from percolating in the media and in legislative halls, pitting the global regulatory community against activist groups who target synthetic agricultural chemicals.

Many advocacy groups such as USRTK and Environmental Working Group that have supported Gillam’s work over the past 8 years are primarily funded by organic corporations who clearly benefit when conventional agriculture is under attack [Read Part II]. Critics of synthetic chemicals in agriculture exploit the often-confusing distinction between risk and hazard to advocate their position. They view pesticides as the public-relations Achilles’ heel of conventional agriculture. And ironically, the herbicide alternatives that organic advocates push to substitute for glyphosate are far less effective, often result in harm to beneficial insects and other fauna, and are always more costly.

Who is Carey Gillam: Reporter or propagandist?

The Guardian article and glyphosate webinar panel provided a star turn for Carey Gillam. What is her history as a reporter? Gillam was at Reuters for 17 years, known for covering food and farming. According to Freedom of Information documents, she left the news agency under a cloud after being confronted by her editor during 2014. There had been complaints from scientists about her lack of editorial balance and her embrace of anti-GMO conspiracy propaganda. Activists on a anti-GMO private listserv were aware for years that there was friction between her and Reuters; editors challenged her for apparently compromising journalistic standards. She was forced out — either told she had no future at the news service or outright fired.

imageWhen contacted by the GLP, Gillam denied being fired, claiming she has “paperwork”, but she refused to share it. Months after leaving Reuters, in 2015, Gillam was named “research director” at US Right to Know, where she was free of the constraints of objective journalism.

Over the years since then, she has produced hundreds of ‘research articles’ stoking public concerns about glyphosate and other agricultural chemicals. She is a longtime antagonist of what she derisively calls “Big Ag”. It was at USRTK where Gillam wrote two books, both focusing on glyphosate, which were launched with star-up funding by the Organic Consumers Association. USTRK presents itself as an independent

[N]onprofit investigative research group focused on promoting transparency for public health. We are working globally to expose corporate wrongdoing and government failures that threaten the integrity of our health, our environment and our food system.

image

Gillam left USRTK in December 2021 under murky circumstances. Critics suggest a rift emerged because she worked hand-in-hand with vaccine deniers such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jrs. and the Church of Scientology law firm Baum Hedlund. USRTK executive director Gary Ruskin denies she was fired or forced out. Months later, her affiliation with the Environmental Working Group was announced.

In her current position, Gillam partners with EWG, an organic-industry funded activist and litigation-focused organization in producing a blog called “The New Lede”. She refers to herself on her LinkedIn page as a “modern-day Rachel Carson” for her “groundbreaking work” in “exposing decades of corporate secrets and deceptive tactics by powerful pesticide companies, including the global giant Monsanto.” Scientists call her a ‘one-woman science wrecking ball’ who misunderstands chemical risk and systematically exaggerates the dangers of a weedkiller that the global regulatory community has concluded is safe as used, both for human health and the environment.

image

Gillam’s influence as point person in the anti-GMO and pesticide rejectionist community cannot be understated. The CDC report would have been a footnote in this controversy if Gillam had not weaponized it. Besides her skewed analysis that ran in The Guardian, she also placed a story in online partner organizations: Enviornmental Working Goup’s website (whose headline falsely claimed that the CDC found 87% of Americans had glyphosate traces in their urine); and on vaccine denier Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense e-mag, The Defender (which claims it “defends” children from getting life-saving routine vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines). Gillam writes regularly for the site.screen shot at pmNext, we will examine the anti-GMO industry and the web of disinformers — the pro-organic corporations, activist groups and influencers that challenge consensus science and profit from Carey Gillam’s advocacy.

Jon Entine is the founding executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project, and winner of 19 major journalism awards. He has written extensively in the popular and academic press on media ethics, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and agricultural and population genetics. You can follow him on Twitter @JonEntine. The GLP discloses all major contributors and conflicts of interest, and outlines its donor policy on its transparency page.

{{ reviewsTotal }}{{ options.labels.singularReviewCountLabel }}
{{ reviewsTotal }}{{ options.labels.pluralReviewCountLabel }}
{{ options.labels.newReviewButton }}
{{ userData.canReview.message }}
screenshot at  pm

Are pesticide residues on food something to worry about?

In 1962, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring drew attention to pesticides and their possible dangers to humans, birds, mammals and the ...
glp menu logo outlined

Newsletter Subscription

* indicates required
Email Lists
glp menu logo outlined

Get news on human & agricultural genetics and biotechnology delivered to your inbox.