We also saw how she then established herself as a spokesperson for the harshest critics of modern farming, genetically engineered seeds and associated products, such as the weedkiller glyphosate.
We reviewed claims by Gillam and other organizations funded by the organic industry that glyphosate is a ‘dangerous herbicide’ — while hundreds of studies by independent scientists and reviews by 19 global government organizations have concluded otherwise.
Now we will address the heart of the issue, which goes far beyond the biases and the misunderstanding (or deliberate misrepresentations) of science by one reporter:
What is the matrix of organizations behind these disinformation campaigns?
What companies (or in some cases individuals) benefit financially and otherwise from the biases in her reporting and that of affiliates organizations that she has worked with formally and informally: Center for Food Safety, US Right to Know, Organic Consumers Association and the Church of Scientology?
Who are the actual corporate propagandists — an accusation Gillam and colleagues levy against scientists, corporations and regulators?
What is the “real” USRTK?
We begin with an analysis of the organization Gillam joined in 2016 after her departure from Reuters: US Right to Know. USRTK was formally launched in January 2015 by former Yes on Prop 37 (mandatory GMO labeling ballot measure in California) campaign manager Gary Ruskin and its media director Stacy Malkan with seed money from the Organic Consumers Association (OCA). It operates under the tagline “Exposing what the food industry doesn’t want you to know.” We’ll have the background on OCA coming up.
What does it really do? USRTK modus operandi is to engage in attacks on agricultural businesses if they are not organic and the broader food industry if when USTRK believes it does not align with its ideological objection to genetically modified seeds. The organization alleges unethical lobbying and excessive political influence on issues linked to GMOs, pesticides, sweeteners, and marketing to children. It has written a slew of attack blogs against organizations and people it believes are supportive of agricultural biotechnology— insinuations that are frequently circulated on social media and occasionally picked up by mainstream journalists, some of whom are unaware of USRTK’s history, funding sources and ideological orientation. [Read GLP profile of USTRK]
Among its targets are numerous distinguished scientists, such as Nina Fedoroff, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; University of California-Davis plant scientist Pamela Ronald; researchers affiliated with the Gates-funded Cornell Alliance for Science (a global outreach and education agency focusing on food and farming) and University of Florida professor Kevin Folta, a central target of USRTK. Here is an infographic analysis of a blog attack by USRTK co-founder Stacy Malkin illustrating what Prof Folta believes are the deceptive tactics used by the anti-GMO group. (Click here for enlarged version.)
USRTK, conducting its business from a PO Box in Oakland, California, has also targeted dozens of mainstream journalists, including this author and independent science reporters Mark Lynas, Keith Kloor and Tamar Haspel [for USRTK’s entire hit list, click here]. Haspel was aggressive in a point-by-point response [Let’s talk about journalism ethics — mine and HuffPost’s] to an attack article that ran in the Huffington Post, written by Paul Thacker, a contract writer for USRTK with a controversial history. [Just last week, oncologist and surgeon David Gorski, founder of the Science-based Medicine blog, wrote a scathing takedown of Thacker’s biases including his recent embrace of vaccine denialism, which are also pervasive at USRTK, Organic Consumers Association, and in many circles on the far left.
USTRK’s donor list includes organizations well known for supporting fringe medicine and activist causes—almost all in a position to financially gain from its attacks, suggesting extensive conflicts of interest. The backbone of its funding came from the Organic Consumers Association, which has contributed more than one million dollars since its founding.
USRTK is also supported by and partners with one of the most notorious natural medicine-promoting quacks — Dr. Joseph Mercola. His eponymous website Mercola.com sells supplements and pushes ‘natural medicine’. The News Guard ethics site concludes Mercola.com “severely violates basic standards of credibility and transparency” and is a “super spreader of COVID-19 vaccine disinformation.” Media Bias/Fact Check calls Mercola.com a “conspiracy-pseudoscience” site that regularly promotes “quackery”. His site was banned from YouTube and heavily restricted on Facebook and other social media. Mercola was a frequent guest on Dr. Oz, who had a reputation for pushing pseudoscience and quack medicine on his former TV show..
Mercola, who has funding links to the Organic Consumers Association, also has been an avid fundraiser for USRTK.
What is the Organic Consumers Association?
OCA funded the start-up of Gillam’s longtime home, USRTK and is its largest donor. OCA is known for its fringe positions on science-related issues. It opposes biotechnology, promotes vaccine denialism, is aggressively anti-vaccine, advocates for homeopathy and peddles natural remedies over mainstream medicine. Its views of science often align with the rhetoric of the far right. [Read GLP Profile of OCA]
The independent and respected Center for Countering Digital Hate, which was formed to challenge vaccination denialism, has USRTK partner OCA on its “deplatform” list along with RFK, Jr., because of their ongoing demonization of vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines.
The independent NewsGuard journalism site rates OCA’s credibility as 20/100, judging that it “severely violates basic standards of credibility and transparency”:
Media Bias/Fact Check rates OCA as “low” credibility, calling it a “conspiracy and quackery level pseudoscience website based on the promotion of numerous unproven and misleading claims related to science”. That’s the organization that has provided key funding for the anti-GMO movement in the US for most of the last decade — and is the ongoing funding source for USRTK, where Gillam worked for 7 years.
OCA has been criticized for its lack of financial transparency. It does not post its contributors’ list. One of its chief donors is also Dr. Mercola, who is known to have donated a half million dollars or more in previous years. Aping Mercola’s anti-vaccine fever, OCA regularly spreads conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine and the origin of the pandemic.
The Matrix: Carey Gillam—USRTK—Organic Consumers Association—Church of Scientology—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. connections
Let’s delve deeper into the murky right-wing/left wing web of the anti-GMO/anti-pesticide world. In the wake of the IARC declaration in 2015, Gillam and others at USRTK forged a relationship with an unusual resource: Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, a major tort litigation law firm. Its principals and almost its entire litigation team are members of the Church of Scientology. It has represented the Church in legal wranglings for decades.
More to the point of the controversy over glyphosate, Baum Hedlund was the principal architect of the first three Roundup cancer lawsuits that resulted, initially, in $2.424 billion in jury verdicts. Much of the eventual settlement reportedly went into Church coffers…or to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. In the lead-up to and during the initial trials, Carey Gillam and USRTK worked hand-in-hand with vaccine rejectionist RFK, Jr., who partners with Baum Hedlund and became their front man in advertisements celebrating their windfall glyphosate winnings. In this video, Kennedy brags about one of the verdicts against Monsanto and trolls for my clients on behalf of Scientology-affiliated law firm. (Click on image to view Kennedy hawking for more glyphosate litigants on behalf of the Church’s law firm)
The Church of Scientology has become the motive force behind the glyphosate litigation operation, which now includes numerous other firms. What is its history in the science and litigation area?
Like almost every player in the anti-GMO movement, the Church, which is described by its many critics as a cult [Read Wikipedia background summary], has a skeletons-in-the-closet history. It has faced dozens of allegations of aggressive litigiousness against critics and abuse of its members. There are many books [see for example here, here, here, here, here, here] and documentaries [at least five] that detail allegations of this alleged abuse. With billions of dollars at its disposal, the Church and its legal arm, Baum Hedlund, have become the central force behind the glyphosate litigation — and yet this connection has gone almost unreported by the mainstream press.
The lead attorneys in the Bayer litigation, including one of the founders, Michael Baum, is notoriously known for his involvement in Operation Snow White, Scientology’s internal name for a criminal conspiracy it conducted during the 1970s in a failed attempt to illegally purge unfavorable United States government records about the Church. Eleven highly-placed church executives were convicted in federal court of obstructing justice, burglary of government offices, and theft of documents and government. Baum was named as one of the “unindicted co-conspirators.”
Baum Hedlund jumped on the glyphosate cases after making hundreds of millions of dollars suing drug companies in the 1990s, alleging Prozac and other anti-depressants were addictive and dangerous (Scientologists reject psychiatric drugs, claiming they are destructive). As that money stream ran dry, the Church and Baum Hedlund reportedly set their sights on litigating the Monsanto-glyphosate connection, eventually establishing a close working relationship with USRTK—and its research lead, Carey Gillam.
Gillam has connections to Scientology lawyers. She reportedly provided court notes assembled during the glyphosate litigation as part of USRTK’s association with Baum Hedlund. There are also allegations of other in-kind work by USRTK on the law firm’s behalf. Gillam also teamed up with Baum Hedlund’s advertising front man, RFK, Jr., to fan public fears about agricultural chemicals.
When asked about these connections, in an email in 2019, Gillam replied, “With respect to Baum Hedlund, a few of the firm’s attorneys have provided comments and publicly available court records for US Right to Know as they do for other reporters and researchers. US Right to Know does not accept or solicit donations from the firm or from its attorneys.” When asked in a 2021 email whether USRTK has received any form of remuneration, in-kind or direct, as distinct from a “donation,” the GLP received no reply. Asked in 2021 whether she had any qualms about teaming up with a law firm whose key members have a legally and ethically checkered history and with direct connections to the Church, Gillam responded in an email to the GLP:
As far as I know no one with US Right to Know has any connection to Scientology.
A similar set of questions were posed to the two heads of USRTK, Gary Ruskin and Stacey Malkin. USRTK staff, including Gillam, Ruskin and Malkin, reportedly met and strategized over how to manage the Monsanto litigation numerous times, including dozens of in-person and phone meetings, most in Baum Hedlund’s offices.
Ruskin, like Gillam, refused to answer a range of questions about the Baum Hedlund/USRTK relationship, writing: “U.S. Right to Know has no financial relationship with Baum Hedlund or the Church of Scientology.” That was not responsive to the questions, which inquired about non-financial cooperation, including shared research and strategizing. When asked, again, for further elaboration about the many strategy meetings between USRTK and Church lawyers, Ruskin did not respond.
Carey Gillam and the Environmental Working Group
Gillam left USRTK abruptly in December 2021 under murky circumstances with the organization under attack for its childhood and COVID vaccine denialism and its ties to RFK, Jr. In the spring she launched her New Lede opinion blog partnering with the Environmental Working Group.
In an email to me earlier this week she referred to The New Lede as a “news” site. The New Lede website claims:
… objective journalism is one of our central beliefs
Gillam characterizes her partner, EWG, as
… a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization devoted to conducting and communicating scientific research that helps inform public policy on human and environmental health issues.
Is that what EWG does—”communicating scientific research”? Does its partner, The New Lede, engage in objective journalism? What is EWG’s mission?
Based on its public activities and defined by EWG’s “Funding” page website, its missions is to “highlight the benefits of organic food and advance the fight for labeling food that contains genetically engineered ingredients.” EWG defines itself as a nonprofit but it is also operates a 501(c)4 lobby group. The largest portion of the funding for both the nonprofit and the lobby group comes from the organic industry: individuals, corporations and nonprofits who all stand to profit in one way or another from demonizing conventional food and genetic modification. [Read GLP profile here]
EWG is regarded as an ‘anti-chemical litigation shop’, funding legal attacks on US government agencies that it believes are not applying chemical regulations appropriately, or lobbying for stricter regulations. Its best-known ‘product’ is the widely-ridiculed (here, here, here). The “Dirty Dozen” releases a list of ‘pesticide laden’ fruits and vegetables every year to waning media interest. It regularly claim regulators in league with corporations for not reducing trace chemical treat levels, claiming that undermines safety. Gillam’s The New Lede is specifically designed to advance that strategy.
It is well known for exaggerating the risk of chemicals to raise money. In a report on EWG, environmental historian John McWilliams wrote that it promotes ‘fear-mongering and misleading’, writing that there is little evidence to support its claims. According to Science Moms, EWG “frightens consumers about chemicals and their safety, cloaking fear-mongering in a clever disguise of caring and empowerment.” Quackwatch describes EWG as one of “[t]he key groups that have wrong things to say about cosmetic products.”
EWG used to transparently disclose its funding dependence on organic companies hostile to GMOs, but over the past year it has gradually purged its disclosures little-by-little in what looks like an attempt to obscure that its funded by a Who’s Who of organic businesses, nonprofit and lobbying arms poised to profit from demonizing convention agriculture. Below is a graphic from the Funding page of its website from this spring [thank you Wayback machine]. Note no dollar figures disclosed, there are just references (in yellow) to nine of the most influential organic companies whose sales soar every time the Dirty Dozen list is released.
Note (in orange) that EWG disclosed that it runs a lobby arm “funded by more than 20 organic companies, including Stonyfield, Earthbound Farm, Organic valley, Nature’s Path and Annie’s — all biotechnology rejectionists, all selling food at premium prices to consumers who are convinced by EWG propaganda that organic foods are healthier.
Late this past spring, with the EWG poised to put out this year’s Dirty Dozen, the lobby group faced a barrage of harsh warning articles written by scientists, nutritionists and journalists sharply critical of the anticipated misleading list. How did EWG react to the heat? It got even less transparent, essentially purging all mention of organic companies by name. Here is today’s anodyne entry.
Anti-GMO activists and the extreme right
As we have seen, Carey Gillam, the most high-profile critic of conventional agriculture, has associated herself over the years with a growing number of fringe ‘natural medicine’ and organic groups, many of who deny the efficacy of vaccinations. At no point in her writings at USRTK or since, in various guest articles on numerous mainstream websites, on webinars with Congressman, or in her books has Gillam transparently disclosed her connections, financial and otherwise, to the matrix of companies and lobby groups that make up the anti-GMO industry.
So, it’s fair to ask: Can the public be assured that she reports news independently as she and EWG claim? Her history after being separated from Reuters answers that question. Yet, even as these facts are becoming more widely known, Gillam is she is often given a prominent platform by supposedly scrupulous journalism organizations, such as The Guardian — with no disclosure about her relevant financial ties to the organic industry and activist ideologues.
Gillam’s disinformation articles are also undermining trust in regulators and government. Her blogs and speeches have become favorites of the extreme right and the Communist left, in large part because both extremist factions question the legitimacy of regulatory agencies like the FDA and EPA — a theme Gillam hits upon regularly, claiming the government is often in cahoots with agri-business. The relentless attacks by anti-biotechnology activists on global regulatory science agencies has contributed to the current destabilized political environment — and in the case of food and farming, undermined food security and the battle to contain the growing climate change threats.
The Carey Gillam saga is a story of how the fringes of the ‘progressive’ left have adopted the tactics and language of the far right on some high-profile science issues. The hard right rejects the human role in climate change while many liberals leave science behind when addressing nuclear energy and crop genetic engineering. At the extremes, both promote misinformation about life-saving vaccines. [For background on the liberal role in the anti-vaccine movement, read Entine’s backgrounder here]
Today, the leading opponents of biotechnology on the left are an amalgam of vaccine-deniers (Organic Consumers Association, Joe Mercola, RFK, Jr.), lawyers associated with what some people consider a brainwashing cult (Baum Hedlund/Church of Scientology) and conspiracy-embracing ideologues (USRTK, Environmental Working Group, Center for Food Safety, Carey Gillam). Like extreme rightists, extremists on the left reject the competence of regulatory and oversight agencies and target Bill Gates, claiming global corporate conspiracies are at work.
According to Mother Jones magazine, a consortium of the fringiest anti-GMO groups including USRTK, Organic Consumers Association and Center for Food Safety vigorously and vocally oppose key research into the coronavirus and other deadly viruses. Why? Because the research involves genetic engineering, a bogeyman of anti-GMO liberals. Who can trust the US government or its regulatory under the thumb of corporations?
It also can be difficult, even for scientists, to contextualize complicated issues such as the place of glyphosate in food and farming vs. proposed organic solutions. That does not excuse advocacy groups or bloggers such as Ms. Gillam from exploiting the science naïveté of readers — complicated science controversies are framed in simplistically alarmist ways, playing on what many people are naively prepared to believe. Why? Because these tropes sound plausible: powerful and ruthless corporations, out-of-control pollution, contaminants in our food, chemical-caused cancers, etc. This confuses everyone leaving openings for appeals based on fear.
This infodemic is pervasive. It’s also predictable, if disheartening. United by righteous zealotry and suspicion of biotechnology-based medicine and agriculture, anti-GMO leftists are often becoming ideological bedfellows with extreme right-wingers.
“The political spectrum isn’t always a straight line,” Mother Jones wrote in summarizing its disheartening analysis of fringe groups’ opposition to virus research. “Sometimes it’s a circle where at a certain point in the back, the far left and the far right converge.”
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.
