Audiobook9 hours
Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science
Written by Carey Gillam
Narrated by Rachel Dulude
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
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About this audiobook
It's the herbicide on our dinner plates, a chemical so pervasive it's in the air we breathe, our water, our soil, and even found increasingly in our own bodies. Known as Monsanto's Roundup by consumers, and as glyphosate by scientists, the world's most popular weed killer is used everywhere from backyard gardens to golf courses to millions of acres of farmland. For decades it's been touted as safe enough to drink, but a growing body of evidence indicates just the opposite, with research tying the chemical to cancers and a host of other health threats.
In Whitewash, veteran journalist Carey Gillam uncovers one of the most controversial stories in the history of food and agriculture, exposing new evidence of corporate influence. Gillam introduces listeners to farm families devastated by cancers which they believe are caused by the chemical, and to scientists whose reputations have been smeared for publishing research that contradicted business interests. Listeners learn about the arm-twisting of regulators who signed off on the chemical, echoing company assurances of safety even as they permitted higher residues of the herbicide in food and skipped compliance tests. And, in startling detail, Gillam reveals secret industry communications that pull back the curtain on corporate efforts to manipulate public perception.
Whitewash is more than an expose about the hazards of one chemical or even the influence of one company. It's a story of power, politics, and the deadly consequences of putting corporate interests ahead of public safety.
In Whitewash, veteran journalist Carey Gillam uncovers one of the most controversial stories in the history of food and agriculture, exposing new evidence of corporate influence. Gillam introduces listeners to farm families devastated by cancers which they believe are caused by the chemical, and to scientists whose reputations have been smeared for publishing research that contradicted business interests. Listeners learn about the arm-twisting of regulators who signed off on the chemical, echoing company assurances of safety even as they permitted higher residues of the herbicide in food and skipped compliance tests. And, in startling detail, Gillam reveals secret industry communications that pull back the curtain on corporate efforts to manipulate public perception.
Whitewash is more than an expose about the hazards of one chemical or even the influence of one company. It's a story of power, politics, and the deadly consequences of putting corporate interests ahead of public safety.
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Reviews for Whitewash
Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
5/5
20 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science by Carey Gillam is an expose' of how Monsanto's pesticide glyphosate came to dominate the farming industry--and its product Roundup in suburban back yards--even when evidence of its threat to human health and environmental degradation arose. It is the story of how chemical companies, not the federal governmental programs we believe protect us, drive policy and law.Gillam is a career journalist who in 1998 was moved to Kansas to write about agriculture for Reuters. Previously she wrote about Hurricane Katrina and reported from race-torn Ferguson, MS. She spent a lot of time learning her new beat, talking with farmers as well as company executives at Monsanto and other chemical companies. Glyphosate was sold as the safest pesticide ever, a wonder product that would help farmers increase their yield. Monsanto then developed plants that were resistant to their pesticide, the GMOs we hear so much about. Farmers left behind the older ways, even ending crop rotation. Monsanto owned the marketplace.As her research led Gillam to become concerned with GMOs, not accepting the 'desired narrative,' Monsanto-funded organizations pressured her editors to remove her! As Gillam tells it, "What I've learned, what I know with certainty, is that when powerful corporations control the narrative, the truth often get lost and it's up to journalists to find it and bring it home."The result is this book.This was a hard book to read--not just because of the density of information, but because it taught me that business runs more of government than we are aware of. It's not just lobby money. It's in the research they pay for and tweak and offer to the EPA as unbiased studies when decisions are to be made about public safety. And its about the professors and professionals they enlist to tell their story. I buy organic foods whenever possible. I have the luxury of being able to afford to make that choice. I am not an agricultural worker who is around chemicals that are associated with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the disease that took my father's life. We did, for two years, live next to a farm field. There was a beautiful field of golden wheat when we moved in on a late June day. A few months later I sat on the back deck to watch the farmer cut the wheat.The next year he planted corn. Our dog loved to run down between the row of corn. We moved before it was harvested.The Sandhill Crane came in pairs in the spring and over the summer we watched them and their young birds. In the autumn, after harvest, the Crane flocked to the field in the hundreds before flying South.So when in the book I read about 'chemical drift', how the pesticides sprayed on the soil before planting or on the GMO crops before harvest are carried on the wind, I shuddered. Was the yard my dogs played in safe? What about my open kitchen windows, my bedrooms that faced the farm field? What was I tracking into the house on my shoes? I am ignorant about that farmer's use of pesticides.And the Sandhill Cranes that came every year in the hundreds to eat the insects in the field? What is the impact of pesticides on the birds? We had Bald Eagles flying over the fields, looking for prey. On the other side of the field was a wet land, and also senior housing. I found a rare salamander in the yard once.After we moved a family with a young child moved into the house. Will that boy's health be impacted negatively?"Most of us are Guinea pigs in this horrendous toxic experiment."--from White WashI was taught in environmental biology that pesticides are poison, and not just harmful to the pests it was developed to kill. Gillam shows how glyphosate, which is combined with harmful chemicals to make it 'stick' to crops, impacts more than weeds. And it has created resistant weeds and has affected the soil.I am continually appalled by all the ways big business has manipulated government. You should be, too.