Carey Gillam

About Carey Gillam

Carey Gillam is the editor-in-chief of The New Lede and a veteran investigative journalist with more than 30 years of experience covering US news, including 17 years as a senior correspondent with Reuters international news service (1998-2015). She is the author of “Whitewash - The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science,” an expose of Monsanto’s corporate corruption of agriculture. The book won the coveted Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists in 2018. Her second book, a narrative legal thriller titled The Monsanto Papers, was released March 2, 2021. She also has contributed chapters for a text book about environmental journalism and a book about pesticide use in Africa. Gillam testified as an invited expert before the European Parliament in 2017 about her research, and was a featured speaker at the World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg, France in 2019. She also has been a keynote and/or panel speaker at events and universities throughout North America, Australia, The Netherlands, Brussels, and France. Gillam writes regularly for The Guardian. Her work has additionally been published in The New York Times, Huffington Post, Time, and other outlets. In 2022, Gillam helped launch The New Lede as a journalism initiative of the Environmental Working Group. Gillam is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Posts by Carey Gillam:

Youth win historic climate lawsuit against Montana

By Dana Drugmand

A group of young people who sued Montana officials for failing to adequately address climate change have prevailed in what observers say is a historic legal challenge.

“Polluter pays” debate heats up over toxic PFAS chemical cleanup plan

By Carey Gillam

As US regulators work to tackle the toxic threat posed by a class of widely used chemicals known as PFAS, debate is heating up over who could – and should – get hit with the cleanup costs.

Aging Americans face deadly risk due to wide temperature swings, study warns

By Dana Drugmand

People over age 65 face a higher risk of dying when exposed to temperatures that swing far outside the seasonal average, findings that underscore an “urgent” need to mitigate climate change, according to new research.

How “Big Ag” pollutes America’s water, and makes money doing it

By Keith Schneider

It’s been 33 years since an Iowa State University agronomist named Fred Blackmer thought he’d struck gold for Midwestern corn farmers. Using a fairly simple three-step method, Blackmer developed an analytical tool that could accurately tell farmers exactly how much fertilizer their fields needed to produce abundant harvests each season.

New worries about risks PFAS and other chemicals pose for pregnancies

By Carey Gillam

California researchers have found new evidence that several chemicals used in plastic production and a wide array of other industrial applications are commonly present in the blood of pregnant women, creating increased health risks for mothers and their babies.

CBS News segment on herbicides

TNL Editor-in-Chief Carey Gillam joined CBS News to discuss litigation against the EPA, alleging the agency failed to consider risks to public health when it reapproved two herbicides critics say threaten endangered species, native plants and waterways.

Watch

In Montana, a landmark legal challenge over climate change

By Dana Drugmand

For 20-year-old college student Olivia Vesovich, climate change is not a future concern. It’s a current and near-daily crisis. “Climate change has impacted my ability to breathe,” Vesovich testified from the witness stand of a Montana courtroom last week.

Wildfire smoke tied to thousands of deaths and billions in economic losses, researchers warn

By Carey Gillam

As hundreds of wildfires continue to rage across Canada, a new study warns that toxic particulates carried in wildfire smoke can lead to more than 4,000 premature deaths in the United States and $36 billion in annual US economic losses.

PFAS contamination trial delayed as 3M negotiates sweeping settlement

By Shannon Kelleher and Carey Gillam

Chemical conglomerate 3M is working to settle claims that it is liable for knowingly contaminating the environment with toxic chemicals for decades, delaying what would have been a closely watched bellwether trial in South Carolina.

On eve of bellwether PFAS trial, chemical giants DuPont, 3M eye billion-dollar settlements

By Carey Gillam and Shannon Kelleher

Just days before the start of a bellwether trial in South Carolina over PFAS contamination of drinking water, DuPont and two related companies said they would pay close to $1.2 billion to settle liability claims brought by public water systems serving the vast majority of the US population.