How is it that businesses wind up with so much power over our regulatory system? How does that affect the rest of us? Investigative journalist Carey Gillam and Iowa Environmental Council’s Colleen Fowle will examine the impacts of this influence on pesticide regulations and Iowa’s water quality JFAN’s 2026 Annual Meeting.

 

Internationally renowned author and investigative journalist Carey Gillam has decades of experience reporting on the influence pesticide companies have exercised over agencies like the EPA. She’s penned two books, Whitewash and the Monsanto Papers, to document the deception and lies that Monsanto used to shield themselves from liability surrounding glyphosate.

 

Gillam will talk about how agribusinesses have hijacked the science and regulatory agencies, the rampant corruption that has affected the regulatory process, and how that ultimately affects public health including its link to Iowa’s high cancer rates.

 

In a state influenced by a multibillion-dollar, multinational agricultural industry, Iowa struggles to protect its water. Colleen Fowle, Water Program Director at the Iowa Environmental Council (IEC), will address how the state is failing to safeguard this precious resource in meaningful ways, how agriculture and cancer are connected, the state of IIHR water sensor funding, and why a program that protects people has become a political football.

 

It’s been 12 years since the Nutrient Reduction Strategy was implemented to reduce nitrate pollution and more than 10 years since an analysis of the Iowa Women’s Health Study found associations with cancer and high nitrate levels in drinking water. So why can’t we get this pollution crisis under control? Join us on October 8 to find out how regulatory capture impacts us all and what we can do to fight back against the regulatory corruption.

 

Bring your questions for the Q&A session that follows.

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About Our Speakers:

 

CAREY GILLAM is 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. 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 titled The Monsanto Papers is a narrative legal thriller titled that covers the first glyphosate trial.

In 2022, Gillam helped launch the non-profit environmental news outlet called The New Lede as a journalism initiative of the Environmental Working Group.

 

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.

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COLLEEN FOWLE joined the Iowa Environmental Council as Water Program Director in May 2025, where she leads outreach and education initiatives to improve water quality in Iowa. She holds dual B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Mathematics from Buena Vista University, an M.S. in Water Resources/Hydrogeology from Iowa State University, and an M.A.T. in Secondary STEM Education from Drake University. Colleen's diverse background includes extensive scientific research focused on environmental and climate issues. She has taught STEM courses for grades 6-12 and has been actively involved in water resources and conservation advocacy in Arizona and South Dakota, and for the Iowa Stormwater Education Partnership.

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