Douglas Gowan

Douglas Gowan ( 1942 or 1943 -2018)[1] was a former Assistant Parliamentary Secretary at the National Farmers Union and a researcher on PCBs.[2] He found pollution near Brofiscin Quarry in Wales and filed the first official report in 1972 after nine cows on a local farm died of poisoning.[3]

In 2007 The Ecologist reported that Gowan had been offered witness protection after receiving death threats.[4] He also stated that he had been discredited by Monsanto through a two-year smear campaign.[5][6]

His work formed the basis of the BBC Radio 4 series Buried: The Last Witness, first broadcast in June 2024.[7][8]

Michael Sheen first read Gowan's name in an article in Wikipedia in 2017,[9][note 1] visited him and recorded a seven-hour interview, and spoke about him in his 2017 Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture.[10]

Notes
  1. The reference Sheen read may have been the sentence "The Ecologist claimed in a 2007 article that IBT had provided expert testimony against Douglas Gowan during a court case ..." in the article Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories, which was in the encyclopedia during 2017.

References
  1. "Actor Michael Sheen slams Monsanto for causing pollution in Wales". www.gmwatch.org. 21 November 2017. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  2. Gowan, Douglas (21 June 2009). "Douglas Gowan's official X account (formerly Twitter)".
  3. Vidal, John (12 February 2007). "Monsanto dumped toxic waste in UK". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  4. Hughes, Jon; Thomas, Pat (11 October 2007). "Burying The Truth, the orginal Ecologist investigation into Monsanto and Brofiscin Quarry". The Ecologist. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  5. "Open letter from Douglas Gowan". theecologist.org. 16 August 2007. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  6. "Buried - The Last Witness - The Last Witness - 3. Discredit Gowan - BBC Sounds". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  7. "BBC Radio 4 - Buried, The Last Witness". BBC. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  8. Wray, Daniel Dylan (24 June 2024). "'Please come and see me because I'll be dead soon': how Michael Sheen got sucked into a forever chemicals exposé". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  9. "How Michael Sheen helped to uncover a dark environmental secret". BBC News. 24 June 2024. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  10. "Annual Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture". Open University in Wales. 10 November 2017. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
    "[Transcipt of lecture]" (PDF). pp. 27–29. Retrieved 24 June 2024.



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