Mark Worth

Mark Worth is an American journalist, author, public interest activist, and whistleblower advocate.

He has worked for a number of media companies including the New York Times and McClatchy, and advocacy organizations including Public Citizen, Transparency International, Food & Water Europe, and Blueprint for Free Speech. He is the co-Recipient of the 1994 Investigative Reporters and Editors award for magazine writing for an investigation of chemically injured workers at Boeing factories published in the Washington Free Press, which Worth co-founded. He is the co-author of Zapped: Irradiation and the Death of Food and the founding coordinator of the international whistleblower program at Transparency International.

Worth frequently appears as a speaker and expert on whistleblower protection at international and regional forums, including at the Council of Europe, OECD, Heinrich Boll Foundation, and the International Anti-Corruption Conference. While at Transparency International (TI), he organized and spoke at the "Whistleblowing for Change" conference in Berlin in March 2013, and he wrote and produced the Voices for Change video for TI.

Currently, Worth is involved with an international campaign to pressure the Karl May Museum in Radebeul, Germany, to repatriate Native American scalps to the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and other Tribes. The controversy has been reported in many media outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, The Independent, and Deutsche Welle.

Washington Free Press

Worth's 1994 investigation of Boeing, co-authored by Eric Nelson with additional research by Andrea Helm, was published in the Washington Free Press. (Worth co-founded the Free Press in Seattle in 1992 with Alex Mayer and Amy Tullis.) The package of articles, entitled "It's All In Your Head," describes how "Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Boeing workers say they've been sickened by the chemicals used at Boeing plants throughout Puget Sound. But instead of giving these workers the medical and financial help they need, Boeing -- with the help of its connections within state government and the medical establishment -- is saying many workers just have psychological problems." Worth and Nelson received the 1994 Investigative Reporters and Editors award for magazine writing.

The Free Press found that Boeing told workers—mostly women—to use chemicals and materials that that company knew was toxic and caused health problems, did not provide workers adequate safety equipment, denied workers' compensation benefits, and hired doctors who contended that the workers' health problems were actually psychologically based. The investigation also found evidence of collusion between Boeing and the Washington state government agency that oversees the workers' compensation program.

One sickened Boeing worker, Claudia "Dea" Sartain, committed [...] after her worker's compensation benefits were terminated by the state of Washington upon Boeing's urging. In her [...] note, obtained by the Free Press, Sartain described the working conditions at Boeing's parts fabrication plant in Auburn, Washington: working while hanging upside-down ("We would stay in these positions sometimes for days ..."), working with carcinogenic adhesives ("Women were having miscarriages all the time ..."), and arguing with her boss about handling toxic chemicals ("All you're worried about is this material. How much is my life worth?"). Shortly after New Year's Day of 1990, Sartain stole her brother's gun, drove to a friend's house, and shot herself in the front yard. Sartain was 32.

Public Citizen

As a research director at Public Citizen, Worth was involved with a campaign in the early 2000s to expose the risks of food irradiation and to prevent US and international agencies from approving and promoting the technology.

Worth authored several reports that documented failures by the US Food and [...] Administration and the World Health Organization to adequately screen the safety of irradiated foods before approving or recommending them for public consumption. These reports include A Broken Record: How the FDA Legalized – and Continues to Legalize – Food Irradiation Without Testing It for Safety (co-authored by Samuel Epstein's Cancer Prevention Coalition), Bad Taste: The Disturbing Truth of the World Health Organization's Endorsement of Food Irradiation, and Hidden Harm: How the FDA is Ignoring the Potential Dangers of Unique Chemicals in Irradiated Food (co-authored by Peter Jenkins of the Center for Food Safety.

Worth also co-authored the first book about food irradiation written for the general public, Zapped: Irradiation and the Death of Food (with Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch).

While at Public Citizen, Worth arranged for the first English translation of a German study revealing that a chemical formed in irradiated food can cause genetic mutations. The chemical, known as 2-DCB, was found to cause "significant DNA damage" in the colons of rats that ate the substance. The chemical has never been found naturally in any food on Earth.