Pat Thomas (journalist)

Pat Thomas (born 1959 in California) is an author, journalist and campaigner specialising in the field of environment and health. She qualified as a transpersonal psychotherapist in 1991 at the Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling Education in London. She lives in London, England.

Career

Thomas was an early campaigner for evidence-based healthcare. Her early books concentrated on providing information to women who wished to have safe, non-interventionist births. During the time she was Editor of the ''AIMS Journal'', the quarterly magazine of the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (AIMS).

In 1992, she began writing for the newsletter ''What Doctors Don't Tell You'', produced by the independent publisher Wallace Press. She moved on to become an editor there and for 12 years was one of its most prolific contributors. In 2003, she became editor of its sister-publication, the consumer magazine ''Proof!'', to which she had been contributing since its inception in 1996. During this time she also contributed regularly to another Wallace Press title, ''Natural Parent''.

In 2004, she began writing the "Behind the Label" column, which exposed risky chemicals in everyday products, for ''The Ecologist'' magazine. In 2005, she became ''The Ecologist''s Health Editor and authored some of the magazine's most widely read feature investigations.

By 2007, Thomas had been appointed editor of ''The Ecologist'' magazine, a position she held until June 2009 when the print magazine switched to an online format. As editor, she spearheaded the magazine's campaigns, acted as its public face in the media and helped established the Ecologist Film Unit with film partners the international investigations agency Ecostorm. She was also responsible for a major redesign of the magazine. She continued to write the popular "Behind the Label" column until January 2011.

She became Campaign Director for Sir Paul McCartney's "Meat Free Monday" campaign, helping to launch and establish the campaign in the UK. Under her direction the campaign took McCartney to a special plenary session of the European Parliament to speak about the health and environmental benefits of reducing the amount of meat in the typical Western diet. The event in December 2009 was broadcast around the world via the internet.

In 2010, Thomas became Campaign Manager for the "Cows Belong in Fields" campaign at Compassion in World Farming. The campaign aimed to stop the UK's first mega-dairy in the village of Nocton, Lincolnshire, where a planned 8000 high-yielding cows would be reared indoors, on the grounds of risks to animal welfare and the local environment. Nocton Dairies withdrew its plans in February 2011 after overwhelming objections from campaigners, the public, local authorities and the UK's Environment Agency.

In 2010, Thomas was also the host of ''Deep Fried Planet'', a weekly radio programme on London's Resonance FM. She also researched and wrote the report ''Healthy Planet Eating'', which outlined the health and environmental case for eating less meat, for environmental campaigning group Friends of the Earth.

In 2011, she became involved in sustainability and web-based projects for Neal's Yard Remedies, one of the UK's leading organic health and beauty companies. One of these projects is the natural health website ''NYR Natural News''.

Thomas has also produced a web-based tool called "Infrequently Asked Questions", which encourages users to ask more in-depth questions about cultural and personal issues. Over the course of her career Thomas has written many books for adults and children.

Her work has been featured in, and she has written on a wide range of topics for, publications such as ''The Guardian'', The Independent, ''Here’s Health'', ''Top Santé'', ''Health & Fitness'', ''Geographical'' and ''Caduceus''.

She has been a regular guest on Anna Raeburn's programme on Talk Radio programme and featured on BBC Radio 4's ''Costing the Earth'' and has appeared on programmes for the BBC
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