ELLA Lied To The Department Of Health, SFF Notes

A Yakima activist group is under fire after the Washington State Department of Health confirmed it relied on the group's false assurances that unauthorized use of the agency's logo had stopped.

According to Save Family Farming, ELLA continued displaying the Department of Health logo on videos that blamed Lower Yakima Valley dairy farms for harming public health, even after telling the state the issue had been corrected.

In an email response to the complaint months later, Erika Baker, Deputy Director of the department’s Office of Environmental Public Health Sciences, claimed the department had “confirmed the logo was removed from the impacted videos,” yet a simple check by Save Family Farming showed the videos remained online with the DOH logo included.

Save Family Farming said they immediately told Baker that the videos remained online despite the Department’s assurances.

Save Family Farming said the Department did not respond for nearly three months, until Save Family Farming informed DOH officials on July 16th that it had filed a complaint with the Washington State Auditor’s Office and notified several state legislators.

“Our previous statement that the logo had been removed was based on confirmation from the grantee that the concerns raised to our attention had been corrected,” Baker wrote in a July 16th email, “However, as your correspondence demonstrates, video uploads on specific social media platforms remain intact with the unauthorized logo use.”

“Not only is the Department of Health confirming that ELLA lied to them, officials are admitting that when they previously ‘confirmed’ the problem was resolved, they were simply taking the activist group’s word for it,” said Ben Tindall, Save Family Farming Executive Director. “Any recipient of a half-million dollars in taxpayer money should never be able to get away with lying to the state like this.”

According to Baker, via her July 16 email, “DOH contract managers have re-engaged with ELLA leadership regarding the specific social media posts cited in your correspondence and any other uploads where the DOH logo remains visible."

Save Family Farming said Baker's latest response marks the first time the Department has acknowledged that its earlier statement—that it had "confirmed" the logo had been removed—was based solely on representations made by ELLA rather than an independent review by the agency itself.

“Since when does the state simply take the word of a person or group under investigation as ‘good enough’ to confirm that its rules weren’t broken,” said Tindall. “The Department of Health official name and logo were used to give credibility to false accusations against Washington farms. When DOH learned about it, it accepted the organization’s assurances without verifying the facts. Does DOH want to hold ELLA accountable for deceiving the public under the department’s own banner, or is it just trying to sweep this under the rug?”

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