Key question then becomes, who does that research and who do you trust?
For me I trust the scientific method over any other form of research. I trust the method that lead to us going to the moon (not looking to open that debate again
), smart phones, planes, the internet and so on. A lot is known about the flawed methods of thinking we're all subject to (reading up on this is highly recommended). Scientific history can be described as the history of common sense being proved wrong over and over again. I'm yet to see an even half convincing argument of why people should use a different method than science as the basis for separating truth from fiction.
You talk about the big companies, so many people do. But why isn't the same skepticism applied to the alternative side of health, medicine and lifestyle? There's a large amount of outright frauds on the alternative side and quite possibly an even larger amount of the well intended, but grossly uninformed, although the frauds are often inseparable from the latter group. A lot of money is made by big vitamin, supplements, homeopathy and so on and so on.
Since Monsanto came up again, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, a podcast I listen to brought them up in their latest episode. They highlighted how a lot of the negative stories being circulated about Monsanto are just factually incorrect. The episode can be found here:
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/429 Segment starting at around 0:36:45. The host challenges his listeners to email the worst Monsanto stories to him, he's not refusing that they've done bad things, just that the impression of them is perhaps a lot worse than they deserve. Feel free to question them as a source or follow their sources to try to prove them wrong, but for me they're one of the most well resourced presenters of information of this type though.
Finally, what's the harm? Gifter may not be doing any harm on his quest for himself, I honestly couldn't tell. That there is real harm in what is being done by the alternative side in general though I don't doubt for a second.
As a quick example, take the anti-vaccine movement. A movement riddled with science denialism and irrational thinking. The harm being a large number of preventable illnesses and deaths, many of the victims being children. A somewhat tabloid, but valid, presentation of this can be seen at
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Anti-Vaccine_Body_Count/Home.html
http://whatstheharm.net/ is a site aiming to answer your question in general (not a site aimed at Gifter in specific of course
), listing some of the specific harm that has been caused by the spread of what they, like most sceptics, think of as irrational thinking.
