Science journal retracts study on safety of Monsanto’s Roundup: ‘serious ethical concerns’ | US news
Editor of the journal Toxicology and Pharmacology officially withdrawn A comprehensive scientific paper published in 2000 that became the primary defense of Monsanto’s claim that the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate do not cause cancer.
Martin van den Berg, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, said: Notes Its retraction was accompanied by its move due to “serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors of this article and the academic integrity of the carcinogenicity studies presented.”
The article, titled Safety Assessment and Risk Assessment for Humans of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient Glyphosate, concluded that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides pose no health risk to humans, no cancer risk, no reproductive risk, and no adverse effects on the development of endocrine systems in humans or animals.
Regulators around the world have cited this article as evidence of the safety of glyphosate herbicides, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). this evaluation.
The article’s listed authors were three scientists who did not work for Monsanto: Gary Williams, Robert Kroes, and Ian Munro, and was cited by the company as a defense against conflicting scientific evidence linking Roundup to cancer. The fact that it was written by scientists from outside the company, ostensibly independent researchers, gave it additional validity.
But over the last decade, in internal company documents, came to light Monsanto’s influence on the newspaper was revealed in the lawsuit filed by plaintiffs who were cancer patients in the USA. The documents included an email from a company official discussing the research paper and praising the “hard work” of several Monsanto scientists as part of a strategy Monsanto calls “Freedom to Work” (FTO).
Corporate filings showed how company officials celebrated when the paper was published.
in one email Following the publication of the Williams article in April 2000, then-Monsanto government affairs official Lisa Drake described the toll the work of developing “independent” research papers had brought on multiple Monsanto employees.
“It is thanks to the tenacity, hard work and dedication of the following group of people that the most comprehensive and detailed scientific assessment of glyphosate ever written has been published by independent experts,” Drake wrote. He later listed seven Monsanto employees. The group was applauded for its “hard work over three years collecting data, writing, reviewing, and engaging with the authors of the articles.”
Drake also highlighted why the Williams paper is so important to Monsanto’s business plans: “This human health publication on the herbicide Roundup and its companion publication on ecotox and environmental fate are undoubtedly [sic] “It is considered a ‘reference’ on the safety of Roundup and glyphosate,” he wrote. in email Dated 25 May 2000.
“Our plan is now to use this both in the defense of Roundup and Roundup Ready crops around the world and in our ability to differentiate ourselves competitively from generics.”
Inside a separate email, A company executive asked eight people who worked on research papers whether polo shirts with the Roundup logo could be given as “a token of appreciation for a job well done.”
Monsanto’s Hugh Grant, then a top executive on his way to becoming CEO and chairman, added his own praise: writing in email: “This is a very good job, well done to the team, please keep me informed while you create appropriate public relations information.”
In 2015, William Heydens, a Monsanto scientist, suggested that he and his colleagues “ghostwrite” another scientific paper. Monsanto can pay outside scientists to “name and sign” work that it and others will do, Heydens wrote in an email. “Remember this is how we covered Williams Kroes and Munro 2000.”
The emails gained attention during jury trials in which cancer plaintiffs won billions of dollars in damages from Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer AG in 2018.
Gary Williams, one of the authors of the now-retracted 2000 research paper, could not immediately be reached for comment. Williams’ former employer New York Medical College in 2017 “No evidence found,” he said. that a faculty member violated the school’s ban on ghost articles written by Monsanto employees. The other two authors of the article, Robert Kroes and Ian Munro, have passed away.
“Concerns were raised regarding the authorship of this article, the validity of the research findings in the context of misrepresentation of the contributions of the authors and the study sponsor, and the authors’ potential conflicts of interest,” Van den Berg wrote in explaining the decision to retract the 25-year-old research paper.
He noted that the paper’s conclusions regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate were based solely on Monsanto’s unpublished research, ignoring other published research.
Van den Berg did not respond to a request for comment.
When asked about the retraction, Bayer said in a statement that Monsanto’s involvement was adequately noted in the acknowledgments section of that article, including a statement referencing “key personnel at Monsanto who provide scientific support.” The vast majority of the thousands of studies published on glyphosate have nothing to do with Monsanto, the company said.
“The consensus among regulatory agencies around the world, which have conducted their own independent assessments based on the weight of the evidence, is that glyphosate can be used safely as directed and is not carcinogenic,” the company said.
An EPA spokesperson said the agency was aware of the retraction but “never relied on this particular article in developing its regulatory conclusions regarding glyphosate.”
The EPA “comprehensively reviewed glyphosate, reviewing more than 6,000 studies across all disciplines, including human and environmental health, in developing its regulatory conclusions,” the spokesperson said.
The updated human health risk assessment the agency is now conducting for glyphosate “uses gold standard science,” the spokesperson said. This assessment should be submitted for public comment in 2026 and should not be based on the retracted article.
“It will take a long time for this study to be withdrawn,” said Brent Wisner, a leading lawyer in the Roundup case and a key player in the public release of internal documents.
Wisner said the Williams, Kroes and Munro study was “the perfect example of how companies like Monsanto can fundamentally undermine the peer review process through ghostwriting, cherry-picking unpublished studies, and biased interpretations.”
“This ghost-written garbage work has finally met the fate it deserves,” Wisner said. “Hopefully journals will now be more careful about preserving the objectivity of science to which so many people depend.”
News of the study’s withdrawal came the same week as the Trump administration Urges US supreme court to accept Bayer bid to reduce thousands of lawsuits He claims that Roundup causes cancer.
In a brief filed with the court, attorney general D John Sauer said the company was correct that federal law regulating pesticides prevents lawsuits under state law alleging failure to warn about products.
The plaintiffs said they contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other types of cancer from using Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides sold by the company at home or at work.
This story is published alongside: New LedeA journalism project of the Environmental Working Group.
