So Not a Surprise

The study which showed that the herbicide glyphosate was safe to humans, you know, the one that was literally bought and paid for by Monsanto, has been formally retracted.

Given that RFK, Jr. was counsel on a lawsuit against Monsanto about its health risks, and given that a law requires that the EPA review the chemical by the end of 2026, this raises some interesting questions.

It's pretty clear that Trump and his thugs do not want to make a fair review of the chemical, one which would likely restrict or ban it, but now one of the cornerstones of doing nothing has been knocked out.

In 2000, a landmark study claimed to set the record straight on glyphosate, a contentious weedkiller used on hundreds of millions of acres of farmland. The paper found that the chemical, the active ingredient in Roundup, wasn’t a human health risk despite evidence of a cancer link.

Last month, the study was retracted by the scientific journal that published it a quarter century ago, setting off a crisis of confidence in the science behind a weedkiller that has become the backbone of American food production. It is used on soybeans, corn and wheat, on specialty crops like almonds, and on cotton and in home gardens.

The Environmental Protection Agency still considers the herbicide to be safe. But the federal government faces a deadline in 2026 to re-examine glyphosate’s safety after legal action brought by environmental, food-safety and farmworker advocacy groups.

The E.P.A. has also faced pressure to act on glyphosate from the Make America Healthy Again movement, led by supporters of the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who once served as co-counsel in a lawsuit against Monsanto over exposure to Roundup.

The 2000 paper, a scientific review conducted by three independent scientists, was for decades cited by other researchers as evidence of Roundup’s safety. It became the cornerstone of regulations that deemed the weedkiller safe.

But since then, emails uncovered as part of lawsuits against the weedkiller’s manufacturer, Monsanto, have shown that the company’s scientists played a significant role in conceiving and writing the study.

In the emails, Monsanto employees praised each other for their “hard work” on the paper, which included data collection, writing and review. One Monsanto employee expressed hope that the study would become “‘the’ reference on Roundup and glyphosate safety.” The pharmaceutical giant Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion.

I don't generally favor criminally charging researchers with criminal fraud and conspiracy, but this is a slam dunk, and their continued silence means that the conspiracy has been ongoing, and so that is not subject to the statute of limitations.

Charge the researchers, charge the Monsanto staff, charge the Monsanto executives.