Journal of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology officially refused to participate an extensive scientific paper published in 2000 that became a key defense of Monsanto's claim that the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate do not cause cancer.
This was stated by the magazine's editor-in-chief Martin van den Berg. note accompanying a disclaimer that he took this step because of “serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors of this article, and the academic integrity of the carcinogenicity studies presented.”
The document, entitled “Evaluation of the Safety and Risk of Roundup Herbicide and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, in Humans,” concluded that Monsanto's glyphosate-based weed control products do not pose any risk to human health—neither cancer risk, nor reproductive risk, nor adverse effects on endocrine system development in humans or animals.
Regulators around the world cite this document as evidence of the safety of glyphosate herbicides, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in this assessment.
The article's listed authors were three scientists who did not work for Monsanto—Gary Williams, Robert Cruz and Ian Munro—and the company used them as a defense against conflicting scientific evidence linking Roundup to cancer. The fact that it was written by scientists outside the company and by seemingly independent researchers gave it added value.
But over the past decade, internal company documents have shown that came out A lawsuit brought by US cancer plaintiffs exposed Monsanto's influence over the newspaper. The documents included an email from a company representative that discussed the research work and praised the “hard work” of several Monsanto scientists as part of Monsanto's Freedom to Operate (FTO) strategy.
Corporate files show how company officials celebrated the newspaper's publication.
In one e-mail After Williams' article was published in April 2000, Lisa Drake, then Monsanto's public relations official, described the toll that the work of developing “independent” research papers had taken on many Monsanto employees.
“The publication by independent experts of the most comprehensive and detailed scientific assessment of glyphosate ever written… was the result of the persistence, hard work and dedication of the following group of people,” Drake wrote. She then listed seven Monsanto employees. The group was praised for “three years of hard work collecting, writing, reviewing, and building relationships with the authors of the articles.”
Drake further emphasized why Williams' article was so important to Monsanto's business plans: “This human health publication on the herbicide Roundup, and its companion publication on ecotoxins and the fate of the environment, will undoubtedly [sic] considered the 'best' benchmark on Roundup and glyphosate safety,” she wrote. in an email dated May 25, 2000.
“Our plan now is to use it both to protect Roundup and Roundup Ready crops around the world and to our ability to competitively differentiate ourselves from generics.”
IN separate email address, A company executive asked if Roundup polo shirts could be given to eight people who worked on research papers as a “token of appreciation for a job well done.”
Monsanto's Hugh Grant, who was a senior executive at the time and was about to become CEO and chairman, added his praise: I'm writing by email: “This is very good work, well done team, please keep me posted while you create the relevant PR information.”
In 2015, William Haydens, a Monsanto scientist, invited him and his colleagues to ghostwrite another scientific paper. Monsanto could pay outside scientists to “edit and sign their names” to the work he and others would do. Haydens wrote in an email. “Remember what we did to Williams Kroes and Munro in 2000.”
The emails were highlighted in jury trials in which plaintiffs with cancer won billions of dollars in compensation from Monsanto, which was bought 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. In 2017, Williams' former employer New York Medical School said he found “no evidence” that the teacher violated the school's ban on an article written by Monsanto employees. Two other authors of the article, Robert Cruz and Ian Munro, have died.
Explaining the decision to retract the 25-year-old research paper, Van den Berg wrote: “Concerns have been raised regarding the authorship of this article, the validity of the study results in the context of misrepresentation of the contributions of the authors and the study sponsor, and potential conflicts of interest of the authors.”
He noted that the paper's conclusions regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate were based solely on unpublished Monsanto research, ignoring other published studies.
Van den Berg did not respond to requests for comment.
When asked about the retraction, Bayer said in a statement that Monsanto's involvement was adequately acknowledged in the acknowledgments section of the article in question, including a statement that mentioned “key Monsanto employees who provided scientific support.” The company said the vast majority of the thousands of published studies on glyphosate were not linked to Monsanto.
“The consensus among regulators around the world, who have conducted their own independent assessments based on the totality 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 any of its regulatory conclusions on glyphosate.”
The spokesperson said the EPA “extensively reviewed glyphosate, reviewing more than 6,000 studies across all disciplines, including human health and the environment, in developing its regulatory conclusions.”
The updated human health risk assessment the agency is currently conducting for glyphosate “uses the scientific gold standard,” the spokesperson said. This assessment is due to be published for public comment in 2026 and will not rely on the retracted paper.
“The rebuttal of this study is a long time coming,” said Brent Wisner, one of the lead lawyers in the Roundup lawsuit and a key player in the release of the internal documents.
Wisner said the Williams, Crouse and Munro study was “a typical example of how companies like Monsanto can fundamentally undermine the peer review process through the writing of bogus papers, the selection of unpublished studies and biased interpretations.”
“This ghost-written trash study has finally received the fate it deserves,” Wisner said. “We hope that journals will now be more vigilant in protecting the impartiality of the science on which so many people depend.”
News of the study's refutation came that same week to the Trump administration. urged the US Supreme Court to accept Bayer's proposal to cut thousands of lawsuits claiming that Roundup causes cancer.
In a filing with the court, attorney general D. John Sauer said the company was correct that federal law regulating pesticides preempts lawsuits that make claims about the products under state law.
The plaintiffs said they developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and other forms of cancer from using Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides sold by the company in their homes or workplaces.
This story was published in collaboration with New leaderjournalistic project of the Environmental Working Group.
