Monsanto Ghostwrites “Independent” Peer-reviewed Studies on Glyphosate Based Pesticides

When The Media Says "Experts" They Mean Paid Corporate Shills (Part 36)

The glyphosate based pesticide research that the EPA Pesticide Office Program relies on to deny its genotoxicity not only base their assessment on technical glyphosate isolated from its co-formulants, which as I mentioned in (Part 32) is not cytotoxic by itself, base their risk assessment on exposure to the general population through the food and water supply instead of occupational exposure of workers who use it, as I mentioned in (Part 11), but also use research ghost written by Bayer-Monsanto employees to that appears to be written by toxicology experts independent from the company’s influence. As U.S. Right to Know mentions in Merchants of Poison, the first such study that regulators relied on to clear the RoundUp formula was published in the Journal of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology in April 2000 and was supposedly authored by independent toxicologists Gary Williams, Robert Kroes, and Ian Munro. However, discovery from ongoing litigation against Bayer has revealed email exchanges between Monsanto employees about authoring studies with the names of independent academics or consultants with academic credentials at the top to dissociate the research from the company itself. The study in question was in fact authored by Monsanto employees Gary Williams and William Heydens and shared with the public lead author Ian Munro in a July 1999 email exchange. After the study was published Monsanto’s lead on government affairs congratulated the public authors on the publication. The same Monsanto employees commissioned a meta analysis in 2015 in anticipation of the IARC review of the genotoxicity of glyphosate based herbicides. In a February 2015 email exchange the same William Heydens from 16 years prior discussed paying three independent experts in epidemiology and measures of association to edit and sign their name on a meta-analysis conducted and written by Monsanto employees. He also contacted the editor of Critical Reviews in Toxicology journal to have it published. Such a study was published a year later in the same Critical Reviews in Toxicology Journal and the authors deliberately lied in the declaration of interests about Monsanto’s involvement in the review. An internal investigation conducted by the the journal’s publisher Taylor & Francis revealed that three-quarters of the reviewers of the 5 papers used in the meta-analysis had (pesticide) industry backgrounds and that the editor of Critical Reviews in Toxicology admitted ‘that the review of glyphosate and preparation of the papers was sponsored financially by Monsanto Co. In September 2018 Taylor & Francis published an expression of concern about the “independent” review of glyphosate published in their toxicology journal noting they ‘have not received an adequate explanation as to why the necessary level of transparency was not met on first submission.’