Landmark glyphosate safety study retracted for Monsanto ghostwriting, other ethics problems
By Stacy Malkan
Published December 3, 2025 on U.S. Right to Know
A scientific study that regulators around the world relied on for decades to justify continued approval of glyphosate was quietly retracted last Friday over serious ethical issues including secret authorship by Monsanto employees – raising questions about the pesticide-approval process in the U.S. and globally.
The April 2000 study by Gary Williams, Robert Kroes and Ian Munro – which concluded glyphosate does not pose a health risk to humans at typical exposure levels – was ghostwritten by Monsanto employees, and was “based solely on unpublished studies from Monsanto,” wrote Martin van den Berg, co-editor-in-chief of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. It also ignored “multiple other long-term chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity studies” that were available at the time.
Some of the study authors may also have received undisclosed financial compensation from Monsanto, he noted. Because of these problems, the editors “lost confidence in the results and conclusions of the article,” van den Berg wrote.
The retraction came years after internal corporate documents first revealed in 2017 that Monsanto employees were heavily involved in drafting the paper.
“What took them so long to retract it?” asked Michael Hansen, senior scientist of advocacy at Consumer Reports. “The retraction should have happened right after the documents came out.”
In one email from 2001, Monsanto scientist Katherine Carr asked if the “team of people” at Monsanto who worked on the Williams paper “could receive Roundup polo shirts as a token of appreciation for a job well done.”
Flawed paper was foundational for regulatory approval
While Monsanto scientists congratulated each other, glyphosate use was surging around the world; it is the most used herbicide in history. And the Williams paper played a key role in its continued acceptance as safe to use.
“Government documents from public health agencies around the world … cite this ghostwritten paper without caveat even after the 2017 revelations, affecting policy and shaping public perception of glyphosate’s safety,” wrote researcher Alexander Kaurov and Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes in an August article in Undark.
The ghostwritten paper “exerted considerable influence over two decades, shaping public understanding, scientific discourse and policy decisions,” Kaurov and Oreskes wrote in a September 2025 paper examining the influence of the now-retracted work.
The ghostwritten paper is in the top 0.1% of citations among academic papers discussing glyphosate, they found in their review; and the vast majority of policy and governance documents citing the paper “referenced it uncritically.”
These findings “underscore the need for stricter journal policies to screen and retract ghostwritten papers, in order to safeguard science integrity, as well as public health and safety,” Kaurov and Oreskes wrote.
So why did Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology wait until November 2025 to retract the paper?
Editor-In-Chief van den Berg, who has been the journal’s top editor since 2019 and is based in the Netherlands, told U.S. Right to Know via email: “it simply never ended (up) on my desk being at first primarily a U.S. situation with litigation. The paper of Oreskes triggered it this summer and these authors made an official request and complaint.”
He added, “If you have more papers regarding roundup published in RTP with possible problems, let me know.”
Longstanding problems at journal undermine regulatory system
The retraction exposes the flaws of a regulatory system that relies heavily on corporate research, and an academic publishing system that is often used as a tool for corporate product defense.
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, which is the journal of the International Society of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, has a “long, and damning history,” wrote journalist Paul Thacker in a 2017 article in Pacific Standard. He called RTP “the academic journal that corporations love.” David Michaels, a former head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and a public health scientist who studies corporate manipulation of science, described it in the article as, “a vanity journal that publishes mercenary science created by polluters and producers of toxic chemicals to manufacture uncertainty about the science underlying public-health and environmental protections.” As far back as 2002, critics complained about conflicts of interest at the journal, lack of transparency, poor editorial oversight and a bias in favor of industry.
But the problem goes deeper than one journal, as Thacker noted: “Corporations regularly buy academics to do their bidding, recasting industry talking points to create the beginnings of an alternative scientific canon.”
In the case of glyphosate, researchers and journalists have documented at length the many ways Monsanto manipulated the scientific record, influenced regulatory agencies, interfered in the peer-review process and used deceptive tactics to shape how regulators and the public view glyphosate.
Our own examination of the Monsanto Papers, published in the 2022 Merchants of Poison report, details how Monsanto and Bayer (which purchased Monsanto in 2018) used academics as a key part of their product-defense strategy for glyphosate, and paid front groups and other allies to attack journalists and scientists who raised concerns about glyphosate.
Bayer seeks reprieve
The retraction of a “hallmark paper in the discourse surrounding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and Roundup,” as van den Burg described it, comes as Bayer is pleading for help from politicians and courts in its bid to evade liability in thousands of lawsuits brought by farmers and groundskeepers who claim glyphosate-based Roundup weedkiller caused them to develop cancer.
On Dec. 2, President Donald Trump’s administration stepped in to help Bayer, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review the company’s immunity plea. The Department of Justice filed a brief arguing that people shouldn’t be able to sue Bayer in state courts for failure to warn them about the cancer risk of glyphosate-based Roundup herbicides. The news pushed Bayer’s shares to the highest level in more than two years.
The administration’s position has angered many supporters of Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) constituency. “A deep betrayal today,” wrote Kelly Ryerson, who writes under the name Glyphosate Girl, posted on Instagram. “Why does every single administration continue to commit to poisoning us? … Don’t these people have families themselves?”
Read the original article on U.S. Right to Know »
Solicitor General Backs Efforts to End Roundup Lawsuits
By John Dobberstein
Published December 2, 2025 on No-Till Farmer
The U.S. Solicitor General said in a court filing Monday the Supreme Court should consider granting a review of the petition filed by Bayer to curtail product liability lawsuits connected to use of the weedkiller Roundup.
SCOTUS considered Bayer’s petition for writ of certiorari earlier this year but asked Solicitor General D. John Sauer for additional input on the case, Monsanto Co. vs. John L. Durnell.
Last year, lawyers for Bayer and the defendants asked SCOTUS to resolve a split in the lower courts on whether federal labeling laws should pre-empt state labeling laws. Durnell’s attorneys allege he contracted non-Hodgkins lymphoma through his use of Roundup.
The Missouri Court of Appeals and U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th and 11th circuits, and state appellate courts in California and Oregon, have said federal law does not preempt state laws. But in another case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled the opposite way.
The Solicitor General’s amicus brief states that under Missouri law, a manufacturer is strictly liable for harms caused by an “unreasonably dangerous” product if the manufacturer “did not give adequate warning of the danger.”
In determining whether a particular product is unreasonably dangerous, a Missouri jury doesn’t have to consider the product’s economic and social benefits because the concept of “unreasonable danger” is presented to the jury, “as an ultimate issue without further definition.”
Sauer noted that under FIFRA, a manufacturer is only required to add warnings that are “necessary and adequate to protect human health and the environment,” the brief says. “And in determining whether a particular pesticide will pose an unreasonable risk to man or the environment, the EPA takes into account the economic, social and environmental costs and benefits of the use of the pesticide.
“Because the jury below was not instructed to account for such benefits, the jury did not apply the same substantive standard that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) instructs EPA to apply in determining whether a pesticide is misbranded.”
Bayer Waits for Decision
In another Roundup case in 2021, Monsanto Co. v. Hardeman, the Solicitor General argued didn’t preempt state-law failure-to-warn claims, which have been at the heart of the liability lawsuits.
Since then, the brief said, a conflict has developed among the courts of appeals as to whether FIFRA, “expressly preempts state-law tort claims premised on petitioner’s failure to warn its customers about potential cancer risks created by use of Roundup," the U.S. told the court on Monday.
“Due to the 3rd Circuit’s intervening decision in Schaffner vs. Monsanto and the change in administration, the U.S. has re-examined the arguments it pressed before this court in Hardeman and has returned to its previous position as to the scope of FIFRA preemption.”
Bayer said in a statement the company is “pleased” with the Solicitor General’s support and agrees with the company’s arguments on preemption.
A spokesperson said Bayer believes the backing of the U.S. government will be important to the Supreme Court’s consideration of its petition.
“The support of the U.S. Government is an important step and good news for U.S. farmers, who need regulatory clarity. The stakes could not be higher as the misapplication of federal law jeopardizes the availability of innovative tools for farmers and investments in the broader U.S. economy,” said Bayer CEO Bill Anderson.
Bayer points out that similar preemption language to FIFRA is included in other federal statutes, such as those regulating medical devices, poultry products, meat and motor vehicles.
“It is time for the U.S. legal system to establish that companies cannot be punished under state laws for complying with federal label requirements,” the company said.
Bayer said a positive ruling on the preemption issue could help the company close tens of thousands of Roundup cases that are, “overwhelmingly based on claims grounded in failure-to-warn theories. The EPA and every other regulator worldwide that has independently assessed the safety of glyphosate, the active ingredient in most Roundup products, has concluded it can be used safely.”
Bayer said it’s working to “significantly contain the litigation” around Roundup by the end of 2026
Read the original article on No-Till Farmer »
What Comes After Glyphosate?
By Shane Thomas
Published November 16, 2025 on Upstream Ag Insights
Last week, Bloomberg published an article further looking at Bayer weighing the exit of glyphosate manufacturing.
Bayer currently has around 60,000 unresolved glyphosate claims from a historical total of >190,000. According to Reuters, Bayer has spent more than $10 billion on glyphosate litigation, and set aside another $1.37 billion in August, all while the litigation continues to drag on earnings.
This is for a product that Bayer sold $2.8 billion worth of in 2024 at margins that are “highly dilutive” to the rest of their crop protection and seed business — likely in the single digits.
Bayer has talked about ending the manufacturing which would mean they deprioritize the label, which means there are a few options for glyphosate:
- Bayer can keep with the status quo of shouldering litigation, lobbying government and manufacturing the product.
- Bayer could transfer its EPA registrations to another manufacturer, which is a common route and shifts all label-support, reporting, and stewardship obligations to that group. That would also mean that any group that takes that on would also take on the litigation risk Bayer has shouldered.
- Bayer could request cancellation of its registration. The EPA usually allows this with an inventory-exhaustion period so distributors can sell remaining product before the label effectively disappears.
- The final, least likely scenario is maintaining the registration without manufacturing, which would keep Bayer on the hook for compliance and reporting with no commercial upside, something companies almost never do.
Bayer could “burn it down”, but regardless of what happens, there is a constant look for “What comes next?” in terms of supporting farmers with weed control and resistance management tools.
Bayer has announced the launch of Icafolin-methyl, a non-selective, new mode of action molecule for the United States in 2028 as one supportive avenue, but there is another tool close to come through the EPA for 2026.
Read the original article on Upstream Ag Insights »
Hands off glyphosate, an essential tool
By Alan Emerson
Published November 20, 2025 on Farmers Weekly
If it had major health risks they would have been well documented by now, says Alan Emerson.
Glyphosate is an essential tool for farmers, says Alan Emerson.
I agree with the recent decision by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority concerning glyphosate. It states that glyphosate can be used on cereal crops grown for human consumption only before the crops emerge from the soil.
Over recent times the chemical has been used extensively to burn off crops pre-harvest.
I’d describe the practice more as a nice-to-have than a must-have.
I wouldn’t have been upset if the limits on glyphosate residues had been lifted from the current MRL of .1mg/kg, but can live with the status quo.
I realize NZ Food Safety had over 3000 submissions on the proposal and I’m also aware of an orchestrated campaign against the product.
The type of orchestrated campaign we saw on glyphosate is the type of action that increasingly appears to be a threat to farming. So-called experts telling us what we can and cannot do.
Glyphosate is an essential tool for farmers and even more so if we are serious about reducing our environmental footprint.
It’s always been controversial, with a court in Missouri in the United States recently awarding some millions against Bayer, the manufacturer of Roundup.
The reason is that the court found exposure to Roundup “could cause cancer.”
That’s despite the US’s Environmental Protection Agency recently publishing a paper saying that glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, “is not likely to be carcinogenic.”
Critics say that the International Agency for Research on Cancer claimed in 2015 that the chemical was a “probable human carcinogen”.
The agency is part of the World Health Organization. It declares a lot of things probable human carcinogens, including mobile phones, pickled vegetables, engine exhaust fumes and coffee.
Alcohol is labelled a carcinogen for at least seven types of cancer.
If the anti-glyphosate brigade was being consistent I’d suggest they’d want mobile phones, motor vehicles, pickled vegetables, coffee and alcohol all banned as well as numerous other products.
Glyphosate has been used in the US since 1974 and that’s 51 years ago. If it had major health risks one could humbly suggest that they would have been well documented by now.
We had a case about glyphosate in the High Court in New Zealand recently. The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) took it. Going to their website you can read, “we use the law to protect the natural taonga of Aotearoa. We hold polluters, corporate interests and regulators to account.”
That ignores the fact that no one has proved the chemical harmful and that it is a vital tool for NZ agriculture.
The ELI filed a claim in judicial review challenging the New Zealand Environmental Protection Authority’s decision not to reassess the weedkiller.
In my opinion the EPA decision was the right one.
It followed that of other regulators including those in the European Union, Australia and the US.
So we’ve had 51 years of glyphosate use, no major proven health issues and international authorities considering the chemical safe.
Glyphosate is a valuable tool for farmers, environmentally responsible and financially rewarding.
Why would any responsible government possibly want to remove it?
Read the original article on Farmers Weekly »
