Unsealed Documents Raise Questions on Monsanto Weed Killer

&quot;The court documents included Monsanto’s internal emails and email traffic between the company and federal regulators. The records suggested that Monsanto had ghostwritten research that was later attributed to academics and indicated that a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency had worked to quash a review of Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate, that was to have been conducted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.&quot;<p>This is the real story - Monsanto interfering with our ability to find out what is safe. But I&#x27;m sure needless endangerment of the health of ~tens of thousands of farmers will carry a stiff prison sentence for all involved...

What still gets me is how people could justify this type of behavior. I suppose, it&#x27;s not just one person, but a group (possibly large) that are complicit in all of this. At the end of the day, Jim or Monica goes home and thinks &quot;sure, I know this was an immoral course of action, but I&#x27;m glad we just got control of the narrative&quot;.<p>We see these scenarios in movies all the time, but I just wonder how people could do these things in real life? Are people really that short sighted that they think it&#x27;s ok to own the patent on genes for a plant created in nature just because the law says so? And then on top of that, they make some nasty chemicals that kill things other than their patented plant.. I&#x27;m not a dystopian acknowledger really, but wow, life is stranger than fiction sometimes.<p>Anyway, I just don&#x27;t understand how Monsanto could be seen by any rational person as a step forward in humanity&#x27;s progress.. To me, they are a prime example of how humanity will self destruct at some point.

I don&#x27;t really understand why the NYT is so terrible on ag policy issues--they could really do some of the heavy lifting here for us and at least try and evaluate the claims being made--like severity and concurrence rates being claimed by the plaintiffs.<p>The NYT apples to oranges study on rate of yield increase in countries that don&#x27;t use GMOs (lower starting point) to countries that do (higher starting point) over the same time really undermines their editorial credibility on these kinds of issues with people, like me, who actually deal with agriculture.

As a scientist, I had read the research on glyphosate and felt pretty safe about it. The surfactant used with it seemed more dangerous, which tells you a lot. But what do I do if the science, was just untrue? This is the ugly secret about science I keep discovering the longer I am in it. Science is great, but people are so fallible.

I won&#x27;t defend Monsanto&#x27;s behavior here, but this is all arising as a response from the IARC&#x27;s determination that glyphosate is a potential carcinogen. As a cell-biologist&#x2F;biophysicist, this determination seemed primarily politically motivated by anti-GMO crusaders - existing evidence really doesn&#x27;t seem to support it. Glyphosate isn&#x27;t at all like known mutagens. Longer-format critique: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;risk-monger.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;07&#x2F;06&#x2F;iarcs-disgrace-how-low-can-activist-science-go&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;risk-monger.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;07&#x2F;06&#x2F;iarcs-disgrace-how-low-ca...</a>

Monsanto always reminds me of their lobbyist that says it&#x27;s even drinkable..<p>Guess if he drank it and then watch it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;ovKw6YjqSfM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;ovKw6YjqSfM</a>

Glyphosate&#x2F;Roundup is basically the amino acid glycine with a phosphorous structure tacked on [0]. Glycine is the simplest possible amino acid.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Glyphosate#Chemistry" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Glyphosate#Chemistry</a><p>One theory is that glyphosate causes harm because it gets weaved into protein chains instead of glycine. Proteins made with roundup don&#x27;t work the same as proteins with glycine. Experiments to figure out if this is what&#x27;s happening would be relatively simple and cheap.<p>Now that lots of weed are resistant, farmers will have to figure out how to farm without this shortcut. Roundup is obsolete, so nothing of value will be lost.

From the article, it just shows that emails had suggested academics edit and sign their name to documents written by Monsanto. It appears that everyone involved claims they never actually carried through with this.<p>Anyone else see evidence that they actually did it? It wouldn&#x27;t surprise me if they did. I&#x27;m genuinely curious.

Good thing this sort of thing doesn&#x27;t happen in heath care.<p>It would totally destroy people&#x27;s trust in the medical industry if, for example, drug companies did this sort of thing.

Some of the connections out there between glyphosate, it&#x27;s effects on gut bacteria, the rise IBS&#x2F;Crohn&#x27;s Disease&#x2F;Celiac and even connections autism are pretty incredible.<p>The autism speculation has gone on for as long as it has because we have an information vacuum and nobody is outright publishing a &quot;cause&quot;. Until that vacuum is filled, you leave people free to speculate. Most of what I&#x27;ve seen at this point (recently from a lady at MIT[1] who presented in a Congressional Hearing) points to a serious need for a study of aluminum...and glyphosate supposedly allows a lot more aluminum into your system.<p>Would be great if we could get a study on both independently and both combined.<p>1 - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;people.csail.mit.edu&#x2F;seneff&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;people.csail.mit.edu&#x2F;seneff&#x2F;</a>

Seems like every other day when special interests were allowed to do something they should not have been due to their large financial backing.<p>Corruption isn&#x27;t as obvious in the U.S., but never mistake that as lack of prevalence.

Sounds like corruption to me.<p>Interestingly, the primary reason people I know who eat organic or non-GMO foods are doing so specifically to avoid glyphosate and other pesticide&#x2F;herbicides.

Duplicate post of <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13873798" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13873798</a> (which is also on the front-page)

There are several shill accounts on Reddit that pop up to defend Monsanto in every thread. I would be interested to see how much money companies like Monsanto are spending on disinformation campaigns. I bet it&#x27;s much more active than we are aware.

Monsanto always reminds me of their lobbiest that says it&#x27;s even drinkable..<p>Guess if he drank it and then watch it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM</a>

Next thing you know we will find out lobbyists are writing legislation!&lt;&#x2F;snark&gt;<p>Seriously though, is the content of the research valid, or not?

I look at things like the articles claim:<p>&gt;&gt; The safety of glyphosate is not settled science.<p>and then Monsantos claim:<p>&gt;&gt; In a statement, Monsanto said, “Glyphosate is not a carcinogen.”<p>&gt;&gt; It added: “The allegation that glyphosate can cause cancer in humans is inconsistent with decades of comprehensive safety reviews by the leading regulatory authorities around the world.<p>which is backed by &quot;leading regulatory authroities around the world&quot; and then I reflect on the CO2 &#x2F; climate change issue which is also claimed by a lot of people to be settled science. I just found that comparison (mine, not the articles) interesting.

Why is it that people take a hysteria based approach to GMOs&#x2F;glyphosate but the same people claim global warming is solid science?<p>Can the scientific method be trusted or not?

I&#x27;m always reminded of my Wall Street trader friend, and his chat with me:<p>From 9:30 to 4, I&#x27;d kill my mother to make a dime on a trade. My own mother, that&#x27;s how driven I am to make money. I&#x27;d kill her on the spot for that dime if I could get away with it.<p>Of course, after 4, she&#x27;s my mom. And I&#x27;d love her to death. He works for a very well respected Wall Street Firm.<p>Food for thought. What people will do for money.

Quote: “People should know that there are <i>superb scientists</i> in the world who would disagree with Monsanto and some of the regulatory agencies’ evaluations, and even E.P.A. has disagreement within the agency,” ... (emphasis added)<p>Without addressing the article&#x27;s basic thrust, which seems meritorious, this talk about &quot;superb scientists&quot; contradicts the most basic premise of science, which is that science rejects authority, relying instead on evidence -- some superb, some not. The greatest amount of scientific eminence is trumped by the smallest amount of scientific evidence.<p>Worse, to begin a debate that pivots on the authority of scientists only invites a reply in kind -- whose scientists are more authoritative, more &quot;superb&quot;? The process quickly loses any resemblance to science.<p>So for those responsible for the tone of this debate, it seems there are two goals. First, achieve some immediate, tangible goal. Second and more nefarious, turn a scientific debate (relying on evidence) into a political one (relying on eminence).

Another example of a company&#x27;s liberal use of email to discuss potentially incriminating things (ie, ghostwriting studies). The glyphosate stuff still seems debatable - the PR team could handle that easily - but now we have employees on record acting shady and conspiratorial, that just makes them look more guilty.<p>I wonder if we&#x27;ll ever enter a time where people won&#x27;t be dumb enough to put this stuff down on paper and just assume an FBI agent will read anything they write in email at a future date? Especially when you work for such a villianized company like Monsanto... with so many people chomping at the bit to bring them down.<p>From another perspective this is (still) a golden era of criminal investigations.

Is there a way to avoid foods with roundup? Is it allowed in organics?

This is beating a dead horse... but look up the ties between Hillary and Monsato. Monsato is one of the most crooked, and corrupt corporations out there.

The best thing they can do for public health is to jail Jess Rowland for a very long time, and prosecute the scientists who took payments to add their names to papers that Monsanto wrote and Monsanto itself for conspiracy to commit fraud. My guess is that searching for payments between Rowland and Monsanto will be exceptionally and immediately fruitful, and that should result in prosecutions for people within Monsanto who planned and approved those payments.<p>None of that will prove whether there&#x27;s any connection between glyphosate and cancer, but it will do a lot to make sure that studies that are done by Monsanto are signed by Monsanto, and regulators might second-guess themselves for a moment when they see an easy buck to be made by becoming corrupt.<p>This comment counts as government fan-fic for all the likelihood that anyone will see any punishment here other than a fine for Monsanto resulting in an immediate stock bump for being lower than expected.

It is common in many fields for a small group to produce &#x27;agreed text&#x27;, that other parties then sign off on<p>* PR pieces ( <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;submarine.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;submarine.html</a> )<p>* Legislation ( <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.linklaters.com&#x2F;Insights&#x2F;Publication1005Newsletter&#x2F;UK-corporate-update-December-2016&#x2F;Pages&#x2F;Prospectus-Regulation%E2%80%93text-agreed.aspx" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.linklaters.com&#x2F;Insights&#x2F;Publication1005Newsletter...</a> )<p>* Standards Body text ( say Oracle for OpenJDK, MS for Mono ) ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.taylorwessing.com&#x2F;globaldatahub&#x2F;nisd-draft-text-agreed.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.taylorwessing.com&#x2F;globaldatahub&#x2F;nisd-draft-text-...</a> )<p>The NY Times itself will accept Associated Press articles ( say on an Afghan Election result ) and mostly just clone the words 1-to-1.

Free market only works when properly regulated.

Sell some great cars that &quot;cheat&quot;? Slapped down. Sell poison the world with and cover it up? Nothing will happen.

This is the complaint:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;drive.google.com&#x2F;file&#x2F;d&#x2F;0B-pJR4cGo9ckUU1OQjJjcVQ4aUU&#x2F;view" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;drive.google.com&#x2F;file&#x2F;d&#x2F;0B-pJR4cGo9ckUU1OQjJjcVQ4aUU...</a><p>Its basically a motion to compel an EPA guy to go under oath and sounds like the complainant had some run ins with Rowland.<p>The complainant, Marion, makes some claims about the effects of glyphosate without really citing any scientific evidence. Marion also claims there is a lot of evidence to back it up, but if so why not cite it?<p>&quot;Your trivial MS degree from 1971 Nebraska is far outdated, thus CARC science is 10 years behind the literature in mechanisms.&quot;<p>So we have to take her word that Rowland didn&#x27;t keep up to date with the literature? I find that hard to believe that someone would still be in a position that requires constant learning to keep their job.<p>Not really a smoking gun, if this is all there is

From the Wikipedia plot summary for the movie &quot;Michael Clayton&quot;:<p><i>&quot;Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), U-North&#x27;s general counsel, discovers that Arthur had come into possession of a confidential U-North document detailing the company&#x27;s decision to manufacture a weed killer it knew to be carcinogenic.&quot;</i>[1]<p>[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Michael_Clayton_(film)#Plot" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Michael_Clayton_(film)#Plot</a>

I&#x27;ve been telling HN about this, and mostly derided for it. I was working as a sysadmin for a bigag company in 2010 or so, who touted themselves as good ol local farm people who take care of their own. Come to find out, the millions the owner got to fund his extravagant lifestyle (besides from daddy), was from selling some of the genetic modifications to Monsanto. I was in the middle of my Decartes reset after getting back from Iraq, and dug into Monsanto.<p>Monsanto is one of the worst companies in America. As a constitutionalist, my primary issue is with their blatant undermining and corruption of the legal process, for example a SCOTUS who formerly worked for them refusing to recuse himself from relevant cases, infiltration and takeover of the top positions at the FDA and other regulatory capture issues, and the stifling of free speech through their massive propaganda machine, which includes online.<p>As a military person, I came to find out they were the ones who had been responsible for agent orange in Vietnam. Something many of my friends and family have directly had to deal with. (to be fair, it was a different business than the current Monsanto, the same in name only)<p>I learned they were one of the main sources of lobbying to allow patenting of organtic material (so they could patent genes in their gmos), that they created the BT killer strain of seeds designed to prevent farmers from saving their seeds, (incidentally Monsanto gmo seed business has been tied to large numbers of farmer suicides in India), and have brought legal action against farmers who saved their seeds. They have participated in farm mergers in aquisitions to the point that almost no farm is truly a family farm anymore, and they have been involved in illegal waste dumping more than once.<p>Once I learned all these things, I quit the job on principle. As luck would have it, the good ol rich guy who &quot;would always take care of his people&quot; subsequently, a year later, sold the company and fired half the staff... and now the local &quot;community&quot;, despite protests from many of the farmers, decided to give Monsanto a 5.8 million dollar tax break to built a state of the art facility because it will &quot;bring jobs&quot;.<p>To top it all off, our anti-trust, anti-monopoly laws seem to be completely dead and ignored, because the Bayer Monsanto $66bn merger seems to be full steam ahead at the moment.<p>They have created a sitution that requires more chemicals, causes more nitrogen runoff, have drastically reduced seed diversity (therefore setting up a massive crop failure potential across many crops), and continue to ignore GMO warnings.<p>Having sysadmined in a bigag company with a genetics department, and at a genetics company, my primary issues with GMO&#x27;s is that there is a lack of rigourous scientific testing, especially over longer time frames. It wasn&#x27;t uncommon to see a new GMO go from testing to prod within a year! That&#x27;s not enough time to truly understand the implications of those kinds of products. Not to mention, as the article suggests, that they have artifically affected the actual science to be in their favor regardless of the real results.<p>If there ever is ecocide, Monsanto will be the primary hand to have caused it. I am willing to bet roundup will be the new agent orange. And finally, for your viewing pleasure:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM</a><p>Relevant past comments:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9009446" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9009446</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12893325" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12893325</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12559024" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12559024</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12398969" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12398969</a>

Monsanto also developed another herbicide, Agent Orange. Areas were it was used are still affected to this date.

Probably my old University -- University of Missouri which is currently under the tight control of Monsanto.

They use glyphosate profusely around trees in parks here. No need to cut the grass so precisely.

Please use the original title.

roundup is 125 times more toxic than glyphosate