
Unsealed Documents Raise Questions on Monsanto Weed Killer - sdomino
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/business/monsanto-roundup-safety-lawsuit.html
======
DarkKomunalec
"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."

This is the real story - Monsanto interfering with our ability to find out
what is safe. But I'm sure needless endangerment of the health of ~tens of
thousands of farmers will carry a stiff prison sentence for all involved...

~~~
gregwtmtno
I often see the opinion on HN that opposing GMO food is anti-science. I know
this article is not about GMOs, but can we really say with confidence that the
scientific research done on GMO food hasn't been influenced in the same way?

~~~
Alex3917
How is this article in any way not about GMOs? The whole point of roundup is
that you can douse food crops with enormous quantities that would normally
kill them, thanks to genetic modifications.

~~~
randomdata
The whole point? We still spray roundup on many of our non-GMO crops. It's
inconsequential, if not desirable, to kill the crop near harvest. Roundup had
a couple of decades of use in food production before GMOs arrived on the
scene.

Also, most of what you see coming out of the sprayer is water. The actual
amount of glyphosate used in an application is minimal.

~~~
jmnicolas
Yeah but glyphosate is not an aliment. Why would you eat something that is not
an aliment ?

------
equalarrow
What still gets me is how people could justify this type of behavior. I
suppose, it'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 "sure, I know this was an immoral course of action, but I'm glad we
just got control of the narrative".

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'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'm not a
dystopian acknowledger really, but wow, life is stranger than fiction
sometimes.

Anyway, I just don't understand how Monsanto could be seen by any rational
person as a step forward in humanity's progress.. To me, they are a prime
example of how humanity will self destruct at some point.

~~~
accountface
I'm going to Godwin myself here, but it kind of echoes Hannah Arendt's
'Banality of Evil' — this summary from Wikipedia covers it a bit, but I
recommend reading the actual text, especially in the context of today's
political climate... for those who aren't familiar, Eichmann was a Nazi on
trial in Israel who was defending his complicity as "following orders."

"Arendt's book introduced the expression and concept "the banality of evil".
Her thesis is that Eichmann was not a fanatic or sociopath, but an extremely
average person who relied on clichéd defenses rather than thinking for himself
and was motivated by professional promotion rather than ideology. Banality, in
this sense, is not that Eichmann's actions were ordinary, or that there is a
potential Eichmann in all of us, but that his actions were motivated by a sort
of stupidity which was wholly unexceptional. She never denied that Eichmann
was an anti-semite, nor that he was fully responsible for his actions, but
argued that these characteristics were secondary to his stupidity."

~~~
rosser
"Godwin"-ing is comparing your opponents in an internet argument to
Hitler/Nazis, not relying on their historical example as an existence proof
for how terribly our cognitive gaps can be exploited.

~~~
accountface
I'm comparing Monsanto to the Third Reich, so I considered it Godwinning (what
an amazingly terrible phrase). Fair enough though, I don't disagree with you.

------
terravion
I don'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.

The NYT apples to oranges study on rate of yield increase in countries that
don'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.

~~~
mmjaa
Maybe its not the NYT's job to do these things, but rather just inform those
who know better, such as yourself, that the docs have been un-sealed, and we
can get better analyses of this previously-hidden material in order that lay
people, such as myself, can better understand just how Monsanto have fooled so
many people into poisoning the world with their highly profitable product.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
The problem is that lay people are the audience for NYT. Most of the
population won't really understand it, honestly. If they wanted to make sure
someone informed knew, they could have easily reached out.

The truth is that this was published without because it is an issue that gets
folks to read, making their job of selling newspapers easier.

~~~
Bartweiss
And this happens _everywhere_.

My favorite example is the coverage of the Dawn Wall rock climb a few years
back. It was 'news', but there was very little time pressure for coverage,
there was (almost) no divisive/political aspect, and the technical aspects
were easy to break down to lay-reader level. Plus, there were thousands of
online guides and experts willing to clarify context and terminology for free.
It should have been covered _flawlessly_ , just because there was nothing
standing in the way of that.

And instead, the results were shameful. There was no real harm done, but most
of the articles were less accurate than a Simple English Wikipedia page would
have been. It made for an interesting demonstration of how atrocious any form
of expert-knowledge news is, even by sites like the NYT, even on
uncontroversial topics.

------
JohnJamesRambo
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.

~~~
searine
I agree.

As a biologist, Glyphosate and it's concoctions aren't a concern in terms of
environmental exposure. The concentrations simply aren't there.

~~~
jly
There have been many studies in recent years examining the sub-lethal effects
of agricultural dosages of glyphosate on honeybees. Newer research is showing
conclusions of long-term negative consequences. Renewed studies have been done
in the face of devastating managed bee losses, which widespread deployment of
ag chemical combinations are undoubtedly direct contributors.

Glyphosate application is susceptible to extensive drift, affecting non-target
vegetation and animals potentially hundreds of meters from the target site.
Beyond direct exposure, this results in habitat destruction for many
organisms.

It seems like we're a long way from claiming there is no environmental
concern. The effects on non-target organisms through both direct exposure and
indirect exposure through ecosystem (food, habitat, etc) changes may be far
more widespread than we realize.

~~~
searine
>There have been many studies in recent years examining the sub-lethal effects
of agricultural dosages of glyphosate on honeybees

Poorly done studies, whose effect pales in comparison to neonicotinoid (and
other) pesticides.

The authors of said studies clearly have a conclusion looking for data.

>Glyphosate application is susceptible to extensive drift,

This is true of all pesticides and doesn't impact the chemicals specific
effect.

>It seems like we're a long way from claiming there is no environmental
concern

The media is a long way away. The scientific consensus is crystal clear
however.

Much like other hot-topics such as GMOs, Global Warming, and Vaccines, there
are those who ignore data and cite specious articles to support a false debate
among experts.

------
alevskaya
I won't defend Monsanto's behavior here, but this is all arising as a response
from the IARC's determination that glyphosate is a potential carcinogen. As a
cell-biologist/biophysicist, this determination seemed primarily politically
motivated by anti-GMO crusaders - existing evidence really doesn't seem to
support it. Glyphosate isn't at all like known mutagens. Longer-format
critique: [https://risk-monger.com/2016/07/06/iarcs-disgrace-how-low-
ca...](https://risk-monger.com/2016/07/06/iarcs-disgrace-how-low-can-activist-
science-go/)

~~~
cmrdporcupine
My problem with glyphosate isn't related to health concerns. It's related to
the fact that I grow crops (grapes) which it drifts over and kills, and
roundup ready (and even worse, the new 2-4d resistant GMO corn/soy) now means
there's nowhere safe in the entire northeast to grow anymore.

Every spring I come out to find many plants damaged. Infuriating.

Farmers behave entirely irresponsibly with it and if it's damaging my grapes
imagine what it's doing to the natural ecosystem, riparian buffers, etc. near
their farms. 2,4-d can drift for several miles and both volatilize on hot
days.

~~~
alevskaya
Thanks so much for the insight (grew up on a small farm in the northeast)! I'm
curious how much worse you've found the "drift-killing" of these newer
chemicals than traditional herbicides - are farmers simply being more reckless
with application of glyphosate and 2,4-d or are they intrinsically more
volatile?

~~~
cmrdporcupine
RoundupReady GMO corn and soy means they just blast the crap out of it without
fear of where it will go. They are supposed to pay attention to wind speed
etc. and I suspect most _try_ but every year I get damage from one of the
three -- glyphosate, 2-4,d [the worst], or glufosinate (most harmless).

And again my concern is primarily ecological. It will kill any herbaceous
plant. Natural plant diversity within any wooded area nearby is going to be a
problem.

The other issue is that while glyphosate itself may be unproblematic from a
health POV the formulations it comes in (stickers, spreaders, applicator
solutions) are known to be nasty but are not required to go through the same
kind of testing or disclosure really.

So spraying RoundUp near streams etc. means the detergents that it is bound up
with are getting into the water system. Which is trouble for amphibians, fish,
and insects at least.

Glyphosate is known to be safe for mammals, at least for now. I have been
known to use it here or there. I have my sprayers application license, tho I
don't really use it.

------
NicoJuicy
Monsanto always reminds me of their lobbyist that says it's even drinkable..

Guess if he drank it and then watch it:
[https://youtu.be/ovKw6YjqSfM](https://youtu.be/ovKw6YjqSfM)

~~~
alevskaya
Oh come on - this is a disingenuous stunt masquerading as debate. Salt is safe
to drink, but I'm not going to down a mystery glass filled with putative 5
molar solution of it on stage like a trained circus animal.

~~~
5mk
Normally I would agree, but the lobbyist said that someone could "drink a
whole quart of it" without any ill effect.

~~~
mikeyouse
I get the sentiment, and it makes for good TV, but you could also drink a
whole quart of urine without any ill effect and you can be sure I would
decline that opportunity.

~~~
larsiusprime
Yeah, but if you JUST SAID you would be perfectly willing to do so to make a
point, it (rightly) damages your credibility.

------
teslabox
Glyphosate/Roundup is basically the amino acid glycine with a phosphorous
structure tacked on [0]. Glycine is the simplest possible amino acid.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Chemistry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Chemistry)

One theory is that glyphosate causes harm because it gets weaved into protein
chains instead of glycine. Proteins made with roundup don't work the same as
proteins with glycine. Experiments to figure out if this is what's happening
would be relatively simple and cheap.

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.

~~~
adsfqwop
Anthony Samel, a chemist researching glyphosate, has already practically
proven this weaving is happening.

He is finding glyphosate in everything that has proteins in it. Especially
things that contain gelatin, where gelatin is made out of animal collagen, and
collagen is the most abundant protein in mammals.

For example gummy bears, protein powders, nutritional supplements, and even in
vaccines (several vaccines contain gelatin). So we are eating it, getting
injected with it, and it is integrating into our own proteins as well.

~~~
7sigma
You mean Anthony Samsel ? If so, he's known to have published shoddy research
along with Seneff that makes wild claims about glyphosate being the cause of
many ills like autism and celiac disease based on correlation and without much
evidence

Steven Novella thoroughly debunks this:
[http://sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-
bogeyman/](http://sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-bogeyman/)

Edit: spelling

~~~
adsfqwop
You do understand that there is a vast financial interest in "debunking"
scientific findings like this?

The first red flag that there are corporate interests behind any "debunking"
effort is that an actually serious finding is not discussed openly, but
various outlets immediately go for the discredit and debunk method.

That's corporate modus operandi 101 for burying inconvenient people and data.

~~~
pessimizer
You shouldn't try to generally debunk debunking, becaust it's a completely
irrational thing to do. Just explain where a specific criticism fails.

------
deelowe
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.

Anyone else see evidence that they actually did it? It wouldn't surprise me if
they did. I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
Para2016
That's all I saw as well. It just looks like someone spitballing over email.
That being said, I looked up some information regarding the safety of
glysphosphate using Ames testing and other methodologies. It looks to be safe
according to this presentation-pdf by the European Food Safety Authority:
[https://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/22863068/glyphosate_e...](https://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/22863068/glyphosate_efsa_en.pdf/dc25996f-53b3-c9a7-f0d7-415169061a02)

Anyways, one could argue that the studies have been tampered with by dastardly
Monsanto agents. Also it's a presentation and I didn't follow through to the
studies themselves, I just trusted the information as it was presented.

I'm going to trust that glysphosphate is not a carcinogen and that multiple
protection agencies worldwide haven't been duped/sold out to Monsanto. The
cost of independent testing by any competitor or curious party is low, these
are just toxin tests and Ames tests that have to be done. If it really was a
dangerous carcinogen, Monsanto would have its pants sued off already.

------
marze
Good thing this sort of thing doesn't happen in heath care.

It would totally destroy people's trust in the medical industry if, for
example, drug companies did this sort of thing.

~~~
YCode
Not sure if sarcasm.

Seriously, do they do that?

~~~
bognition
With literally billions of dollars on the line what do you think?

~~~
devy
> With literally billions of dollars on the line

That's EXACTLY the reason big corporations and pharma would cheat to conceal
truth from their products. The stake is too high to lose.

------
brightball
Some of the connections out there between glyphosate, it's effects on gut
bacteria, the rise IBS/Crohn's Disease/Celiac and even connections autism are
pretty incredible.

The autism speculation has gone on for as long as it has because we have an
information vacuum and nobody is outright publishing a "cause". Until that
vacuum is filled, you leave people free to speculate. Most of what I'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.

Would be great if we could get a study on both independently and both
combined.

1 -
[https://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/](https://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/)

~~~
seattle_spring
> Some of the connections out there between glyphosate, it's effects on gut
> bacteria, the rise IBS/Crohn's Disease/Celiac and even connections autism
> are pretty incredible.

Can you point to some credible sources that show these connections? The only
time I've ever seen Glyphosate linked to these ailments is from quack doctor
Mercola or fake news sites like Natural News.

~~~
brightball
Look up the MIT professor linked above and her research.

~~~
seattle_spring
A brief search reveals that her assertions are based purely on correlation,
with no actual links.

* [http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/glyphosate.asp](http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/glyphosate.asp)

* [https://www.biofortified.org/2015/01/medical-doctors-weigh-i...](https://www.biofortified.org/2015/01/medical-doctors-weigh-in-on-glyphosate-claims/)

* [https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-bogeyman...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-bogeyman/)

* [https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/09/20/glyphosate...](https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/09/20/glyphosate-herbicide-vaccines-frightened-parents-know/)

She does seem to be loved by Mercola, captain of the fake science team.

~~~
brightball
Agreed. But it's still a lot stronger than random anecdotes and, if nothing
else, warrants further study. I'm not making any claim beyond that.

------
Zaheer
Seems like every other day when special interests were allowed to do something
they should not have been due to their large financial backing.

Corruption isn't as obvious in the U.S., but never mistake that as lack of
prevalence.

------
notadoc
Sounds like corruption to me.

Interestingly, the primary reason people I know who eat organic or non-GMO
foods are doing so specifically to avoid glyphosate and other
pesticide/herbicides.

~~~
DINKDINK
>Sounds like corruption[...]

Specifically Regulatory Capture[1]

>The records [...] 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.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)

------
swsieber
Duplicate post of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13873798](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13873798)
(which is also on the front-page)

------
diogenescynic
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's much more active
than we are aware.

~~~
09bjb
Agree here. Definitely some comments in this thread that look
suspicious...only because Monsanto already does this on a closely related
platform :) Hi Guys! Thanks for tuning in!

~~~
09bjb
My suspicions are only getting worse as I click through some comment history.
Really? The debate on GMOs is the _only_ discussion on HN you want to partake
in?

~~~
throwaway2048
mail hn@ycombinator.com with evidence/suspicions you have of shilling.

------
NicoJuicy
Monsanto always reminds me of their lobbiest that says it's even drinkable..

Guess if he drank it and then watch it:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM)

~~~
ino
So they only know it's safe because people try to commit suicide with it and
fail?

------
trentnix
Next thing you know we will find out lobbyists are writing
legislation!</snark>

Seriously though, is the content of the research valid, or not?

~~~
TallGuyShort
Conflicts of interest throw serious doubt on the validity of the research.
There's always a certain degree of trust in the people who do every phrase of
the research, and obvious biases should at least be reason to not draw strong
conclusions from the research. Especially if they're going out of their way to
not upfront about the conflict of interest / bias.

~~~
trentnix
You don't trust Monsanto, someone else only trusts Monsanto, and I don't trust
anyone. But _trust_ doesn't matter because the system isn't built on trust.
It's built on peer review and repeatability.

Right?

~~~
philipkglass
The underlying incentives can influence which studies make it all the way to
publication. This has happened with drug trials, for example; if you don't
force drug companies to pre-register trials and publish the results after the
fact for _every_ trial, they can run multiple for the same drug and only
report the ones that show favorable results.

I could imagine something similar happening if you wanted to "prove" the
safety of a particular herbicide. Run tests for carcinogenicity, endocrine
disruption, whatever across common test species A, B, C, D, and E. D shows
significant adverse effects from exposure to your product. The others don't.
Silently drop the D results, write up the "proof of safety" from the others,
and optionally launder the origins of the research through unaffiliated
scientists. Repeat for a few years and later a completely independent
researcher may say "all N of these published papers used sound methodology,
and a meta-review of this high-quality subset shows no demonstrated risk at
ordinary exposure levels." That last researcher won't know about the
deliberately introduced systemic error that influenced _which_ results were
published.

~~~
trentnix
But that's exactly the logic global warming skeptics use - there are
underlying incentives to arrive at certain conclusions. If you find yourself
in the business of having to defend or attack incentives and influences,
you're not addressing the science. Instead, you're just playing in the
politics.

If bad science is making it to publication, or bad science is being accepted
by other scientists, then it's not really science. Right?

Don't mistake my statements for justifying the lack of transparency Monsanto
has apparently engaged in. It's unfortunate, for sure, and those who are
carrying their water should be castigated for it. It's not in the spirit of
good science.

But it's reasonable to think that had they been transparent, it wouldn't have
been published. Because we have decided their _underlying incentives_ are bad
(and consequently, the _underlying incentives_ of others are good). And that's
not in the spirit of good science, either.

~~~
philipkglass
_If bad science is making it to publication, or bad science is being accepted
by other scientists, then it 's not really science. Right?_

That's a very interesting question. I used to be a researcher myself. I love
Feynman's "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you
are the easiest person to fool." In practice, I would say that there are often
incentives for researchers to fool themselves, and researchers do sometimes
succeed in fooling themselves and their colleagues. The practice of science
has a better capacity for correcting these errors over time than other
practices, but I wouldn't retroactively declare a paper "not really science"
just because later scientists falsified its findings. (E.g. in chemistry,
reports of iron-catalyzed reactions that actually turned out to be catalyzed
by traces of platinum group metals in the iron. How did the incentive to
report something new and wonderful -- reactions catalyzed by a very cheap
catalyst -- influence the original researcher's experimental design and
evaluation of the evidence? Unknown.) Nor would I declare that a publication
showing "compound X does not induce cancer in mice" not-really-science even if
it turned out later that the same researchers silently dropped a line of
inquiry that showed X _does_ induce cancer in rats.

I tend toward thinking that social phenomena -- including the _practice_ of
scientific research, or the _practice_ of religion -- are defined by what
their participants _do_ rather than what the ideal definition _says_ they
should do. So bad science is still science (if the practitioners are still
recognized socially as such), bad Christianity is still Christianity, and so
on.

These issues are more visible when there's a lot at stake outside the scope of
the published findings (global warming, tobacco health impacts, etc.) AGW
skeptics are not exactly _wrong_ to mention incentives, but I think they're
weighting incentives backwards. I think that many of them see the likely
policy implications of certain research conclusions and motivated-reason their
way backwards to an exceptional level of skepticism about the research itself.

I myself think that AGW skeptics are wrong, that GMOs are a facially neutral
tool with potential for both benefits and harms, that herbicides too present
both harms and benefits, and that industries trying to influence research to
their own financial benefit (Monsanto here, drug companies with drug trials,
food and beverage companies with nutrition research...) is both bad and
common. This article that we're discussing _does not_ make me think that
glyphosate is more harmful than previously reported. I still require
affirmative research findings in that direction to change my view. It _does_
make me think that regulatory agencies should be sufficiently funded and
staffed to set up their own experimental design and trials for safety, because
industry-linked research (worse, facially independent but covertly industry-
linked research) is incentivized toward affirming safety rather than
investigating it neutrally.

------
phkahler
I look at things like the articles claim:

>> The safety of glyphosate is not settled science.

and then Monsantos claim:

>> In a statement, Monsanto said, “Glyphosate is not a carcinogen.”

>> 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.

which is backed by "leading regulatory authroities around the world" and then
I reflect on the CO2 / 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.

------
exabrial
Why is it that people take a hysteria based approach to GMOs/glyphosate but
the same people claim global warming is solid science?

Can the scientific method be trusted or not?

~~~
grecy
> _Can the scientific method be trusted or not?_

The scientific method can be trusted, but how it is implemented can not.

Science only considers something to be "fact" or "true" when a large (and
usually expensive) study has been conducted, the results have been peer
reviewed, and the results are then published.

The problem comes when the people paying for research only pay for research
they want to be "true" and nobody will pay for research leading to things that
might not be so good for sales.

As an example - think about how much money it cost to do a study on this
Monsanto chemical to find out if it's "safe". Monsanto are paying for the
study - do you really think if that study finds out it's not safe that it will
be peer reviewed and published and then considered "true" (that it's not
safe). Or will the whole study be swept under the rug, and therefore never be
found to be unsafe in the eyes of science?

How many multi-million dollar studies have ever been conducted, peer reviewed
and published (therefore making them "true" in the eyes of science) that tell
us really anything in today's world is "bad" for us? I'm willing to bet that
number is close to zero. Any published study was paid for by a system with
very, very strong interests in the results, so science will only ever "learn"
what the people with money want it to.

~~~
arca_vorago
"Science only considers something to be "fact" or "true" when a large (and
usually expensive) study has been conducted, the results have been peer
reviewed, and the results are then published."

If it hasn't or can't be replicated by and independent entity it's not good
science. Peer-reviewed is simply not a high enough bar to consider something
fact.

------
brooklynmarket
I'm always reminded of my Wall Street trader friend, and his chat with me:

From 9:30 to 4, I'd kill my mother to make a dime on a trade. My own mother,
that's how driven I am to make money. I'd kill her on the spot for that dime
if I could get away with it.

Of course, after 4, she's my mom. And I'd love her to death. He works for a
very well respected Wall Street Firm.

Food for thought. What people will do for money.

~~~
dgellow
> What people will do for money

Or: What people will say to impress their friends

~~~
codingdave
I'm not sure what kinds of friends would be impressed by such things.

------
lutusp
Quote: “People should know that there are _superb scientists_ 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)

Without addressing the article's basic thrust, which seems meritorious, this
talk about "superb scientists" 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.

Worse, to begin a debate that pivots on the authority of scientists only
invites a reply in kind -- whose scientists are more authoritative, more
"superb"? The process quickly loses any resemblance to science.

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).

------
dmix
Another example of a company'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.

I wonder if we'll ever enter a time where people won'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.

From another perspective this is (still) a golden era of criminal
investigations.

~~~
pessimizer
There's selection bias here. In my experience people rarely email or write
dubious stuff down and prefer to meet in person or informally off-site, but
obviously all the people who get caught due to what they've emailed or written
down did email it or write it down.

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

~~~
nxc18
Typically you don't need to worry about non-gmo food being contaminated with
roundup - a scandalous fact about roundup is that it tends to kill plants that
are exposed.

You also don't need to worry about contamination of e.g. water supplies.
Glyphosate tends to adhere to soil pretty well, where it is eventually
consumed by microbes. Glyphosate isn't absorbed through the roots and isn't
effective as pre-emergence herbicide.

The real safety challenge with roundup is the surfactant use. Glyphosate alone
just isn't very effective without the surfactant to punch through the plants'
waxy outer layers. These surfactants do cause loads of problems.

Note that there are actually very few GMO foods - it only makes sense to
develop them for high volume crops. Anything you can buy whole or minulally
processed (e.g. an ear of corn) is going to be untouched by glyphosate, even
though gmo corn does exist.

[http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-
gly...](http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-
glyphosate/glyphosate-ext.html)

~~~
maxerickson
I wouldn't be so sure.

[http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/seminis-
performance-s...](http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/seminis-performance-
series-sweet-corn.aspx)

~~~
nxc18
Thanks for that! I stand corrected.

Apparently they've had this product out for about a decade now; coincidentally
its been about a decade since I've really done my research. Time sure does fly
and its easy to forget that biotech, like any other tech, moves quickly.

------
williamle8300
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.

------
pessimizer
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.

None of that will prove whether there'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.

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.

------
cool_look
It is common in many fields for a small group to produce 'agreed text', that
other parties then sign off on

* PR pieces ( [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html) )

* Legislation ( [http://www.linklaters.com/Insights/Publication1005Newsletter...](http://www.linklaters.com/Insights/Publication1005Newsletter/UK-corporate-update-December-2016/Pages/Prospectus-Regulation%E2%80%93text-agreed.aspx) )

* Standards Body text ( say Oracle for OpenJDK, MS for Mono ) ( [https://www.taylorwessing.com/globaldatahub/nisd-draft-text-...](https://www.taylorwessing.com/globaldatahub/nisd-draft-text-agreed.html) )

The NY Times itself will accept Associated Press articles ( say on an Afghan
Election result ) and mostly just clone the words 1-to-1.

~~~
rosser
Maybe that's okay in PR and legislation.

But not in _science_.

------
kapauldo
Free market only works when properly regulated.

~~~
programmarchy
Time and time again we see regulators working for the monopoly corporations,
not against them. Monopolies like Monsanto only exist /because/ of regulation.
If the market were free, both Monsanto and the EPA would have to compete. In a
regulated market, neither of them do.

Edit: Realize there's a good chance you're being sarcastic, but responding
anyway since there are many people who'd take this at face value.

~~~
chii
> both Monsanto and the EPA would have to compete.

what does the EPA have to compete against? They regulate! Unless you mean
monsanto could choose to be regulated by a different agency, whose funding
comes from monsanto, hence regulators will tend to weaken regulation to get
"business"!

~~~
programmarchy
Nobody, which is exactly my point. In an actual free market, people would
still want consumer information (e.g. Consumer Reports magazine, Organic-
certified labels). Therefore, consumer information companies would be required
to compete with each other by offering better products i.e. accurate
information, and a solid reputation.

The EPA has a terrible reputation and a long track record of failures, but it
doesn't matter, because they have a state-enforced monopoly. They can take
bribes all day long. However, if they existed in a competitive market, their
reputation would be ruined and the market would be ripe for new competitors to
enter.

~~~
n10
And what is to stop those consumer information companies taking similar
bribes. Especially without any regulatory agencies. Or do we just need another
free market for consumer information on the consumer information companies.

~~~
programmarchy
When there's competition, reputation matters, since consumers have a choice
about who to trust.

> Especially without any regulatory agencies.

The history of progressive regulation is agencies protecting monopolies from
competition, not protecting the public from economic abuses though that is how
it is advertised. Corporations _want_ state-enforced regulation because it
allows them to cartelize. [1]

[1] [https://mises.org/blog/rothbard-progressive-
movement](https://mises.org/blog/rothbard-progressive-movement)

------
twothamendment
Sell some great cars that "cheat"? Slapped down. Sell poison the world with
and cover it up? Nothing will happen.

------
7sigma
This is the complaint:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-pJR4cGo9ckUU1OQjJjcVQ4aUU...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-pJR4cGo9ckUU1OQjJjcVQ4aUU/view)

Its basically a motion to compel an EPA guy to go under oath and sounds like
the complainant had some run ins with Rowland.

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?

"Your trivial MS degree from 1971 Nebraska is far outdated, thus CARC science
is 10 years behind the literature in mechanisms."

So we have to take her word that Rowland didn'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.

Not really a smoking gun, if this is all there is

------
tyingq
From the Wikipedia plot summary for the movie "Michael Clayton":

 _" Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), U-North's general counsel, discovers that
Arthur had come into possession of a confidential U-North document detailing
the company's decision to manufacture a weed killer it knew to be
carcinogenic."_[1]

[1][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Clayton_(film)#Plot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Clayton_\(film\)#Plot)

~~~
maxerickson
That there is debate about the health effects and environmental impact of
glyphosate is a huge improvement over many previous pesticides which where
obviously toxic to humans and environmentally persistent.

------
arca_vorago
I'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.

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.

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)

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.

Once I learned all these things, I quit the job on principle. As luck would
have it, the good ol rich guy who "would always take care of his people"
subsequently, a year later, sold the company and fired half the staff... and
now the local "community", 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 "bring jobs".

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.

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.

Having sysadmined in a bigag company with a genetics department, and at a
genetics company, my primary issues with GMO's is that there is a lack of
rigourous scientific testing, especially over longer time frames. It wasn't
uncommon to see a new GMO go from testing to prod within a year! That'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.

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:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM)

Relevant past comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9009446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9009446)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12893325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12893325)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559024)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12398969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12398969)

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

------
tdhz77
Probably my old University -- University of Missouri which is currently under
the tight control of Monsanto.

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

------
jwilk
Please use the original title.

------
trimble
roundup is 125 times more toxic than glyphosate

~~~
castis
Do you have a source for this very specific fact you brought to the table?

~~~
trimble
BioMed Research International Volume 2014, Article ID 179691

'Major Pesticides Are More Toxic to Human Cells Than Their Declared Active
Principles'

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955666/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955666/)

