
Monsanto leaks suggest it tried to ‘kill’ cancer research about weed killer - givan
https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/toxic-tort-law/monsanto-roundup-lawsuit/monsanto-secret-documents/
======
ourmandave
Isn't this right out of the Big Tobacco playbook when they "scientists" in lab
coats producing studies that smoking was healthy?

 _The Tobacco Industry: The Pioneer of Fake News_

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5402187/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5402187/)

~~~
russdill
Is there a scientific consensus (or at least majority) as to the carcinogenic
effect of the Roundup product?

~~~
cholantesh
There isn't. Glyphosate is well studied, and all evidence exonerate it. The
constituent chemicals of Roundup _may_ interact with each other to render the
cocktail toxic. But that's not equivalent to carcinogenicity. And it's not
well studied as yet.

~~~
lumberjack
>Glyphosate is well studied,

No. That is false.

[https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-...](https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-016-0117-0)

The studies on glyphosate are plenty, but most are inadequate.

~~~
russdill
This led me to a WHO FAQ, which I was hoping would answer all my questions.
[http://www.who.int/foodsafety/faq/en/](http://www.who.int/foodsafety/faq/en/)

The only answer I have so far is that we need to fund our research institutes
better to get more studies faster. I do appreciate though that glyphosate has
replaced many less safe herbicides.

I think even going off of the WHO FAQ, the comparison of the situation to one
the tobacco industry faced is not the correct one.

------
eadz
It is a real shame not to be able to trust "science" anymore. We'll have to
come up with a new word for what we used to call science because I don't think
corporations and media set on manipulating public opinion and laws will give
it back.

~~~
lumberjack
It's not like it was hard to figure out what was going on.

On one hand you have scientists publishing letters of concern regarding
glyphosate arguing for more studies to be done because of hints of
carcinogenic properties.

On the other hand you have a full blown shill campaign on Reddit and other
website, being all like, "there is absolutely nothing to worry about, why do
you hate science!". And lobbyists bullying the EFSA into publishing a
statement in support of glyphosate so that it could be relicense for further
use within Europe.

You can trust science. You just have to be aware of the conflicts of
interests. Monsanto hasn't bought every single scientist out there.

~~~
eip
The funniest/saddest part of this is that even the people that catch on to the
probable poison that is glyphosate and the shill campaign behind it will still
angrily defend the safety and efficacy of IG Farben vaccines while happily
eating Monsanto GM Frankencorn grown with glyphosate.

Depopulation is necessary and luckily it's also fairly easy.

------
Zarath
It's weed killer. Literally poison. Can we just curb our faith in science just
a little bit and use some common sense. It's incredibly likely that ingesting
poison is bad for you. Let's leave open the possibility that it isn't, but I
personally require that people prove it's safe rather than continuing to
ingest it until proven otherwise.

It's honestly just baffling to me that people find it surprising that
consistent, low doses of poison may cause cancer.

~~~
stouset
Just because something is poisonous to the biology of plants, in doses
typically used as a weed killer, doesn't make it toxic to humans.

That's not to say this doesn't cause cancer. Whether or not it does is
irrelevant to the point that plant biology is not human biology — hell, other
_mammals '_ biology isn't human biology (see: cats and chocolate, grapes,
macadamia nuts, and onions) — and making inferences based upon this hypothesis
is not particularly likely to result in correct assessments.

Further, "the dose makes the poison". Alcohol is a poison. _Oxygen_ is a
poison in high enough doses. Is weed killer a poison? In some arbitrarily high
dose, certainly. In some arbitrarily small dose, no. In the dose you're likely
to encounter on the surface of produce? Possibly, perhaps even probably. But
again, making inferences based on the fact that it kills weeds is faulty
thinking. By that logic, one would be forgiven for avoiding onions at all
cost; after all, they're cat poison.

~~~
jacobr
If my cat is poisoned I would definitely avoid what it ate until there's
overwhelming evidence that it's not harmful for me.

------
tptacek
I don't know what Monsanto did or didn't do and don't have any particular
rooting interest for Monsanto, but I think it's worth noting that the
published science for the carcinogenicity of glyphosate (the "weed killer"
we're talking about here) is extremely flimsy.

Most publicity about "cancer" and "Monsanto" is traceable back to an IARC
report that the World Health Organization (IARC's parent) essentially
retracted. The report itself concerned dozens of different pesticides and
herbicides and mentioned glyphosate only in passing. The studies it referred
to equivocated about any link between glyphosate and human cancer.

(I'm going from memory here and someone will probably correct me on this,
which will be great!)

It would be surprising if glyphosate turned out to be toxic, because it
straightforwardly targets a metabolic pathway that plants have and the entire
kingdom of Animalia lacks.

California recently added glyphosate to its list of chemicals that it's
required to alert consumers about. But of course, that list is long and
includes substances that virtually nobody controls their own exposure to, such
as acrylamide --- a known human carcinogen --- which is universally present in
cooked foods.

Finally, and this is obvious, but we're reading articles on a plaintiff
lawyer's website. That's fine, but you're clearly not going to get the whole
story from them. For instance, the lawyers are happy to leave you with a
headline about Monsanto trying to "retract a cancer study". But they're of
course going to leave out the fact that the study in question was the Séralini
study, of "Séralini affair" fame; you can look this up in Wikipedia to see
what I'm referring to.

~~~
bri3d
While glyphosate is only questionable, Round Up itself, which includes a
variety of surfactants, seems to have a more pronounced effect - both
cytotoxic and mutagenic.

Many of the later documents in this dump center around formulated Round-Up's
unexplained toxicity when compared to the survey of glyphosate studies in the
literature, and a variety of understudied surfactants in the formulation.

Ex (ignoring sensationalized document titles):

[http://baumhedlundlaw.com/pdf/monsanto-
documents/37-Monsanto...](http://baumhedlundlaw.com/pdf/monsanto-
documents/37-Monsanto-Executive-Admits-Studies-Demonstrate-Formulated-Roundup-
Does-the-Damage.pdf)

[http://baumhedlundlaw.com/pdf/monsanto-documents/38-Email-
Sh...](http://baumhedlundlaw.com/pdf/monsanto-documents/38-Email-Shows-Former-
Monsanto-Expert-Confirmed-Biological-Plausibility-of-Glyphosate-as-
Carcinogen.pdf)

[http://baumhedlundlaw.com/pdf/monsanto-
documents/42-Internal...](http://baumhedlundlaw.com/pdf/monsanto-
documents/42-Internal-Email-Shows-Monsanto-Aware-of-Surfactant-Toxic-
Effects.pdf)

~~~
burntrelish1273
There's a video where a Monsanto lobbyist spouts circular talking-points about
how glyphosate was safe to drink, offered either Round Up or glyphosate and
refused to drink it.

[https://youtu.be/QWM_PgnoAtA?t=25s](https://youtu.be/QWM_PgnoAtA?t=25s)

It's irrelevant if _glyphosate alone_ is cancerous or not, because 99.9999% of
deployment is via sprays like Round Up. The _combined product_ , in both
animal and human models, need thorough mutagenic research. It's just news
shows don't want to give Monsanto free advertising or face libel laws, so they
conflate the generic compound with the product.

~~~
KekDemaga
I think you'll find if someone who thinks you are evil offers you a glass of
liquid of unknown providence you to would decline it as well.

~~~
yourapostasy
This presents an interesting conundrum. Monsanto doesn't trust anyone who
proposes a Monsanto employee drink a cup of Roundup because ostensibly they're
afraid the cup is something other than Roundup. People who want to propose
this "prove it" don't trust Monsanto to supply the cup of Roundup because
they're afraid Monsanto will just give some colored, scented water that only
looks like Roundup.

The actual Roundup product toxicity is from the inactive ingredients used as a
carrier for the glyphosate [1]. Supposedly pure glyphosate itself is low
toxicity. If (and this is a big if) the LD50 for humans follows mice models
[2], at the highest amount of glyphosate required of 10,000 mg/kg, then the
average human at 70 kg would require 700,000 mg of glyphosate to incur a 50%
chance of a lethal dose. That is 0.7 kg solid form glyphosate, well over what
we might find in a cup that is roughly diluted to the concentration levels one
finds in the least concentrated form of Roundup. The lower end of the animal
models is rabbits, acute dermal LD50, at 2,000 mg/kg, five times lower, 0.14
kg solid form glyphosate for that average human.

If there are 540 grams glyphosate per liter of Roundup R/T 540 Liquid
Herbicide (the term of art is "540 grams acid equivalent per litre", please,
some chemistry hacker out there correct my quantities, I'm sure I'm getting
this wrong), then a US customary cup of this kind of Roundup contains 127.76 g
glyphosate. I chose this kind of Roundup because it looks like the least
concentrated. The rabbit LD50 toxicity translated to a 70 kg human is 140
grams. The mouse LD50 toxicity translated to a 70 kg human is 700 grams. That
cup is uncomfortably close to those levels for me, if my numbers are close to
the ballpark; I sure as hell wouldn't drink that cup if my numbers are
correct. I welcome corrections.

[1]
[http://www.roundup.ca/_uploads/documents/RT540_label_Mar2014...](http://www.roundup.ca/_uploads/documents/RT540_label_Mar2014.pdf)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Humans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Humans)

------
akvadrako
Y'all should take this with a grain of salt. Monsanto is hated as a company;
the media just loves to vilify them. I've been suspicious of any anti-Monsanto
news since looking into their lawsuit[1] against a farmer who grew illegally
obtained patented seeds. The media and commenters made a big deal about
predatory behavior but they it was clearly the farmer being an asshole. Anti-
science/GMO nuts just latch on to anything without a care where the evidence
points.

[1] Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser

------
olliej
Given the number of ghost written publications shouldn't there be a slew of
retractions?

It's unethical, and generally a violation of journal rules to publish
another's work listed with yourself as an author.

Then there's a journal editor that they pay, who they worked with to get a
paper retracted, surely that should result in a re-review of everything
involved there as well?

Has anyone done the work to determine which papers are involved and start the
retraction notification process?

------
jonplackett
News-flash, company people have known was evil for ages, actually is still
evil.

------
mgh2
Here is a study of 12 diseases correlated with glyphosate, it is not official
as in a published journal, but given that even pubmed states there are not
enough toxicity studies, that most safety papers are not independently funded,
and scientists who dare to say the contrary are shut down, I rather be more
cautious than sorry:
[https://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/glyphosate/NancySwanson....](https://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/glyphosate/NancySwanson.pdf)

------
tnorgaard
I see there is a few posts repeating the common interpretation that glyphosate
is not dangerous because it only targets metabolic pathway only animals has,
so for the sake of discussion here is another viewpoint:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVolljHmqEs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVolljHmqEs)
(disregard the clickbait title), summary: Glyphosate is not bad for your body,
but it does kill everything in your stomach, and that is not so awesome.

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_Codemonkeyism
It's interesting how the discussion of Monsanto shifted. The discussion was
about how Monsanto changed the seed/weed business from a buy model to a
subscription/license model for farmers - which is a disruptive fundamental
change. Now the discussion is mainly ab Glyphosate.

------
_Codemonkeyism
Walking by a Bayer - Monsanto owner pending regulatory approval - building
every morning, with people streaming in and I'm reminded most people will work
for anyone who pays them.

------
jgalvez
Michael Clayton anyone?

~~~
arca_vorago
Yep, except he wouldve been taken care of by team B and even if he hadn't, the
prosecuting DA would've been gotten to and dropped the case under
prosecutorial discretion. The movie had to have a semi happy ending for the
plots sake. Real life is much nastier.

------
nerpderp83
Shouldn't this be illegal in some form? It is morally reprehensible to use
"money as free speech" to suppress scientific truth.

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brndnmg
yawn, oh no they wouldn't do that would they? _sips coffee_

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ionised
Colour me surprised.

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43224gg252
Of course they did. Anyone on the internet about a year - 2 years ago
remembers every time you mentioned monsanto they would send shills in to
defend them and call you a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist.

~~~
themgt
It's been really frustrating trying to have any nuanced stance on GMOs with
proponents doing the "durr all modern crops are genetically modified by human
selection" and such. Like no shit, it is still possible to acknowledge that
and believe that there are legitimate concerns about intellectual property, or
with modifying a crop to be resistant to a carcinogenic poison farmers are
going to dump all over it.

A lot of the pro-GMO people seem to argue in really bad faith if they're not
paid shills.

~~~
vbuwivbiu
Exactly this. Every thread on GM quickly polarizes into useless for and
against sides, when we need to be selective about it.

And I've never bought the characterization of breeding/selection as a form of
GM. Breeding is selection of a pathetically tiny set of modifications, but GM
is on a whole other level. With GM we can write arbitrary binary strings of
code into any organism. That's simply not comparable with breeding -- the
space of realizable phenotypes is orders of magnitude larger with GM.

~~~
nixonpjoshua1
I agree that the polarization is useless. However what you said about
selective breeding vs GM is just wrong. Selective breeding introduces numerous
mutations, including ones often not even related to the desired traits. In
contrast human directed genetic modification often changes a single gene, the
state of the art in research universities for specific modifications is only
in the tens of genes. You can only say they are not comparable in the sense
that selective breeding introduces far more changes than GM and also in the
sense that with GM we know what changed where in selective breeding we do not
necessarily know how the change was produced or what the extent of it was.

Also I understand that this is a computer centered site but thinking of DNA as
binary is a often used but terrible analogy. Living organisms were designed
through complete randomness, try refactoring that. If you wanted to turn
teosinte into corn without any random mutations and selection I think that
would be far beyond our abilities for 100 years at least.

~~~
legulere
> In contrast human directed genetic modification often changes a single gene

Even CRISPR-CAS9 is not perfect and introduces a lot of unwanted genetic
changes when used. Further the big advantage of GM compared with selective
breeding is that you can inject Transgenes. This makes them totally
incomparable.

~~~
vbuwivbiu
give it a chance - it's early days, and there are many other techniques and
more in the works

------
ada1981
Who actually likes Monstanto? I imagine a vast majority of the American people
would support an outright shutdown of their business.

~~~
bpodgursky
Luckily we still have the rule of law, so the majority can't simply shut down
a company they dislike based on an internet misinformation campaign.

~~~
colordrops
Campaign implies organization. Who do you suppose is working to shut down
Monsanto?

~~~
bpodgursky
A mob can be stupid and dangerous without a sinister corporate backing.

Who is funding the anti-vaccine campaign? Nobody. It's stupid online bloggers
and dishonest researchers egging each other on with fake news.

~~~
colordrops
it's not a campaign then.

------
znpy
Uh... My grandpa used to use Roundup in order to kill weeds in his cultivation
land.

~~~
ugh123
Great. Whats your point?

