"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...
Monsanto have been very, very good at controlling the discussion regarding the negative impact their products have had on the world - they're very well known for the investment made in astro-turfing various and sundry places that Monsantos' crimes are discussed.
I think that, besides the obvious corruption that these court documents reveal, another conversation has to be had about how disingenuous Monsanto and its agents have been in discussing these things - using classic deflection, obfuscation techniques online.
The "Monsanto Field Manual for Internet Representatives" would be a very interesting leak indeed ..
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?
Corporate ghostwriting is pervasive in the pharmaceutical industry. For some drugs, most of the relevant medical literature has been industry-funded. But that's not really very surprising, considering how firms influence politicians, judges, journalists, etc.
Edit: It's also worth noting that much legislation and regulations is ghostwritten by affected corporations.
> needless endangerment of the health of ~tens of thousands of farmers
This affects an incredible array of life. Roundup is used on millions of perfect suburban lawns and landscape plants, impacting countless wildlife, pets, and humans. Glyphosate-grown foods are pervasive in our food supply, and eventually find their way into countless rivers and streams.
Using chemicals that are designed to kill living things in such a widespread manner is just a dangerous idea.
This is the real story - Monsanto interfering with our ability to find out what is safe.
I'm not sure why you're singling out Monsanto, to the exclusion of the government meddling.
Given the statement
a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency had worked to quash a review
Shouldn't we be pointing a finger at the EPA - even more so, because it's their duty to protect us?
We should all be watchdogs, pointing out malfeasance. But it can't stop when we discover a corporation doing wrong, especially when the implication of that finding is that the government needs more power to keep us safe - when part of the problem is malfeasance in the government itself.
I can only read your statement as sarcasm. But I am not completely sure. Are you actually suggesting that higher people at Monsanto could actually face jail time?
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.
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."
> What still gets me is how people could justify this type of behavior.
To quote Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Companies like these are run by psychopaths who want nothing but money and power, and their employee base is self-selecting for the quality of being cowed into complacency.
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.
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.
Is there a better source for reading about agriculture policy issues? I feel like all of my sources have a subtle anti-ag bias or a blatantly pro-ag one. Maybe an ag econ blog?
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.
My limited understanding was that they wanted to test only glyphosate and not glyphosate in combination with the surfactant, which is after all how people would encounter it in the real world, as that is how RoundUp is distributed to users.
For instance, could the surfactant allow glyphosate to more easily be absorbed?
as a scientist, i wouldn't trust a single iota of "evidence" that passes through a private corporation with a financial interest in the results reading a certain way.
they won't outright fabricate, usually. but they'll repeat experiments with various perversions until they get the result they want. and this is commonplace elsewhere in science, too, but it's typically disclosed in the methods section and people can put the pieces together for themselves.
The issue I have here is that research data can often be falsified or biased when there are billions of dollars on the line, and there are so many unknowns with some of these things that it's hard to make absolute safety conclusions.
When you take something and spread it so pervasively that it has the chance to impact such a wide spectrum of life, the risks are extreme. Perhaps there is no level of scientific evidence acceptable for this kind of widespread usage, but we are probably far less conservative than we should be.
Part of science is assuming that people are dishonest, incompetent, or subject to influence.
But the scientific method should correct for those occasions when other individuals attempt to reproduce the original results. If we're not doing that, it really isn't science. Appearing in a peer reviewed journal is just the first step for an idea to become an accepted scientific truth.
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...
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.
So I followed your link, and was immediately blasted with the kind of rhetoric and name-calling that does not give me the feeling that I'm about to read an impartial analysis. I didn't read further.
"I won't defend Monsanto's behavior, I'll just belittle their critics as anti-GMO crusaders." It's that attitude why I'm against GMO on ethical grounds no matter how much scientific evidence there is to support it. You guys need to clean up your act.
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.
> 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.
I'm a part-time farmer. My father and I manage about 35 acres, half in corn and half in soybeans. We no-till our fields which is very helpful for preventing soil erosion and fertilizer/manure runoff. We are located in the Chesapeake Bay watershed so we have to (and want to) pay close attention to farming best practices regarding excess nutrients and runoff.
We use Roundup for both a burn-down in the spring and for post-emerge weed management (1 quart to the acre). It continues to work well for us. Based on what I've heard, round-up resistant weeds mostly commonly occur in fields where crops are not rotated. Some farmers do plant corn on corn, year after year. I can see where that would lead to significant problems.
So, I'd say that your unqualified statement above "roundup is obsolete" is true for me although it may be partially true depending on the application.
Look at the difference between glycine and alanine. Alanine is glycine with a methyl group attached. If the cellular polypeptide construction mechanisms have to be sensitive enough to distinguish between glycine and alanine in normal operation, then a phosphate sticking on the amine should be ringing alarm bells.
Additionally, the reactivity of glyphosate should be rather changed. You're going from a primary amine to a secondary amine, one with a moderately steric hindrance on it (considering that the amine is the focal point of the polypeptide production reactions). It's no tert-butyl, but it's still hefty. (Note also that proline, the only amino acid with a secondary amine, is by far the slowest amino acid in peptide production).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>> 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.
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.
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).
[+] [-] DarkKomunalec|9 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] mmjaa|9 years ago|reply
I think that, besides the obvious corruption that these court documents reveal, another conversation has to be had about how disingenuous Monsanto and its agents have been in discussing these things - using classic deflection, obfuscation techniques online.
The "Monsanto Field Manual for Internet Representatives" would be a very interesting leak indeed ..
[+] [-] gregwtmtno|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirimir|9 years ago|reply
Edit: It's also worth noting that much legislation and regulations is ghostwritten by affected corporations.
[+] [-] jly|9 years ago|reply
This affects an incredible array of life. Roundup is used on millions of perfect suburban lawns and landscape plants, impacting countless wildlife, pets, and humans. Glyphosate-grown foods are pervasive in our food supply, and eventually find their way into countless rivers and streams.
Using chemicals that are designed to kill living things in such a widespread manner is just a dangerous idea.
[+] [-] wnevets|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CWuestefeld|9 years ago|reply
I'm not sure why you're singling out Monsanto, to the exclusion of the government meddling.
Given the statement
a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency had worked to quash a review
Shouldn't we be pointing a finger at the EPA - even more so, because it's their duty to protect us?
We should all be watchdogs, pointing out malfeasance. But it can't stop when we discover a corporation doing wrong, especially when the implication of that finding is that the government needs more power to keep us safe - when part of the problem is malfeasance in the government itself.
[+] [-] idiot_stick|9 years ago|reply
The real story, to me, are the academics willing to sign their name to research they didn't write, for a pay cheque.
[+] [-] nathanvanfleet|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tudorw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rev_null|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] equalarrow|9 years ago|reply
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|9 years ago|reply
"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."
[+] [-] Joeri|9 years ago|reply
To quote Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Companies like these are run by psychopaths who want nothing but money and power, and their employee base is self-selecting for the quality of being cowed into complacency.
[+] [-] terravion|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] marcell|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmjaa|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdponx|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnJamesRambo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patrickg_zill|9 years ago|reply
For instance, could the surfactant allow glyphosate to more easily be absorbed?
[+] [-] searine|9 years ago|reply
As a biologist, Glyphosate and it's concoctions aren't a concern in terms of environmental exposure. The concentrations simply aren't there.
[+] [-] cryoshon|9 years ago|reply
they won't outright fabricate, usually. but they'll repeat experiments with various perversions until they get the result they want. and this is commonplace elsewhere in science, too, but it's typically disclosed in the methods section and people can put the pieces together for themselves.
[+] [-] jly|9 years ago|reply
When you take something and spread it so pervasively that it has the chance to impact such a wide spectrum of life, the risks are extreme. Perhaps there is no level of scientific evidence acceptable for this kind of widespread usage, but we are probably far less conservative than we should be.
[+] [-] spcelzrd|9 years ago|reply
Part of science is assuming that people are dishonest, incompetent, or subject to influence.
But the scientific method should correct for those occasions when other individuals attempt to reproduce the original results. If we're not doing that, it really isn't science. Appearing in a peer reviewed journal is just the first step for an idea to become an accepted scientific truth.
[+] [-] cryoshon|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] alevskaya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmrdporcupine|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ScottBurson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Melk|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NicoJuicy|9 years ago|reply
Guess if he drank it and then watch it: https://youtu.be/ovKw6YjqSfM
[+] [-] teslabox|9 years ago|reply
[0] 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.
[+] [-] timlin|9 years ago|reply
I'm a part-time farmer. My father and I manage about 35 acres, half in corn and half in soybeans. We no-till our fields which is very helpful for preventing soil erosion and fertilizer/manure runoff. We are located in the Chesapeake Bay watershed so we have to (and want to) pay close attention to farming best practices regarding excess nutrients and runoff.
We use Roundup for both a burn-down in the spring and for post-emerge weed management (1 quart to the acre). It continues to work well for us. Based on what I've heard, round-up resistant weeds mostly commonly occur in fields where crops are not rotated. Some farmers do plant corn on corn, year after year. I can see where that would lead to significant problems.
So, I'd say that your unqualified statement above "roundup is obsolete" is true for me although it may be partially true depending on the application.
[+] [-] jcranmer|9 years ago|reply
Look at the difference between glycine and alanine. Alanine is glycine with a methyl group attached. If the cellular polypeptide construction mechanisms have to be sensitive enough to distinguish between glycine and alanine in normal operation, then a phosphate sticking on the amine should be ringing alarm bells.
Additionally, the reactivity of glyphosate should be rather changed. You're going from a primary amine to a secondary amine, one with a moderately steric hindrance on it (considering that the amine is the focal point of the polypeptide production reactions). It's no tert-butyl, but it's still hefty. (Note also that proline, the only amino acid with a secondary amine, is by far the slowest amino acid in peptide production).
[+] [-] adsfqwop|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] deelowe|9 years ago|reply
Anyone else see evidence that they actually did it? It wouldn't surprise me if they did. I'm genuinely curious.
[+] [-] marze|9 years ago|reply
It would totally destroy people's trust in the medical industry if, for example, drug companies did this sort of thing.
[+] [-] brightball|9 years ago|reply
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/
[+] [-] Zaheer|9 years ago|reply
Corruption isn't as obvious in the U.S., but never mistake that as lack of prevalence.
[+] [-] notadoc|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] swsieber|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diogenescynic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NicoJuicy|9 years ago|reply
Guess if he drank it and then watch it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM
[+] [-] trentnix|9 years ago|reply
Seriously though, is the content of the research valid, or not?
[+] [-] TallGuyShort|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phkahler|9 years ago|reply
>> 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|9 years ago|reply
Can the scientific method be trusted or not?
[+] [-] brooklynmarket|9 years ago|reply
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|9 years ago|reply
Or: What people will say to impress their friends
[+] [-] lutusp|9 years ago|reply
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).