In April 2000, Elsevier published an article in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, which claimed that the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) from the Monsanto Company didn’t pose a risk of cancer or other health issues for humans.
Twenty-five years later, the publisher has retracted that paper, citing litigation that revealed it was based solely on unpublished studies by Monsanto itself.
Furthermore, Elsevier states that the article (titled Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans) appears to have been co-written with Monsanto employees, despite no explicit accreditation.
Monsanto might have also compensated the article’s authors: Gary M. Williams, Robert Kroes, and Ian C. Munro, the article states.
“Significant impact on regulatory decision-making”
It’s impossible to overstate the influence this article had over the more than two decades since it was published.
“The paper had a significant impact on regulatory decision-making regarding glyphosate and Roundup for decades,” Martin van den Berg, the journal’s co-editor-in-chief, writes in the retraction notice.
Van den Berg adds that “the lack of clarity regarding which parts of the article were authored by Monsanto employees creates uncertainty about the integrity of the conclusions drawn.”
“Specifically, the article asserts the absence of carcinogenicity associated with glyphosate or its technical formulation, Roundup,” Van den Berg wrote. “It is unclear how much of the conclusions of the authors were influenced by external contributions of Monsanto without proper acknowledgments.”
According to Elsevier’s metrics, the article has been cited 779 times, including 66 policy citations.
Revelations widely covered in 2017
While Van den Berg has just now taken action to retract the paper, the litigation he cites dates back to 2017. The revelations were widely covered at the time, yet the landmark paper remained untouched.
“This decision has been made after careful consideration of the COPE [Committee on Publication Ethics] guidelines and thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the authorship and content of this article and in light of no response having been provided to address the findings,” Van den Berg states as an explanation.
Van den Berg reached out to Williams, the sole living author, for an explanation but received no response.
In recent years, Monsanto has paid billions of dollars across numerous lawsuits alleging that Roundup causes cancer. Bayer, the German chemical and pharmaceutical giant, acquired Monsanto in 2018 and retired the brand’s name—which had become a liability.
Reached for comment, a Bayer spokesperson sent an emailed statement from Monsanto stating that glyphosate has been vigorously studied over the last 50 years.
“Thousands of studies have been conducted on the safety of glyphosate products, and the vast majority of published studies had no Monsanto involvement,” the statement read. “The consensus among leading regulatory bodies worldwide is that glyphosate can be used safely as directed and is not carcinogenic. Because the Williams et al paper is 25 years old, the EU did not rely on this paper in its recent assessment and approval process. Furthermore, the Williams paper is a review article of properly-conducted studies which were separately provided to regulators for their review, and contains no original data.”
Fast Company also reached out to Williams for comment.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has continued to state that glyphosate is “unlikely to be a human carcinogen,” based on study reviews.
This week, the Trump administration pushed the U.S. Supreme Court to curb lawsuits against Bayer that allege Roundup causes cancers.
Shares of Bayer AG (ETR: BAYN) jumped more than 12% in response to the Trump administration’s brief.
This story has been updated with Bayer’s response to our inquiry.