A quarter-century after its publication, one of the most influential research articles on the potential carcinogenicity of glyphosate has been retracted for "several critical issues that are considered to undermine the academic integrity of this article and its conclusions." In a retraction notice dated Friday, November 28, the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology announced that the study, published in April 2000 and concluding the herbicide was safe, has been removed from its archives. The disavowal comes 25 years after publication and eight years after thousands of internal Monsanto documents were made public during US court proceedings (the "Monsanto Papers"), revealing that the actual authors of the article were not the listed scientists – Gary M. Williams (New York Medical College), Robert Kroes (Ritox, Utrecht University, Netherlands), and Ian C. Munro (Intertek Cantox, Canada) – but rather Monsanto employees.
In cautious terms, Martin van den Berg, co-editor-in-chief of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, noted that "employees of Monsanto may have contributed to the writing of the article without proper acknowledgment as co-authors. This lack of transparency raises serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors of this article and the academic integrity of the carcinogenicity studies presented." Other failings are cited, notably the failure to disclose the authors' compensation by Monsanto. "The potential financial compensation raises significant ethical concerns and calls into question the apparent academic objectivity of the authors in this publication," van den Berg added.
21 Comments
SGGeorwell@lemmy.world · 72 pts · 283d
Scientists who allow their names to be used as cover for corruption should be barred from ever publishing again, and all their other papers should have an asterisk.
FoxyFerengi@startrek.website · 22 pts · 283d
All but one of the authors of this paper are dead. I agree with you though, and I would hope a retraction of a paper as serious as this would trigger a review of all the papers connected to the authors.
BilboBargains@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 283d
They ceased to be scientists at that point.This is a problem generally in science. Research is often funded by business and their objectives only ever align with the pursuit of scientific truth by accident. The Open Science initiative has some good mitigations for this problem.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 38 pts · 283d
Those employees and the managers who created the fraud are not named.
krashmo@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 283d
They should be more than named
SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 283d
TLDR: Too big to fail so they didn't fail.
SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 283d
To be clear, this is a gross business failure but this particular business is too big to do that.
Gates9@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 283d
Anyone that has been near an open barrel of glyphosate will tell you it’s obviously poison
frongt@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 282d
Yeah a barrel of concentrated anything is probably poison
FishFace@piefed.social · 6 pts · 283d
It's important to understand that glyphosate has been the subject of a lot of studies. Naturally those studies require increased scrutiny now, in case the same dishonest tactics have been used on others, but the likelihood is that the overall conclusion that glyphosate is safe is still true.
Unfortunately the retraction of a paper by a journal only really harms the scientists who were involved, not the company that instigated the fraud. When there's a financial incentive to subvert scientific transparency, that seems insufficient. But I dunno how you could resolve this legally (or legislatively).
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 283d
No scientists were harmed in this retraction. The PIs are already retired.
FishFace@piefed.social · 5 pts · 283d
Yeah good point. I mean arguably they are still reputationally damaged, but that's also not enough.
wooffersyt@lemmings.world · 5 pts · 283d
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 283d
Reputations don't mean much. Worst that happens is they end up CSO at a biotech.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 283d
They’re dead
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 283d
Institutions are doing this worldwide, they kick the ball on retractions down the road with >15 year invesigations. By the time they report back to the journal, authors have retired. These clowns got famous and held funding for decades.
yucandu@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 283d
Safe for 20+ years of daily chronic exposure?
Randomgal@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 283d
I hope your bit Ag masters are paying you well. Because parroting that Glyphosate is safe in 2025 is kinda crazy NGL
FishFace@piefed.social · 0 pts · 283d
I'm a committed Wikipedia reader, so if you've got a better source to read (or "parrot") then go ahead. If you don't reply I'll know you're on the pocket of big dandelion.
Randomgal@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 283d
Maybe read the whole article then, because it would have told you it is still classified as a probably carcinogenic for humans.
You just decided to ignore the part you didn't like.
FishFace@piefed.social · 4 pts · 283d
Are you referring to this paragraph?
Because I count that as 6 saying "no evidence of a cancer link" and 1 saying "probably carcinogenic."
At the very least, that suggests to me that if it is carcinogenic, it's at such a low level that the effect is hard to measure, and so not worth worrying about.
nosuchanon@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 282d
I thought glycol phosphate pesticides were derivative of Agent Orange that was used in Vietnam.