01/01/2026
A major toxicology journal has retracted a w**d killer study backed by Monsanto, citing ‘serious ethical concerns’. The highly cited paper was used as evidence that the widely used herbicide glyphosate (Roundup) is safe.
In 2017, a lawsuit uncovered internal emails from Monsanto that suggested its employees helped ghostwrite an influential paper that claimed to find no evidence glyphosate caused cancer. Now, the scientific journal that published the 2000 paper has announced it has been retracted.
The paper was withdrawn because of “serious ethical concerns” and questions about the validity of the research findings, toxicologist Martin van den Berg, co-editor-in-chief of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, wrote in a scathing retraction notice released on 28th November. “This article has been widely regarded as a hallmark paper in the discourse surrounding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and Roundup,” wrote van den Berg, who works at Utrecht University. “However, the lack of clarity regarding which parts of the article were authored by Monsanto employees creates uncertainty about the integrity of the conclusions drawn.”
The decision, which came more than 8 years after the initial revelations, can be traced to the work of two scientists who this year filed a retraction request with the journal after documenting the staying power of the disputed paper. “My worry is that people will keep citing it,” says Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University who sought the retraction along with her then postdoctoral researcher, Alexander Kaurov.
In July, the duo published an analysis showing that the now-retracted paper was in the top 0.1% of studies cited in glyphosate-related academic research. They found that citation rates barely budged after the revelations of Monsanto’s hidden involvement, and the paper continued to be used in policy documents. With the retraction, Oreskes hopes “the word will get out” that the study shouldn’t be used as a trusted source of information.
Questions about the paper emerged during a lawsuit against Monsanto, filed by people who claimed their non-Hodgkins lymphoma stemmed from glyphosate exposure. It brought to light internal company documents showing company officials debating how to respond to a 2015 finding by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen. One tactic they considered was to help academic researchers publish papers that supported the company’s claims that the chemical was not a risk to people. A way to do that, a company executive wrote in an email, would be to approach scientists who would “have their names on the publication, but we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just sign their names so to speak.” The email notes that “this is how we handled” the now-retracted paper.
Gary Williams, the paper’s lead author and a former New York Medical College pathologist who retired in 2018, did not respond to a request for comment. The retraction notice states that Williams also did not respond to the journal’s concerns about the paper. The two other authors, Robert Kroes and Ian Munro, are no longer alive.
In addition to the apparent involvement of Monsanto, the retraction announcement notes that the authors only reviewed unpublished studies produced by the company, and neglected to include a number of outside studies that were also not published in peer-reviewed journals. That could have skewed the study’s conclusions, van den Berg wrote.
The paper’s retraction could remove one hurdle for plaintiffs suing Monsanto, says Robin Greenwald, an attorney at the New York City–based law firm Weitz & Luxenberg who is overseeing glyphosate cases for hundreds of individuals. Monsanto “can’t rely on it anymore,” she says.
There may be more retractions coming. Kaurov, who is now studying for a PhD in science in society at New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington, says he and Oreskes recently submitted a retraction request to Critical Reviews in Toxicology for a 2013 paper published under the names of two other authors that does not fully disclose the role Monsanto played in the paper. “It’s not the end of the story,” he says.
For more information see: https://bit.ly/4pGMUY6
and
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901125001765
