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Monsanto Leaks Suggest It Tried To Kill Cancer Research On Roundup Weed Killer (rt.com)
Danny Hakim reports via The New York Times (Warning: article may be paywalled; alternate source): Documents released Tuesday in a lawsuit against Monsanto raised new questions about the company's efforts to influence the news media and scientific research and revealed internal debate over the safety of its highest-profile product, the weed killer Roundup. The active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, is the most common weed killer in the world and is used by farmers on row crops and by home gardeners. While Roundup's relative safety has been upheld by most regulators, a case in federal court in San Francisco continues to raise questions about the company's practices and the product itself.
The documents underscore the lengths to which the agrochemical company goes to protect its image. Documents show that Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes's website in 2015. Mr. Miller could not be reached for comment. A similar issue appeared in academic research. An academic involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, "I can't be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication." He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: "We call that ghost writing and it is unethical." Mr. Miller's 2015 article on Forbes's website was an attack on the findings of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization that had labeled glyphosate a probable carcinogen, a finding disputed by other regulatory bodies. In the email traffic, Monsanto asked Mr. Miller if he would be interested in writing an article on the topic, and he said, "I would be if I could start from a high-quality draft." The article appeared under Mr. Miller's name, and with the assertion that "opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own." The magazine did not mention any involvement by Monsanto in preparing the article.
The documents underscore the lengths to which the agrochemical company goes to protect its image. Documents show that Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes's website in 2015. Mr. Miller could not be reached for comment. A similar issue appeared in academic research. An academic involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, "I can't be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication." He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: "We call that ghost writing and it is unethical." Mr. Miller's 2015 article on Forbes's website was an attack on the findings of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization that had labeled glyphosate a probable carcinogen, a finding disputed by other regulatory bodies. In the email traffic, Monsanto asked Mr. Miller if he would be interested in writing an article on the topic, and he said, "I would be if I could start from a high-quality draft." The article appeared under Mr. Miller's name, and with the assertion that "opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own." The magazine did not mention any involvement by Monsanto in preparing the article.
Company kills people for profit, then covers it up?
How is this news? It's called "capitalism".
Learn to love Alaska
uh, yeah. Sounds like he'd be interested getting a fat check for signing a prepared statement on the bottom line. That goes way beyond '"ghost writing" when you can't even be bothered to write up the biased opinion yourself.
It's good to see how some of them rebuffed the offer though. This looks like a good example of all the colors of the ethics rainbow.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I'm holding all of you responsible for letting Monsanto get away with this for so long.
Just for a bit of perspective:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Nitrates, which are found in pretty much any kind of meat or leafy vegetable
Nearly everything that comes out of the tailpipe of a car
An organic compound found in most essential oils and grapefruit juice
Rubber
The topical medicine used to kill lice
A compound formed when cooking any meat
An organic compound found in algae and kelp
A compound used to make synthetic glycerol used in medical applications
Ironically, some of the chemicals used to treat certain types of cancers
An antibiotic on the WHO's list of essential medications
Most steroids
One of the most popular drugs used to treat diabetes
Most fire retardants, including the one usually used in solar cells
The drink Mate
Pretty much anything that is fried
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
What is our FUCKING RESPONSE when a corporation willfully TRIES TO KILL AMERICAN CITIZENS FOR PROFIT?
What's really amazing is how they're able to KILL AMERICAN CITIZENS with a horrible carcinogen whose use has increased thousands of percent in the last two decades, while still having the actual cancer rate decline in the same period of time. Dastardly!
https://seer.cancer.gov/statfa...
Using statistical models for analysis, rates for new cancer of any site cases have been falling on average 1.1% each year over the last 10 years. Death rates have been falling on average 1.5% each year over 2005-2014.
Not the first, second or third time Monsanto have been implicated in major scandals.
Products banned in Europe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Hated by customers?
https://www.euractiv.com/secti...
A bad investment?
https://www.fool.com/investing...
Banning advertisements thus banning new competition to the market and adding more tax.
that's the response something else got so..
basically I guess it would be like banning others from making similar chemicals and then just skimming more money from roundup sales.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
"Anyone who values science over fear is a corporate shill". Gotcha.
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
"while still having the actual cancer rate decline in the same period of time. " You didn't prove that's related whatsoever.
Not only did i not prove that's related, i didn't even claim it.
You fail statistics.
Not really, but you fail basic reading comprehension.
This is yet another technology where there is a clear need for strong regulation, IMO. Gene manipulation is a technology that has huge potential implications, both good and bad; it can - and probably will in the future - be used to improve crop yields and add disease resistance, and it is of course already being tried out in gene therapies for a number of serious conditions. We could produce many important chemicals - drugs and other - in a cheap and easy way by modifying a suitable micro organism. But as Monsanto and others have demonstrated, companies and individuals driven by short-sighted greed can potentially cause enormous harm, not the least of which is the damage to public trust in this technology. Maybe this is too radical, but I am probably in favour on a complete ban on the commercial exploitation on gene editing technology until we have a set of strong and clear, global regulations in place; all research into this should be publicly funded and published in open access journals.
I know there's negatives to round-up, but considering how much more efficient farmers are these days, was it a positive?
That depends on how you define positive.
Some may not see biodiversity going down as positive.
Some may not see glyphosate resistant weeds as positive.
And some may not see family farms closing down or being transformed to agricultural factories as positive.
You did claim that.
You did claim that.
No, i really didn't.
The parent claimed Monsanto was KILLING AMERICAN CITIZENS. I merely wonder where the piles of dead people are. I suspect it is news to the AC that cancer in the U.S. has been declining steadily for a long time.
The rest is just empty fluff and cherry picked quotes.
All basically amounting to what any scientist would say is proper description of what is currently known or unknown, based on current research.
"You cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen ... we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement."
...
"we can make that statement about glyphosate and can infer that there is no reason to believe that Roundup would cause cancer."
Which is a quote cherry picked out of context from the actual email:
As explanation for some of our edits - in many parts of the world there is no such formulation
being sold called "Roundup". In addition, in the US we have some lawn and garden products with the Roundup name on them but they contain other active ingredients in addition to glyphosate and they may have different properties from glyphosate.
That is why we were using the phrase Roundup herbicides or Roundup agricultural herbicides.
When possible it is preferable to use the name of the product that is actually being used and the data that supports that particular formulation.
The terms glyphosate and Roundup cannot be used interchangeably nor can you use "Roundup" for all glyphosate-based herbicides any more. ... we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement.
For example you cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen
The testing on the formulations are not anywhere near the level of the active ingredient. We can make that statement about glyphosate and can infer that there is no reason to believe that Roundup would cause cancer.
Another case is quite literally cherry picked to make it sound like "See? They KNOW it causes cancer! AND THEY ARE HIDING IT FROM US!!!eleven1"
In a 2002 email, a Monsanto executive said, "What I've been hearing from you is that this continues to be the case with these studies - Glyphosate is O.K. but the formulated product (and thus the surfactant) does the damage."
Actual linked email shows that one person summarizes an entire study as "glyphosate all basicially had no effect the formulated product did - does this point us to the coformulants - sufactants?" - and the other person replies with the quote above.
The rest is just the story about how a guy whose blog was hosted on Forbes's website was lazy, asked for a draft from Monsanto, copy/pasted it and presented it as his own work - and then got his op-ed kicked off of Forbes but not off of The New York Times.
Oh and... Monsanto's lawyers may have a case against the company which released the emails.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
That depends on how you define positive.
Some may not see biodiversity going down as positive.
By protecting yield, intensification methods such as GMOs improve biodiversity by reducing the amount of land area required for agriculture, which leaves more land to the wild.
Some may not see glyphosate resistant weeds as positive.
Weeds adapt to every form of control. Pull them by hand and they break off at the stem and regrow. Roundup is one tool among many.
And some may not see family farms closing down or being transformed to agricultural factories as positive.
Family farms comprised 99% of U.S. farms in 2016, which is up from 97% in 2012.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/publi...
What's really amazing is how they're able to KILL AMERICAN CITIZENS with a horrible carcinogen whose use has increased thousands of percent in the last two decades, while still having the actual cancer rate decline in the same period of time. Dastardly!
So what you're saying is that everyone else is making major efforts to reduce carcinogens, except Monsanto?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Family farms comprised 99% of U.S. farms in 2016, which is up from 97% in 2012.
Count acreage or stop.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Or lock the farmers into having to buy their seeds from one certain manufacturer. Essentially, GMO allow a few companies to control the world's food supply.
And then there's lawsuits due to patent and other forms of IP issues. "Sorry, you're gonna starve now because you infringed our copyright."
His fundamental point is accurate. If Monsanto and Round-Up are giving cancer to so many people, why haven't we noticed?
Some may not see biodiversity going down as positive.
Biodiversity goes down because of market forces, economies of scale, and distribution logistics. It was happening long before GMOs ever entered the picture. Now, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the solution isn't banning GMOs. You have to do something to address the economic pressures if you want to see change.
Some may not see glyphosate resistant weeds as positive.
Herbicide-resistant weeds existed long before GMOs. Combating them is always an arms race between developing a better (read "more effective") herbicide and the spread of resistance. A lot of strategies are put in place to deal with this, not the least of which is application management. Analogous is the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. We can develop new antibiotics, but it turns out one of the most effective ways of combating resistance is using your existing antibiotics better.
And some may not see family farms closing down or being transformed to agricultural factories as positive.
See #1. As another reply noted, there are plenty of family farms. They just are not your picturesque "cottage out on the prairie with a field of corn" farms. Farming is hard work and involves a lot of risk. It is not that easy to succeed.
while still having the actual cancer rate decline in the same period of time.
You didn't say that?
The real problem is not discovering yet another corporation lying about how dangerous their product is. The real problem is nothing is being done about it. There's not a fucking thing that will come out of these latest "shocking" revelations. Never has. Never will.
You want to know how insane it is? If sanctions were actually taken against Monsanto for poisoning food crops and killing people, their lawyers would point to the tobacco industry and say, "Hey! No fair! How come they get to kill people and we can't?!?"
Greed N. Corruption runs capitalism today, and the lack of action taken against deadly corporations shows that it is sanctioned at the highest levels. The reason is quite simple; resource management is a responsibility held by every government, and population control is a key component of that responsibility.
Before you label that a conspiracy, take a good hard look at how many deadly products are legal today. Why would Greed ever want to cure cancer? There's trillions to be made treating it instead and it ensures deaths. Outlaw tobacco? Yeah right. That's another Win-Win industry.
Death is no longer merely a side-effect of life. It is now manufactured.
Years ago, the prototype of Tony Blair and Hilary Clinton gained supreme power in the UK- Margaret Thatcher. One of her major acts was to end a Human Farming Protocol more than TWENTY Thousand years old- and started the process of having cows and sheep fed with ANIMAL material. At the time slashdot-like pseudo-technical publications attacked protestors and claimed that to be anti-Thatcher was to be 'anti-science'
Thus did the Human world receive CJD, Mad Cow Disease- whatever you wish to call it. Today there has been an explosion in 'altzheimers' like mental issues in the elderly as a result. A level of Human suffering gifted by Thatcher beyond comprehension.
And Monsanto- and its supporters- are exponentially worse.
Natural evolution is limited by natural processes and mutations have to survive exposure in the real world. What Monsanto does- by design- could never happen naturally. And that is the entire point of their business model. So changes are made to the gene structure of plants that never would happen in nature, regardless of time or circumstance.
The 'whoops we never expected that to happen- but it's too late now' is the great joke inside Monsanto- because the company exists only to make a lot of people very very very rich- and when the worst happens those people will still have their money.
The 'gene manipulation is good for us' propaganda has been pushed since the 1950s- long before doing so was commercially viable. In the early 70s, infamous BBC child propaganda show, Blue Peter, ran a segment on manmade animals living on the moon.
We do not know, and have no current models to let us know, what a safe manipulation of our ecosystem represents. Thatcher and Monsanto act(ed) as they do only as an expression of power- and not as an expression of good science. And propagandists were paid to suggest that both are sensible and desirable. Every good word about Monsanto is a BOUGHT word.
The Great Extinctions that have happened so many times in our planet's history show life's vulnerabilities. Monsanto is a for-profit entity with the closest links to bio-weapons programs in the UK, USA and Israel. You find some 'good' in what Monsanto has done so far- well I'll trump you and find some 'good' in a certain cursed regime in last century Germany. Monsanto is part of the military-industrial complex, and just because soldiers might sometimes dig wells doesn't mean their prime purpose is not for murdering other Humans.
Tony Blair and Clinton are rock solid supporters of Monsanto- bit of a clue don't you think?
Monsanto is, after all, one of the nastiest, sociopathic and evil corporations on the planet.
Monsanto is hardly the only, first, or last corporation who is willing to risk innocent lives in pursuit of profit. This is a time-worn tradition.
So we know our response: nothing at all.
while still having the actual cancer rate decline in the same period of time.
You didn't say that?
You apparently didn't get the point. I didn't say the fact that cancer is declining is evidence that Monsanto is somehow saving people. I'm asking for evidence that they're killing them. The presumption here is that Roundup is causing fatal cancers, and since Roundup use is way up since the advent of RR crops, we should expect a dramatic signal in cancer rates if that is the case. So where are the victims? In fact, most people believe there has been an increase in the cancer rate (many think it is skyrocketing), so stories about evil Roundup kick in their confirmation bias. They have to be pointed at the actual statistics to learn that no, the overall cancer rate is actually declining—this is so profound a correction to their worldview it occasionally causes them to think about what else they may have got wrong.
Despite extensive study, no one is able to identify any increase in individual cancer rates attributable to use of Roundup; the most anyone can say is that non-Hodgkin's lymphoma might be correlated.
Do i really have to explain this to you, or are you just being disingenuous?
Family farms comprised 99% of U.S. farms in 2016, which is up from 97% in 2012.
Count acreage or stop.
Why? The claim was that family farms are being shut down or being turned into factories.
Nonetheless, family farms accounted for 88% of farmland in 2012, and 94% in 2016.
You can't guarantee unbiased research when money and politics are involved. The anti-Monsanto crowd will fund potentially flawed research to destroy Monsanto. Monsanto has to fund research to defend themselves against politically-motivated smear campaigns. Both sides are going to accuse each other of bias and they are both neither correct nor incorrect on those accusations.
So, the only way to make this work is for the researchers themselves to be part of a double-blind study. They can't be allowed to know whether the samples they are testing are real or fake until the studies are completed. Then and only then will you know if the results are bogus.
Hillary has nothing to do with a throne
People on thrones don't get 2.86 million MORE "consent of the governed" that grants the legitimate right to exercise power.
The headline states: "Monsanto Leaks Suggest It Tried To Kill Cancer Research On Roundup Weed Killer"
The summary goes on to make various aspersions about authorship credit, which is not the same thing at all! Sheesh, while I know this is Slashdot, it is unusual for the reading comprehension to be THIS bad.
The article itself is a bunch of selective misquoting in an attempt to portray a narrative that they desperately want to believe in. I have to say I'm very disappointed in the NYT. Some of the more important points:
Documents show that Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes’s website in 2015.
and then a bit further down
An academic involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, “I can’t be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication.” He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: “We call that ghost writing and it is unethical.”
while Mr. Acquavella said in an email on Tuesday that “there was no ghostwriting” and that his comments had been related to an early draft and a question over authorship that was resolved.
In the first case, an academic professor who was not paid solicited an article from Monsanto and put his own name on it. Lazy and unethical, yes, but more on the professor than on Monsanto, and nothing to do with academic research. In the second case, there was a squabble about authorship and attribution, which is entirely common in academic publishing. Apparently it was resolved, nothing was suppressed.
In another part of the article:
In a 2002 email, a Monsanto executive said, “What I’ve been hearing from you is that this continues to be the case with these studies — Glyphosate is O.K. but the formulated product (and thus the surfactant) does the damage.”
In a 2003 email, a different Monsanto executive tells others, “You cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement.”
So, they are internally debating what they can say (legally or scientifically) about the product. And the problem is...what exactly?
So tell me how getting rid of regulations will make businesses more honest and ethical so they don't try to deceive the scientific community or the public.
I sincerely do want an explanation of the sequence, the cause and effect, that will occur to prompt businesses to behave better.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
You did claim that.
No, i really didn't.
The parent claimed Monsanto was KILLING AMERICAN CITIZENS. I merely wonder where the piles of dead people are. I suspect it is news to the AC that cancer in the U.S. has been declining steadily for a long time.
You do have to be careful about cancer statistics. The way cancer death is counted is for only 5 years. So the way it was described to me was this: If you created a test that could detect cancer 5 years earlier that we currently do, then you would have a 100% survival rate for the cancer. Even though you did not treat the cancer, you just detected it earlier and the die at the exact same point the would have even if you never detected that they had it. So don't trust the cancer statistics, they don't relate to real people and real cancers.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
You do have to be careful about cancer statistics. The way cancer death is counted is for only 5 years. So the way it was described to me was this: If you created a test that could detect cancer 5 years earlier that we currently do, then you would have a 100% survival rate for the cancer. Even though you did not treat the cancer, you just detected it earlier and the die at the exact same point the would have even if you never detected that they had it. So don't trust the cancer statistics, they don't relate to real people and real cancers.
Incidence is down along with the death rate, and that is despite continuing improvements in detection.