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Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter For Some Safety Reviews (bloomberg.com)
Reader schwit1 writes: Dozens of internal Monsanto emails, released on Aug. 1 by plaintiffs lawyers who are suing the company, reveal how Monsanto worked with an outside consulting firm to induce the scientific journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology to publish a purported independent review
of Roundups health effects that appears to be anything but. The review, published along with four subpapers in a September 2016 special supplement, was aimed at rebutting the 2015 assessment by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen (PDF). That finding by the cancer-research arm of the World Health Organization led California last month to list glyphosate as a known human carcinogen. It has also spurred more than 1,000 lawsuits in state and federal courts by plaintiffs who claim they contracted non-Hodgkin lymphoma from Roundup exposure. Monsanto disclosed that it paid Intertek Group Plc consulting unit to develop the review supplement, entitled An Independent Review of the Carcinogenic Potential of Glyphosate. But that was the extent of Monsantos involvement, the main article said. The Expert Panelists were engaged by, and acted as consultants to, Intertek, and were not directly contacted by the Monsanto Company, according to the reviews Declaration of Interest statement. Neither any Monsanto company employees nor any attorneys reviewed any of the Expert Panels manuscripts prior to submission to the journal.
Even if they are proved to be dangerous. They won't fix it. And if you do sue them. It will be your tax dollars: For court fees. And the settlement will probably come out of your taxes. They know how to buy Lobbyists and manipulate laws. You can't fight big companies. Look what happened to Flint Michigan.. nothing. People cant move from their houses until they pay for utility repairs and their houses are not worth squat.
The Declaration of Interest statement was rewritten per McClellan’s instructions, despite being untrue.
Just a paragraph up:
Specifically, McClellan told Roberts to make clear how the panelists were hired--"ie by Intertek," McClellan wrote. "If you can say without consultation with Monsanto, that would be great. If there was any review of the reports by Monsanto or their legal representatives, that needs to be disclosed."
McClellan instructed them to disclose any contact. If they didn't, then that's not a fault of McClellan's instructions, and McClellan's instructions were not followed.
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Well it only damages trust if they are caught.
However the GMO Crazies are mainly a subset of all companies are evil crazy. Means an article posted by them, will immediately be considered false and lies. Much like a report from the Tobacco industry saying smoking doesn't cause cancer. And the from the Oil Industry saying carbon doesn't cause global warming.
Granted they should had posted it with their own name, just so if other independent results confirm it, they look all the better.
But in general for Science Reporting for man made things, are politically charged.
Liberal groups have a hard time accepting science which says man made product is safe. (GMO, Vaccines)
Conservative groups have a hard time accepting science saying that a product is dangerous. (Global Warming, Tobacco)
In a culture where we are unable to trust science, because of all the bad science going on.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It would be great if there were an independent review, from credible and qualified individuals, of the conflicting studies to perform some sort of validation and also to point out the potential flaws or margins of error. But who would choose and fund that review? It would be ideal if the two opposing entities funded it together, but that's not gonna happen.
My biggest concern with these 'causes cancer' studies is that its always a matter of levels of exposure, and there often is a big hole when it comes to what level of exposure a typical user would encounter, and what risk that presents, and how that compares with other risks. In my opinion, any study that puts forth an association of cancer to a product is incomplete, and sometimes even negligent, when they stop without attempting to answer that questions whilst leaving the public to assume the worst. But to be fair to those performing the studies, often its the media that simply takes the study and mis-characterizes its findings for either clicks or agenda.
That's not even necessary. Journals have conflict of interest disclosure rules; any potential conflict such as funding from an interested party is disclosed when the paper is published, and everything is kosher.
In fact if you go to the paper itself, here's the relevant bit from the disclosure statement:
The Expert Panelists were engaged by, and acted as consultants to, Intertek, and were not directly contacted by the Monsanto Company. Funding for this evaluation was provided to Intertek by the Monsanto Company which is a primary producer of glyphosate and products containing this active ingredient. Neither any Monsanto company employees nor any attorneys reviewed any of the Expert Panel's manuscripts prior to submission to the journal.
[emphasis mine]
The bit I've highlighted is the crux of this matter. The accusation was that those bits were false.
Deliberately misrepresentation on a conflict of interest statement constitutes scientific fraud.
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I wonder if any regular Slashdot reader has knowledge of the 10Ks that were filed by Monsanto during this period. Under Securities Law, the SEC requires that publicly listed companies like Monsanto complete a number of publications. The annual 10K includes a section, (Item 1A, Risk Factors) in which Monsanto should have been fully disclosing the risks that they were attempting to protect with the edits that they were inducing these "independent" specialists to produce.
If the "evidence" that was being claimed via these "independent" results were substantially different from what the company knew to be reality, then it is entirely within the realm of possibility that a class-action lawsuit could be raised by shareholders who could reasonably claim that they were materially misled.
Why am I focusing on this dimension first and foremost? Simply because we've seen how little large corporations care for the opinions of employees, of adversely affected clients, of the neighbours to their industrial plants, pipelines and processing centres or even the law. The only thing that really seems to worry a CEO these days is a posse of angry shareholders with the power to vote them out of their job.
What about the surfactants (sp?) that are mixed into roundup to break the surface tension and allow the glyphosate to penetrate the plants? They're usually a trade secret, not studied and also a potential carcinogen. Roundup is not just glyphosate, which at least breaks down real quick and appears to be quite safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism