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Monsanto(Sept. 6, 2019) Monsanto-paid scientists who published papers supporting Monsanto and attacking the IARC lied about their financial ties to the company. Court documents show that several of the dishonest scientists were among 16 people who signed their names to several published papers which supported Monsanto and attacked the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The occasion for the attack was the IARC’s declaring Monsanto’s glyphosate a probable carcinogen in March 2015.

Editor refuses to retract papers

The ethics-challenged editor who green-lighted the fraudulent papers (Roger McClellan) has refused to retract them. The editor claims that, were his publication to come clean and retract the papers published under the false pretense of being free of Monsanto involvement or influence, he might hurt reputations and negatively affect Monsanto’s interests in the Roundup litigation.

Secret Monsanto Minions

The secret Monsanto minions used their names and reputations in an effort to discredit the IARC after it announced in March 2015 that glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup were probably carcinogenic to people. Monsanto commissioned the so-called “scientists” specifically for the purpose of trying to make the IARC look self-serving and untrustworthy. The fallout has turned the tables and shown the truth:  Monsanto is a malignancy which is completely self-serving and untrustworthy.

Monsanto’s whole black operation to deceive the public came to light following legal discovery in one of the Roundup cancer lawsuits filed against Monsanto, which is now owned by the German chemical giant Bayer AG.

Monsanto used the power of its deep pockets to secretly influence a set of papers published in the scientific journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology.  The secret exercise of industry power was so unethical that the publisher investigated it. Those findings determined that least three of the papers should be retracted. The U.S. Right to Know web site reports that the entire Monsanto subterfuge is in evidence, according to a series of internal journal communications. The episode also implicates the editor, Roger McClellan, who still refuses to retract the papers, which declared there were no cancer concerns with Monsanto herbicides like Roundup. Emails revealed through FOIA requests show that the editor claimed a retraction could have impacted last summer’s first Roundup trial – which despite the lies resulted in a $289 million verdict – and harmed the authors’ reputations.

Lawyers representing several thousand people suing Monsanto over Roundup found the journal communications through discovery. Three trials have seen all three juries render huge punitive damages against Monsanto. All the juries sided with the plaintiffs who argued that Roundup was carcinogenic, and that Monsanto knew it was and covered up the damning evidence.

The emails show a major scientific publishing house wrestling for its soul as the editor and other employees fight over whether they should come clean on the Monsanto deception. The editor and others discuss how they should confront the problem of rank dishonesty in the published papers.

The emails were obtained as part of a deposition of Roger McClellan, the longtime editor in chief of the peer-reviewed journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology (CRT.)

Monsanto-paid Scientists lied about Financial Ties

US Right to Knows explains that CRT published the papers in question in September 2016 as an “Independent Review” of the carcinogenic potential of the weed-killing agent glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and other brands. The five papers published as part of the review directly contradicted the findings of the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. In 2015, the IARC found glyphosate to be a probable human carcinogen. The 16 authors of the papers concluded that the weight of evidence showed the weed killer was unlikely to pose any carcinogenic risk to people.

The authors stated in the publication that their conclusions were free of Monsanto’s intervention. Emphatic language trumpeted their lie. The paper’s legend included this whopper: “Neither any Monsanto company employees nor any attorneys reviewed any of the Expert Panel’s manuscripts prior to submission to the journal.”

A Blatant Lie – $27,400 for starters

In the fall of 2017, that statement was proven to be a blatant lie. Internal Monsanto records showed extensive involvement by Monsanto scientists in the drafting and editing of the papers. Records also showed that Monsanto helped choose the authors. Internal records also showed direct payments to at least two of the so-called “independent” authors. Monsanto had a contract with author Larry Kier, for just one example, paying him $27,400 for his work on the papers.

In response to those revelations and questions from media outlets, CRT publisher  Taylor & Francis Group  launched an investigation in the fall of 2017. The newly released communications reveal that after months questioning the papers’ authors, a team of legal and ethics experts put together by Taylor & Francis concluded the authors had hidden Monsanto’s direct involvement in the papers, and had done so knowingly. The emails show some of the authors did not even fully disclose Monsanto involvement in initial questioning by Taylor & Francis during the investigation.

US Right to Know reports that the papers published under the fraudulent cover of “independent” scientists were never retracted. In September of 2018 they were only “updated” to carry an “Expression of Concern” and updates to the acknowledgements and declaration of interests. But despite Monsanto’s involvement, the papers are still titled with the word “independent,”  which we now know is blatant fraud.

The “update” might have added that the papers’ publication was “independent” of the truth of the matter, another clear example of how Monsanto money can make wrong right, black white, lies truth.

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