WASHINGTON (DTN) -- The decision of Elsevier, a Dutch academic publishing company, to retract a safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for humans, is causing a worldwide furor.

Elsevier issued a retraction on a glyphosate study initially published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmology in April 2000. The 25-year-old study has been used by regulators such as the Environmental Protection Agency in assessments to approve use of the herbicide.

In explaining the retraction, the publisher stated, "Concerns were raised regarding the authorship of this paper, validity of the research findings in the context of misrepresentation of the contributions by the authors and the study sponsor and potential conflicts of interest of the authors. I, the handling (co)Editor-in-Chief of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, reached out to the sole surviving author Gary M. Williams and sought explanation for the various concerns which have been listed in detail below. We did not receive any response from Prof. Williams."

Writer Carey Gilliam noted in an analysis in The New Lede, "Regulators around the world have cited the paper as evidence of the safety of glyphosate herbicides, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in this assessment."

The Center for Biological Diversity said, "The study, which found that glyphosate poses no cancer or other health risks to people, was retracted because it relied exclusively on unpublished Monsanto studies. The study failed to review any research that was not conducted by Monsanto, the maker of glyphosate, now owned by Bayer. The journal also found that the paper may have been ghostwritten by Monsanto employees and that financial compensation from Monsanto was not disclosed."

"The pesticide industry's decades of efforts to hijack the science and manipulate it to boost its profits is finally being exposed," said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

"The EPA must take immediate action to reassess its finding that glyphosate is not a carcinogen. That means rather than relying on Monsanto's confidential research of its own product, the agency needs to follow the gold standard of independent science established by the World Health Organization in its finding that glyphosate probably causes cancer."

On Monday, in a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, Solicitor General John Sauer, appointed by the Trump administration in April, told the court it should take up an appeal from Bayer that the company hopes could help it quash ongoing lawsuits inherited when it bought Monsanto in 2018, The New Lede said in another article.

As DTN reported, the Solicitor General on Monday argued that when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency created specific labeling requirements when it determined glyphosate is "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans" consistently since 1991, it approved Roundup labels without cancer warnings and prohibited Bayer from adding warnings without agency approval.

But EPA is in the midst of its registration review process for glyphosate, which happens every 15 years, AgFunder News said in an analysis.

Bayer told AgFunder News: "Glyphosate is the most extensively studied herbicide over the past 50 years. Thousands of studies have been conducted on the safety of glyphosate products. The vast majority of published studies on glyphosate had no Monsanto involvement."

"Regarding this specific Williams et al paper, we believe Monsanto's involvement was appropriately cited in the acknowledgments, which clearly states: 'We thank the toxicologists and other scientists at Monsanto who made significant contributions to the development of exposure assessments and through many other discussions,' and further identifies several 'key personnel at Monsanto who provided scientific support.'"

Health Canada said Thursday that its decision to approve glyphosate will not be affected by this development, The Canadian Press reported.

Health Canada said in a written statement that "the retraction of this review does not affect our previous review conclusions" because the department also independently evaluated the primary data sources used in the 2000 review paper, The Canadian Press added.

DTN Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton contributed to this report.

See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/….

The New Lede: https://www.thenewlede.org/….

Also see, "US Solicitor General Backs Bayer's Supreme Court Bid to End Roundup Lawsuits," https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Jerry Hagstrom can be reached at jhagstrom@nationaljournal.com

Follow him on social platform X @hagstromreport

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