Monsanto’s Ghostwriting Just Infiltrated the Supreme Court

Monsanto’s ghostwriting just infiltrated the Supreme Court.

Last week, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, made it harder for people to sue the manufacturer of glyphosate - aka Roundup - when they believe it caused their cancer.

The court ruled that Monsanto (now owned by German chemical company Bayer) could not be held liable in the case of a Missouri man who argued that Roundup’s maker had not revealed on its label that it could cause cancer.

SCOTUS agreed with Monsanto that the Environmental Protection Agency declared glyphosate, Roundup’s key ingredient, safe, and it therefore did not require a warning label.

But reporter Nate Halverson uncovered and published that the EPA has known for nearly a decade that Monsanto ghostwrote one of the key studies the Agency was relying on to call glyphosate safe. That peer-reviewed 2013 study, which highlighted the herbicide’s safety, was deemed ghostwritten by the EPA’s own Inspector General office, calling it “research misconduct,” and yet the Agency has continued to rely on it. Now the Supreme Court has cited that compromised EPA report.

Bayer said in a statement that what Monsanto did does not constitute ghostwriting, and that glyphosate is safe when used according to the EPA-approved label.

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