Internal emails revealed Monsanto employees ghostwrote scientific papers and paid academics to sign them. Company knew glyphosate might cause cancer but published studies claiming safety.
“Roundup has been extensively studied and regulatory agencies worldwide consider it safe”
From “crazy” to confirmed
The Claim Is Made
This is the moment they called it crazy.
When you buy a bottle of Roundup at a hardware store, you're trusting that the safety claims on the label reflect genuine scientific consensus. For decades, Monsanto told regulators, farmers, and the public that glyphosate—the active ingredient—was safe. What emerged in court documents and internal emails told a different story entirely.
The official narrative was straightforward: independent scientists had studied glyphosate thoroughly and found no credible link to cancer. Monsanto pointed to published research in peer-reviewed journals as proof. Regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe cited this body of work when approving the herbicide for widespread use. When activists raised concerns about potential carcinogenic effects, Monsanto and its defenders dismissed them as unscientific fearmongering.
But in 2017, as litigation mounted from cancer patients claiming Roundup exposure caused their illnesses, internal communications surfaced that undermined this narrative. Emails obtained through discovery revealed that Monsanto employees had essentially written scientific papers themselves, then recruited academics to attach their names as authors. The company paid these researchers for their participation. More troublingly, internal discussions showed company scientists discussing potential cancer risks—concerns that never made it into the published literature they were controlling.
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A Reuters investigation in 2018 documented how Monsanto orchestrated what amounted to ghostwriting campaigns. The emails showed explicit discussions about having academics serve as "authors" on studies designed to defend glyphosate's safety profile. One internal message discussed a planned publication strategy with language like "we can get the first [paper] out without having to discuss 'long term carcinogenicity.'" These weren't independent scientific reviews—they were industry-funded advocacy dressed in the language of peer-reviewed research.
The company also commissioned its own research but buried findings that contradicted its public position. Internal toxicology studies raised red flags about glyphosate's potential to cause cancer, yet these concerns were compartmentalized away from regulatory submissions and public statements. When regulators asked about cancer risks, Monsanto cited the ghostwritten papers as evidence of safety, creating a circular argument: we published studies saying it's safe, therefore it's safe.
What made this claim verifiable was the paper trail itself. Legal discovery in multiple lawsuits produced thousands of pages of emails, memos, and internal documents. These weren't accusations or speculation—they were Monsanto's own words, written by employees tasked with managing the company's scientific narrative. The documents showed a deliberate strategy to shape the appearance of scientific consensus while suppressing contradictory evidence.
The revelations matter because they expose how corporate interests can infiltrate the scientific record. When a company funds research, recruits the researchers, writes the conclusions, and then pays them to publish under their names, the entire premise of independent peer review collapses. Regulators, doctors, and the public cannot make informed decisions when the scientific literature has been systematically corrupted.
This case demonstrates why institutional trust has eroded. Monsanto wasn't accused of hiding data—the evidence of ghostwriting was explicit and contemporaneous. The company had the resources and sophistication to know better, yet chose a different path. Years later, juries awarded billions to cancer patients, and Monsanto's parent company Bayer faced ongoing litigation. By then, countless people had been exposed to a product that the company's own scientists questioned—all while the public read ghostwritten reassurances.
Beat the odds
This had a 0.9% chance of leaking — someone talked anyway.
Conspirators
~200Network
Secret kept
11.1 years
Time to 95% exposure
500+ years
