Journal retracts landmark glyphosate paper after 25 years

The journal has retracted a review that Monsanto used to defend the safety of its herbicide Roundup. It now says the review’s conclusions are no longer credible.

For a quarter of a century, a single paper has been Monsanto’s shield.

Cited by regulators across the world, used by industry to shut down debate, and waved in the face of critics, the 2000 review by Williams, Kroes and Munro claimed that glyphosate, found in Monsanto’s Roundup, posed no meaningful cancer risk.

Now, that review has been RETRACTED.

The journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology has published a formal notice, acknowledging that the review, which underpinned global glyphosate policy for decades, is no longer credible.

The review supported billions of dollars in herbicide sales across the world, and now that cornerstone has collapsed.

The retraction confirms that the “science” used to defend the world’s most widely used herbicide was built on industry manipulation — including ghostwriting, undisclosed payments, and reliance on a narrow selection of unpublished Monsanto studies.

It is also an extraordinary vindication for the scientists, journalists and lawyers who spent years exposing what became known as “The Monsanto Papers.”