By Alexander Kaurov and Naomi Oreskes. Kaurov is a Ph.D. astrophysicist and Ph.D. candidate in the School of Science in Society at Victoria University of Wellington, specializing in computational analysis of scientific discourse. Oreskes is a historian of science at Harvard University whose scholarship traces corporate influence on research and regulation, and author of the books “Merchants of Doubt” and “Why Trust Science?” Originally published at Undark.
In October 2026, the Environmental Protection Agency must release its decision on the use of America’s most widely used herbicide, glyphosate. It will mark a milestone in the 15-year registration review cycle for pesticides (the umbrella legal term in the U.S. which includes herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides) mandated under federal law. The deadline for the decision, originally scheduled for 2022, was extended to 2026 after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the EPA to reconsider its preliminary conclusion that glyphosate was “not likely” to cause cancer.
This time, however, the EPA heads into the review under dramatically reduced capacity. President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget proposes a 55 percent cut for the agency. In July 2025, the Trump administration began to dismantle the agency’s Office of Research and Development, with plans to lay off more than 3,700 employees — roughly three‑quarters of its research staff and about a fifth of its total workforce. Former EPA administrators warn that this will strip the agency of its in‑house toxicologists, chemists, and epidemiologists — the experts who generate much of the primary data that undergird almost every rule the agency writes.
Besides increasing the possibility that glyphosate and reviews of other pesticides will be further delayed, what else can we expect from this situation? Already, we’ve seen numerous reversals of policy and cancellations of data collection projects under the new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect more antiregulatory moves.
Limiting the agency’s internal scientific capacity increases its reliance on external expertise and scientific literature, so the agency will have to trust the robustness of published research. But is the scientific record robust enough?
Peer review is supposed to safeguard the accuracy of published science, including keeping it clean from contamination by paper mills, undisclosed conflicts of interest, manipulated data, corporate misconduct, and other forms of malpractice. Unfortunately, the scientific literature has proven far too easy to compromise.
Consider a single review paper published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology in 2000 about Roundup, the trade name for Monsanto’s widely used glyphosate-based herbicide. Authored by three researchers — Gary M. Williams, Robert Kroes, and Ian C. Munro — who disclosed no conflicts of interest, the paper concluded that “under present and expected conditions of use, Roundup herbicide does not pose a health risk to humans.”
In 2017, internal corporate emails released during federal litigation against Monsanto revealed that the paper was largely conceived and drafted by Monsanto employees. (The company denies this, but the evidence is overwhelming.) In these communications, employees praised one another for contributing to the manuscript, including “writing” it — despite not being listed as authors and only thanked in the acknowledgements for providing “scientific support.”
In short, the paper was ghostwritten — a clear violation of any imaginable standard of scientific ethics.
A Monsanto employee expressed hope that the review would become “‘the’ reference on Roundup and glyphosate safety,” and it did. In our recent research published in Environmental Science and Policy, we show that this paper is in the top 0.1 percent of cited academic literature on glyphosate. The vast majority of papers that cite it offer no acknowledgment of its questionable origins. This fraudulent paper has become deeply integrated into and influential in the scientific record.
The paper’s influence has spread far beyond academia. Government documents from public health agencies around the world — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Health New Zealand: Te Whatu Ora — cite this ghostwritten paper without caveats even after the 2017 revelations, affecting policy and shaping public perception of glyphosate’s safety. A 2011 Canadian Forest Service publication, for instance, answers a question about whether glyphosate causes cancer and is an endocrine disruptor with the following:
No. Based on the weight of available scientific evidence, several regulatory and independent scientific review panels conclude that glyphosate is non-carcinogenic, does not cause birth defects or genetic alterations, and does not act as an endocrine disruptor in whole animal systems under realistic exposure regimes.
The answer references the paper and continues, saying “Such reviews conducted by highly qualified professional toxicologists and risk assessment specialists provide the most credible and reliable sources of information.”
The public has also been influenced by this paper. Who among us hasn’t turned to Wikipedia for information? It is a frequent top Google search result, and now it is part of the training datasets for many artificial intelligence models. The paper is mentioned in popular Wikipedia articles about Roundup and glyphosate-based herbicides (though there are ongoing attempts to remove it). We analyzed the editing history of these entries and found that although several editors had attempted to note the review’s ghostwritten origins, these notes were systematically excluded by higher level editors.
On Wikipedia’s discussion pages, users report how influential these Wikipedia articles are in their local communities. One comment reads: “The content of this article is dangerous. I work in the agricultural sector in Southern France. I was at a meeting with some farmers discussing safety when a guy addressed the crowd and literally quoted this article stating that glyphosate does not cause cancer and is less dangerous than table salt.” It goes on to say, “This article is used by active farmers as an excuse not [to] bother with safety equipment and appropriate practices.”
In 2018, after the revelations, some Wikipedia editors expressed frustration when the paper persisted as a reference: “I’m not sure why editors are pushing so hard for inclusion of this particular source when multiple non-controversial and more authoritative sources exist for this content.”
Wikipedia’s editorial guidelines encourage citing peer-reviewed literature, but the rules on which sources should be used are flexible. Its editors justify including the paper on the grounds that it was published in a peer-reviewed journal and has never been retracted.
The journal the paper appeared in had been previously implicated in scandals for publishing industry-friendly studies, specifically ones for the tobacco industry. One 2017 analysis showed that 96 percent of the tobacco or nicotine papers in this journal published between January 2013 and June 2015 had authors with tobacco industry ties, and none of the papers drew negative conclusions. Since then, the journal has changed editors and now states: “Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, as the journal serving developments for improvement of human health and environment, will not consider manuscripts that have been supported by tobacco companies.”
But what about papers supported by other companies with an interest in promoting their products, even in the face of science that shows their harms? What about companies that are trying deliberately to manipulate science and regulatory decision-making?
We have formally submitted a retraction request for the Roundup paper to the current editors of the journal, and they have promised to review the case. But this is just one example among what seems to be a growing number of papers contaminating the scientific literature. And it’s doubtful that retractions alone can compensate for the sheer volume of questionable research now circulating.
Glyphosate, moreover, is just one of many herbicides and other pesticides for which the EPA is expected to make regulatory decisions in the near future. Even before the current dismantling of its scientific infrastructure, the EPA’s stance on glyphosate had drawn criticism for being out of step with the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, which classifies glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
Adding further complexity is the involvement of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a central figure in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. He served as co-counsel in a 2017 lawsuit against Monsanto in state court in Alameda County, California, representing plaintiffs seeking damages for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma allegedly caused by exposure to Roundup. Regulation of agricultural chemicals also figured prominently in his presidential campaign. Some of his recent statements, however, raise questions about whether he still intends to prioritize the issue.
In the current environment, options for recourse may be limited. The public comment period on glyphosate is expected to open later this year or early next year. During the last round of consultation in 2019, the EPA received 283,300 comments across 12,000 individual submissions. Some studies suggest that public attention during these periods can influence regulatory decisions. Leaving a substantive comment can matter. But how is the public expected to write one when any attempt to “do your own research” leads straight into a compromised literature, whether through search or AI conversation, both of which heavily rely on Wikipedia and the academic corpus?
In the long run, the scientific community must step up to protect the integrity of science as an independent and objective enterprise. With governmental scientific capacity decimated, individual researchers, scientific unions, and professional associations must take a stronger stand to ensure that scientific literature remains a reliable foundation for critical decisions.
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What this article describes is an ecosystem dominated by power and influence. This is not science, as strictly defined, but politics.
Simply put, putting profit before public safety is criminal. Unfortunately, this system allows just that. Ergo, this system is criminal. It follows that, it is an individual’s responsibility to oppose, or at the least, not engage with this system. That suggests the need for functional parallel systems of governance.
The above suggests a non-approved use for the “Small Government” model of governance. Sub-national governing entities that become more “radical” in their policies than the status quo desires.
Embrace the old saying that “All politics is local” to thwart the ongoing Globalist Movement. Contrary to popular meme generators, smaller governing entities will not be all Right wing tyrannies.
Stay safe.
Well stated,ambit! They need to pay attention to the criminal aspect and understand what “fraudulent”means!
the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the EPA to reconsider its preliminary conclusion that glyphosate was “not likely” to cause cancer.
How many years has Roundup been on the market? The thrust of the above is that by laying off staff Trump will be preventing the (captured?) EPA from doing what it wasn’t properly doing anyway. And not only has the USG given glyphosate a pass, our trade negotiators go out of their way to force other countries to accept our dubious regulation of the chemical industry.
The above article is not ignoring this history, but is suggesting that maybe, someday, the EPA will once again properly do its job. Perhaps one reason Trump and RFk jr are getting away with their attacks on the bureaucracy is that they have some merit. True, reform would be better than anarchy but that would require changes to the lobbying industry and Congress. Surely this must be added to correcting the complicated problem.
There is also the issue of “Round-Up Ready” GMO crops, such as corn. Those “food” items are ‘engineered’ to be more tolerant of glyphosate, and so they have much higher concentrations of the substance in their cells. This increases whatever effect the substance has on the consuming organism. In the case of commercial cattle, I wonder how high the glyphosate concentration is in the bodies of the beeves consuming Round Up Ready feed corn?
This is truly a case of Magical Thinking. Stop testing for X, and X magically disappears.
As I suggested above, whoever is making these decisions should be “composted.”
Stay safe.
Make America Glyphosate-free Again.
If you garden, you should also avoid mulch or compost from glyphosate tainted vegetation or manure from animals fed glyphosate tainted feed. Many common garden plants are susceptible. A brief google found this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SVHDegIEcWFh_AplBLpGMnhrRHGyJAhH/view?pli=1
Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology Don Huber of Purdue University has done research and collected the research of others in problems of, with and about glyphosate. Here is a sample talk he has given on a facet of the subject.
https://globalearthrepairfoundation.org/don-huber-glyphosate-dangers-and-soil-remediation/
Which particular RFKjr/Trump attacks on which particular agency or department or division have what particular merit, in particular?
US regulators rarely ask those in the EU or Japan to meet and share expertise. Some uses are much more suspect than others. Using it right before harvest is banned in Italy. Many large users of oats and wheat do not buy crops sprayed shortly before harvest. The primary purposes of such spraying are to dry the crop and harvest earlier. This is estimated at 2% of glyphosate use, but 50% of dietary exposure.
This is an important point. To the best of my knowledge glyphosate is the only pesticide that does not have a defined pre-harvest interval or re-entry period for worker’s exposure after spraying.
Whatever your view of pesticides, the regulatory system, including pesticide companies, has done a good job of promoting pre-harvest and re-entry restrictions and training the farming community to adhere to them. And they are generally well-accepted and well-respected.
With the exception of glyphosate. A critical question is why glyphosate has been given unique treatment?
Of course, pre-harvest and re-entry are based on toxicology, ie, it is the dose that matters, which can be reduced by application well before harvest and restricting entry to sprayed areas. For other harm vectors, eg, cancer and hormone disruption, there is no safe dose and the regulatory structure is inappropriate.
But notwithstanding this, application just before harvest – to GMO and non-GMO crops alike – as a desiccant to dry crops before they are cut – would not be allowed for any other pesticide. And, surely, the practice flies in the face of responsible use. How could anyone not understand high residuals are bound to end up in food?
I am not aware of the fraction of glyphosate used for desiccation but without any of the debate over science its use as a desiccant should be prohibited.
And for clarity, this comment relates to glyphosate as well as Roundup – the latter includes a proprietary mix of adjuvants – the former is a commodity chemical produced largely in China.
Limiting the agency’s scientific research and then limiting the external research.
All in the plan.
Will there be a clash over Glyphosate between RFK – who has long opposed Monsanto’s herbicide and legally represented opponents seriously sickened by it – and Lee Zeldin, head of today’s EPA? If we only had enough time to simply enjoy watching the Shakespearean tragedy play out and there was not so much riding on the outcome!
One important note: Monsanto’s Roundup’s formula of ingredients contains more than glyphosate. Roundup was never tested prior to being granted government approval as a composite formula; only glyphosate was examined as a weed-killer. A proper submission should include data on the entire formula, including so-called “inert” ingredients like arsenic, surfactants, and Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Because it classified arsenic among the inert formulants, Monsanto was not required to even list it on the ingredient list. Any substance which is not an active ingredient automatically receives the classification of “inert” (Lerner, 2016). Non-active ingredients are not required to be listed, according to the theory they could be “trade secrets” which the manufacturer should not be forced to divulge (Lerner, 2016). Therefore, arsenic has not been listed as an ingredient on the Roundup label (Perez, 2011).
This appears to be an EPA-sanctioned loophole. It seems doubtful that Monsanto would not have done in-house analyses of Roundup. And these in-house analyses would be expected to have “discovered” the presence of arsenic, as well as measuring its concentration as to be above allowed standards.
Another EPA loophole is the fact that safety tests, done either by the industry itself or by EPA scientists, to set safe exposure levels for GlyBH (Roundup) are only done on the declared active ingredient (Williams, 2000). Therefore, the toxic effects of the many formulants, which include POEAs, arsenic, and several other heavy metals, are never investigated in determining the glyphosate herbicide’s safety or toxicity.
Of course, there are other factors that mediate against the actual safe levels ever seeing the light of day. Requiring the industry to police itself by having it conduct its own safety testing is an obvious weak link.
Furthermore, the EPA regulators are often former industry employees, chosen ostensibly because they are the people who are most knowledgeable about the field. This has been referred to as the “revolving door”—the unhealthy intimacy between government agencies and the industries that they have been designated to regulate.
One obvious truth that seems to have eluded both Monsanto and the EPA is that for pesticide safety tests to be valid, they must be done on the pesticide mix as a whole, not on only the active ingredients, since this is what the public and wildlife are exposed to, as well as safety tests on each individual formulant at environmentally relevant concentrations.
Mitchel Cohen, author of “The Fight Against Monsanto’s Roundup: The Politics of Pesticides” (SkyHorse Publications, 2022).