By Jacob Bunge
An escalating legal battle between Monsanto Co. and a
plaintiffs' law firm offers an unusual look inside how the world's
largest seed company defended a controversial herbicide.
As part of a nearly two-year court dispute, the law firm this
week released hundreds of pages of Monsanto employee emails and
company documents concerning glyphosate, a herbicide that has drawn
new scrutiny over its alleged potential to cause cancer.
The emails show Monsanto's efforts to marshal scientists in
defense of its product and combat research at odds with its own.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Chemicals
Agency have said glyphosate isn't likely to cause cancer.
Corporate promotion of science friendly to companies' products
and services is a decades-old practice that remains "very
commonplace," said Paul Argenti, professor of corporate
communication at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, who
said he hasn't done research or consulting work for Monsanto.
Companies ranging from technology developers to Wall Street
traders and industrial giants have funded research that helps cast
their business in a favorable light, providing fodder for
regulatory reviews and a defense against negative public
scrutiny.
"A good academic wouldn't put their name on the line unless they
were absolutely sure of what they agree to," Mr. Argenti said. "But
the unfortunate reality is that if you are sponsoring research, you
are immediately creating credibility problems."
The Monsanto documents, spanning nearly two decades, were
released as part of lawsuit filed against the St. Louis agriculture
company in a federal court in California over Monsanto's trademark
herbicide Roundup. The plaintiffs allege that they got cancer from
exposure to Roundup -- while spraying weeds on farms, orchards and
lawns -- and Monsanto hid the weedkiller's potential to cause
cancer by skewing research and scientific debate.
Glyphosate is the world's most widely used herbicide, sprayed to
clear weeds from lawns, parks and corn fields. Some consumer and
environmental groups have long raised questions over glyphosate's
safety.
Monsanto is fighting the plaintiffs' lawsuit and denies any
cancer link. Scott Partridge, Monsanto's vice president of
strategy, said in an interview that Monsanto is obligated to
challenge attacks on glyphosate's safety that are motivated by an
"agenda," rather than based in science. "Not only do we owe that to
ourselves, we get calls from our farmers, the public, and
consumers," he said.
Mr. Partridge said releasing the documents violated a standing
court order of confidentiality protecting company information in
the case. Late Wednesday, Monsanto filed a legal motion asking the
judge to order the documents removed from the law firm's website,
prohibit future releases of other Monsanto documents, and impose a
fine.
Brent Wisner, a partner with Baum, Hedlund, Aristei &
Goldman PC, the plaintiffs' law firm, said the documents "show
pretty clearly that Monsanto has colluded or engaged in very close
relationships with EPA officials" and "has ghostwritten material
and then cited that material as though it were authoritative." The
law firm said it has supplied the documents to regulators in the
U.S. and Europe to inform future decisions regarding glyphosate.
The plaintiffs are seeking wrongful death and punitive damages from
Monsanto.
Mr. Misner said that his firm had earlier challenged the
confidentiality of each set of Monsanto documents the firm
released, and that Monsanto didn't file legal objections.
The debate over safety escalated in 2015 after the International
Agency for Research on Cancer, an agency of the World Health
Organization, classified glyphosate as likely having the potential
to cause cancer.
In response, Monsanto hired a consultancy to convene an expert
panel to review the cancer agency's findings. The panel later said
the IARC overlooked some data and misinterpreted studies. IARC
officials defended its process as rigorous and based on the best
available data.
Internal emails released by the plaintiffs' law firm show
Monsanto scientist William Heydens in November 2015 suggesting
edits to the panel's manuscript, and suggesting that two panelists
who had previously worked for Monsanto not be listed as
authors.
John Acquavella, a professor of epidemiology at Aarhus
University in Denmark, objected in an email to Mr. Heydens.
"We call that ghost writing and it is unethical," Mr. Acquavella
wrote.
Mr. Heydens in a later email apologized for "a huge
misunderstanding," and both panelists' names appeared on the
panel's final paper, though Mr. Heydens's name didn't.
"The request we got by the authors was to provide information
and check accuracy and provide edits where appropriate, not to
opine on science or the opinions of the authors," Mr. Partridge
said. A Monsanto spokesman said that Mr. Heydens's name wasn't
included because his comments didn't rise to the level of
authorship or attribution and Monsanto's sponsorship of the panel
was disclosed.
In an email to The Journal, Mr. Acquavella said that the matter
was resolved and that Mr. Heydens only pointed out typos in the
sections of the final paper that Mr. Acquavella handled.
Other documents released by the plaintiffs' law firm include
June 2015 communications between an EPA official and Monsanto about
a potential review of glyphosate's safety by a branch of the
Department of Health and Human Services.
Monsanto officials in emails among themselves considered such a
review problematic due to perceptions of that agency's
"conservative" approach to evaluating chemicals. Jack Housenger,
then an official in EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs, told
Monsanto officials that the potential review had been put on hold
and it was unlikely that HHS researchers would come to a different
conclusion than the EPA, according to the emails. A spokeswoman at
HHS had no immediate comment.
An EPA spokesman said that the agency's pesticide regulation
process requires frequent communication with chemical makers,
particularly when specific products are under review. The EPA began
a scheduled review of glyphosate in 2009.
Monsanto's Mr. Partridge said that the company and the EPA have
regular interactions related to the EPA's regulation of Monsanto
products. "The fact that the EPA is agreeing with our submissions
on the safety of glyphosate doesn't mean there is some sort of
collusion," Mr. Partridge said.
Write to Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 03, 2017 14:16 ET (18:16 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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