Monsanto-Ghostwritten Glyphosate Paper Retracted; US Solicitor General Supports Bayer Court Review

The US Solicitor General said the Supreme Court should review Bayer’s petition regarding the federal preemption of labeling and “failure to warn” laws that could halt tens of thousands of lawsuits against the agrochemical giant. This news comes as a journal article that was instrumental in the EPA’s determination that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic” has been retracted by the journal 25 years later, as evidence was revealed that the paper was ghostwritten by Monsanto executives.

Monsanto was the manufacturer of Roundup with the primary ingredient glyphosate and Bayer acquired the company in 2018. Since then, Bayer has faced a litany of lawsuits from farmers and others who claim the flagship product has caused cancer and other serious health issues. Roundup has reformulated some of its residential products with other primary ingredients, including Diquat, which is considered a “regrettable substitute.”

“From a human health perspective, this stuff is quite a bit nastier than glyphosate, so we’re seeing a regrettable substitution, and the ineffective regulatory structure is allowing it,” Nathan Donley, science director with the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Guardian in July.

Bayer said the vast majority of the lawsuits against the company for Roundup-related litigation are for residential applications, which prompted the company to remove glyphosate in exchange for Diquat in these products. Other estimates suggest that more than 90% of the lawsuits are related to residential applications. A Friends of the Earth report from 2024 suggested the new formulation is 45 times more toxic than the glyphosate version. These products are used mostly for lawn and garden applications which may expose children and pets to toxic chemicals. Diquat is banned in the European Union, the United Kingdom, China, and Switzerland. 

Bayer said replacing glyphosate with Diquat in some of its Roundup products is not an admission of harm, and it stands by the safety profile of all active ingredients used in Roundup, including glyphosate and Diquat.

“Studies show that Diquat primarily enters the body through the digestive tract, leading to poisoning,” researchers wrote in a 2025 review of more than 100 studies. “The core mechanism of its toxicity involves reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced oxidative stress, which not only directly damages the intestinal barrier function but also exacerbates inflammation and systemic toxicity by disrupting the balance of the gut microbiota and the normal production of metabolic products.”

Dana Parish, host of the Dana Parish Podcast, posted about her experience from 2020 when her California HOA sprayed Diquat for weed prevention long before Roundup made the decision to change its residential formulation. She explained that her dog had “Parkinson’s-like presentation, seizures, went deaf & almost died.”

“I contacted the EPA & the officer I spoke to was horrified that this chemical was sprayed on an HOA filled with kids and pets,” Parish wrote. “He was so incredulous that he had me call the landscaping company to verify the product name so that he could be sure that’s what it was. He admitted it wasn’t safe & said they’re powerless to do anything as the chemical lobby is so powerful. This is how it works. The chemical industry has a license to spray our neighborhoods & food with toxic chemicals because our federal agencies like the EPA are so deeply captured by them.”

Parish told The HighWire that the HOA only sprayed the chemical on public portions of the neighborhood and not her private property. Her property was downhill from a public portion, which could have caused the rain to bring the pesticide down into the yard where her dog would go outside. Parish and her family left the home for two days when the HOA sprayed the chemical, and the symptoms started occurring in her dog, Lucy, after they returned. Parish said a two-year-old baby experienced brain bleeding, and a golden retriever died during the same time period after the HOA sprayed Diquat. Her neighbors and the HOA board did not suspect there was any connection between these adverse health outcomes and the Diquat exposure. A video of Lucy the dog after the Diquat exposure shows her unresponsiveness, which is uncharacteristic behavior.

The Guardian reported last year about a Brazilian tobacco farm that experienced paralysis after using the chemical. Britain exported nearly 8,500 tons of Diquat in one year, with Brazil being one of the largest consumers. 98% of those exports were from Chinese-owned Syngenta. The chemical is banned in both China and the UK.

Bayer is utilizing Diquat as a glyphosate alternative to side-step litigation despite the evidence that Diquat is significantly more toxic. The agrochemical company has also lobbied the federal government and state governments in an attempt to gain immunity from “failure to warn” lawsuits. Bills have been signed into law in North Dakota and Georgia.

The EPA completed its most recent review of glyphosate in 2021, determining that the herbicide is “not likely carcinogenic,” but the agency withdrew its interim decision after losing a court battle against environmental groups that argued the EPA’s evaluation ignored evidence linking the chemical to cancer. The court agreed with the petitioners, and the EPA withdrew the human health portion of the review, which is going to be completed in 2026.

The EPA’s 2020 evaluation does not mention the now retracted study by Williams et al., but relies upon the EPA’s 2016 document to support the finding that glyphosate is likely not carcinogenic. In the 2016 “Glyphosate Issue Paper: Evaluation of Carcinogenic Potential,” the EPA has a footnote on page 22 stating, “All review articles, except Schinasi and Leon (2014), were funded and/or linked to Monsanto Co. or other registrants.”

The Schinasi and Leon (2014) paper, the only review considered by the EPA that was not funded by Monsanto, concluded “there is consistent evidence that pesticide exposures experienced in occupational agricultural settings may be important determinants of NHL (Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma).” That review found a two times higher risk for B Cell Lymphoma with a 95% confidence interval (1.1-3.6). The EPA review downplayed this paper, stating that it is “very limited in statistical power.”

The EPA has had a revolving door of high-ranking officials tied to the chemical industry. Jim Jones served as the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention under President Obama and during the 2016 review. When not serving in a government role for chemical safety, he has worked with chemical lobbying groups, as reported by The HighWire last year. Andrew Wheeler, a coal industry lobbyist, served as the EPA administrator at the time of the 2020 glyphosate review. In 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found the EPA failed to acknowledge risks in its conditional approval of dicamba, which impacted products produced by Bayer, DuPont, and BASF.

The EPA has also been criticized across different administrations for its response to chemical disasters like the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the explosion in Conyers, Georgia.