Talk:Monsanto

Due weight at Roundup Cancer coverage.

My edit was reverted for "undue weight". From WP:DUE: "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public."

The mention of what the jury found, and the reason for the large fine, were reported in all coverage of this case:

Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/10/monsanto-trial-cancer-dewayne-johnson-ruling

NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jury-orders-monsanto-pay-290m-roundup-trial-n899811

CBS https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dewayne-johnson-monsanto-roundup-weed-killer-jury-award-today-2018-08-10/

Vox https://www.vox.com/2018/8/11/17678532/monsanto-roundup-causes-cancer-jury

NPR https://www.npr.org/2018/08/10/637722786/jury-awards-terminally-ill-man-289-million-in-lawsuit-against-monsanto

It should be on WP too. Therefore I will restore my edit. KoA43 was wrong in claiming my edit added undue weight. petrarchan47คุก 09:25, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Please respect the intent of 1RR here. The idea that glyphosate or its formulations are carcinogenic is pretty much WP:FRINGE, so if we do mention those viewpoints, they are very subdued. Court cases aren't exactly WP:MEDRS here either. Consensus has repeatedly been that we cover the case to a degree in that it happened, but major weight issues occur when someone tries to expound the viewpoints of those bringing that case forward. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:40, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Where did consensus emerge that if a court case make findings that are novel, they should not be mentioned in the encyclopedia? Using MEDRS to support that idea is a gross misunderstanding of WP:MEDRS. My added coverage is nothing but the minimum that was reported by all sources, these sources are the ones we refer to when covering non medical issues. You appear to be wanting to sanitize the coverage here. That puts editors in an uncomfortable position. The findings in the case were definitely a first, which you refer to as "fringe", another gross misinterpretation of the guidelines. It was the first time internal documents from Monsanto had been revealed, and what was in those documents showed the jury that Monsanto "knew or should have known" that their product causes cancer. Further the documents showed the company was manipulating and ghostwriting science, and covering up studies that showed harm. So that has to be taken into consideration when speaking of related literature, possibly manipulated, that has been available thus far. That too should be mentioned for the reader. It isn't possible to give this landmark case proper encyclopedic coverage while sticking to what has been said with regard to cancer in the past.

From the Guardian link above: In the extraordinary verdict, which Monsanto said it intends to appeal, the jury ruled that the company was responsible for “negligent failure” and knew or should have known that its product was “dangerous”. “We were finally able to show the jury the secret, internal Monsanto documents proving that Monsanto has known for decades that ... Roundup could cause cancer,” Johnson’s lawyer Brent Wisner said in a statement.

Please show me where the community found otherwise. petrarchan47คุก 17:17, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

You're discussing some of it below. Generally, courts are not reliable for scientific findings, especially when that contradicts the scientific consensus. Generally when the court case has been discussed before, the consensus has been to include that it happened, but not overly detail things from the lawyers' standpoint, etc. like your change did since it's a fringe viewpoint. The case obviously got a lot of press, but it gets tricky reporting a lot on it because we follow due weight. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:55, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

I quoted the judge, not a lawyer, and as you can see from Gandydancer's post below, no one agrees with your (mis)use of guidelines to keep this information out. petrarchan47คุก 06:08, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Roundup =/= Glyphosate

In this edit, KoA43 mentions the safety of Glyphosate in the Roundup section, conflating the two, just as Bayer is doing.

From coverage of the recent Roundup cancer trial:

"[In its defense, Bayer/Monsanto] never mentions Roundup, instead using the word glyphosate. This is intentional, he noted.

"Glyphosate is "different than Roundup" since it includes a cocktail of other chemicals, which increases its weed killing potency. Wisner pointed out that the jury in California focused heavily on the "synergistic effect of the glyphosate and the other chemicals."

"And the simple fact is, Monsanto has never tested the carcinogenicity of the combined product," Wisner added. https://www.dw.com/en/did-monsanto-know-its-weed-killer-could-be-deadly-to-people/a-45116915

"And the last thing is—and this is really important—is that Mr. Partridge doesn’t say Roundup doesn’t cause cancer; he says glyphosate. And he does that intentionally, because he knows that glyphosate is different than Roundup. Now, glyphosate is part of Roundup, but Roundup is a combined product of glyphosate plus a bunch of other chemicals that make glyphosate significantly more potent. And one of the things that the jury is really focused on, this jury in our case, was that there’s a synergistic effect of the glyphosate and the other chemicals. And the simple fact is, Monsanto has never tested the carcinogenicity of the combined product. And this omission is glaring, and it’s intentional. In fact, we have internal documents that say, “We do not want to look at this issue because we’re afraid of what we’re going to see.” And the jury heard all this, and they rejected this idea that it’s a safe product, that it doesn’t cause cancer. And they said not only does it cause cancer, but that Monsanto acted with malice in doing so. I think that’s really important." https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/14/historic_ruling_against_monsanto_finds_company

Please amend the edit so that it is scientifically accurate and encyclopedic. petrarchan47คุก 09:49, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

None of these are WP:MEDRS or WP:SCIRS and would seem to contradict what good sources actually do have to say about synergistic effects or risks of the formulations. What's currently there has been agreed upon text that accurately represents the sources in previous discussions, so that currently is the scientifically accurate version. Glyphosate-based_herbicides has more on that. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:45, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

At Glyphosate-based_herbicides you have been warned that you need to use recent sources rather than sources that are 14 years old (here and here).

At Glyphosate-based_herbicides you said "I've been actively looking for new sources"[1].

Did you do actually do that before making this edit? I've waited a few weeks for you to answer me there. Having a PhD in your specialty in insects and pesticides/pest management, I would think you would know the importance of doing a literature review, and that you would not add 14-year old studies, which is a violation WP:MEDRS. There are more current studies that contradict the older studies. petrarchan47คุก 17:29, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Last I checked, the main sources being from 2015 to 2017 are far from 15 years old, so please refrain from casting aspersions about my edits here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:32, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

This is the edit I'm referring to, as detailed here. I don't see the need to repeat my concerns. Can I assume you will be updating the articles with Sera 2011 as soon as you have a free moment? petrarchan47คุก 17:35, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Unable to understand recent edits

How is it possible to add the following on Sept. 11:

There is limited evidence human cancer risk might increase as a result of occupational exposure to large amounts of glyphosate, such as agricultural work, but no good evidence of such a risk from home use, such as in domestic gardening. The consensus among national pesticide regulatory agencies and scientific organizations is that labeled uses of glyphosate have demonstrated no evidence of human carcinogenicity. Organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization, European Commission, Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment have concluded that there is no evidence that glyphosate poses a carcinogenic or genotoxic risk to humans. The EPA has classified glyphosate as Group E, meaning "evidence of non-carcinogenicity in humans". Only one international scientific organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), affiliated with the WHO, has made claims of carcinogenicity in research reviews. The IARC has been criticized for its assessment methodology by failing to consider the broad literature and only assessing hazard rather than risk. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Monsanto&diff=next&oldid=859121765

And two days later remove the following saying Undid revision 859329986 by Petrarchan47 (talk) Undo edit warring. You need to gain consensus for these edits, not reintroduce them.)

$39 million was awarded for past and future damages, and $250 million in punitive damages. Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos Monsanto said Monsanto "acted with malice, oppression or fraud and should be punished for its conduct".

I am no longer closely following this article but this certainly stood out as strange. Perhaps I'm missing something? If not this seems like pretty blatant bias to me. I've worked on plenty of other corporate articles and it's unheard of to have an editor refuse a short addition such as the one that Petra added. Gandydancer (talk) 17:47, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

References

I'm not sure what you mean by how it was possible. I just hit the edit button and transferred consensus text about carcinogenicity of glyphosate and related formulations. That's needed for WP:DUE pretty much any time that claims about cancer and glyphosate come up. That's all MEDRS supported, so I guess it's not clear what your concern is.

As for petrarchan's edit, that's already being discussed a few sections up. Being a corporate article doesn't really change how we deal with scientific topics, especially when we get into WP:FRINGE territory. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:38, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

What absolute rubbish. So now we have WP telling us that a court settlement is fringe and as such we cannot add the court's opinion to our article? Shame, shame on WP editors that go along with this rather bizarre reading of WP's position. Gandydancer (talk) 20:10, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with MEDRS since no claims about medicine are being made. It is however relevant when a corporation (yes I know it was bought by Bayer) loses 5% of its equity in a lawsuit and may face similar lawsuits in future. If you want to add something saying that there is a consensus in the scientific community that the judgment was wrongly decided, then go ahead and do so. TFD (talk) 20:17, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

How do editors plan to handle the ghostwriting problem?

In case editors here haven't been keeping up with the recent case in California, or aren't familiar with the problem of Monsanto's influence over published literature, I leave you with some reading. How do we intend to deal with this at the encyclopedia? petrarchan47คุก 21:05, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Bloomberg, Aug 2017: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews - Academic papers vindicating its Roundup herbicide were written with the help of its employees

from Miller Firm LLC:

The emails contained in the document release clarify how agrotech giant Monsanto worked with a consulting firm called Intertek Group Plc to covertly co-write a 2016 review of Roundup’s® effects on human health in the scientific journal, Critical Reviews in Toxicology, which was falsely labeled as “independent.” Monsanto undertook this ghost writing endeavor in an attempt to discredit a 2015 finding by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that glyphosate, Roundup’s® key ingredient, is a probable human carcinogen.

From SFChronicle:

Monsanto’s response to that 2015 classification was more manipulated science. An “independent review” of glyphosate showed up in a peer-reviewed scientific journal decrying the IARC classification. The review not only was titled as being independent, but declared that no Monsanto employee had any involvement in the writing of it.Yet the company’s internal emails, turned over in discovery associated with the litigation, revealed that a Monsanto scientist in fact aggressively edited and reviewed the analysis prior to its publication.

That was but one of multiple examples detailed in the unsealed documents of similar efforts, referred to by Monsanto’s own employees as “ghostwriting.”

From the NYT: Monsanto Emails Raise Issue of Influencing Research on Roundup Weed Killer

Documents released Tuesday in a lawsuit against Monsanto raised new questions about the company’s efforts to influence the news media and scientific research and revealed internal debate over the safety of its highest-profile product, the weed killer Roundup...

The documents also show that a debate outside Monsanto about the relative safety of glyphosate and Roundup, which contains other chemicals, was also taking place within the company. In a 2002 email, a Monsanto executive said, “What I’ve been hearing from you is that this continues to be the case with these studies — Glyphosate is O.K. but the formulated product (and thus the surfactant) does the damage.” In a 2003 email, a different Monsanto executive tells others, “You cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen … we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement.”

DemNow: How Monsanto Plants Stories, Suppresses Science & Silences Dissent to Sell a Cancer-Linked Chemical

...there are papers out there in published peer-reviewed journals that appear to be independent of Monsanto, that we know—from the evidence in the documents that we have, that we know Monsanto had a hand in writing, even though they look like they’re independent. And this is the term that’s come to be associated now with Monsanto, which is “ghostwriting.” We know that there are papers out there in the published literature that our regulators around the world have relied upon as being independent and authentic, and we know that Monsanto has ghostwritten them. Now, we don’t know how many more are out there.

CNN: Patients: Roundup gave us cancer as EPA official helped the company

A month before the IARC report came out in 2015, Monsanto executive William F. Heydens sent an internal email to company toxicologist Donna Farmer with the subject line "RE: IARC planning," according to court documents. In that email, he suggested ghostwriting parts of an "overall plausibility paper" to save money.

"If we went full-bore (with experts), we could be pushing $250K or maybe even more," Heydens wrote. He said a "less expensive/more palatable approach" might be to involve experts only for some of the less contentious parts of the report. Then, Monsanto would "ghost-write the Exposure Tox & Genetox sections."..."[W]e would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing," the email said. Afterward, scientists outside Monsanto "would just edit & sign their names so to speak."..."Recall that is how we handled Williams Kroes & Munro, 2000," Heydens wrote, referring to a previous report on glyphosate.

NPR: Emails Reveal Monsanto's Tactics To Defend Glyphosate Against Cancer Fears

HuffPo: Monsanto Manufactured Scientific Studies And Then Used Those Studies To Influence EPA, Other Regulators

Question: Why is there not a Roundup article? Much of the information that is being called "undue" in this article would be more appropriate in a Roundup article. The product is notable aside from its being a glyphosate-based formula. Minor4th 21:07, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

FWIU the reason there is no Roundup article on the English version of Wikipedia is because user @Jytdog: got rid of it. There was no community discussion about it. S/he then made a redirect to Glyphosate. We've since had an RfC that ended with the community deciding it should not be merged with Glyphosate. I have asked @DGG: to help reinstate the article, since he was a part of the GMO ArbCom case. He has asked for help in locating the article logs, but has received none as far as I can tell. See here.

Here is an archived version of the Roundup page.

Here is the RfC that ended with:

I am going to discount concerns about POV editing / attack page / promo concerns because we have remedies to those issues. I will also discount those opposing on the basis of lack of unique material about RoundUp as it was presented without it being convincingly challenged as insufficient for a split. Therefore, consensus was that a split of the RoundUp material from glyphosate is appropriate.

I'm not clear where we stand at the moment as far as reinstating the page. (I hope Jytdog will forgive me if I've got some of these facts wrong. This is what I seem to recall but it's been years and I have a shoddy memory.) petrarchan47คุก 05:04, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Petra, as I remember it there was a small talk page discussion re combining the two that did not necessarily come to any sort of conclusive decision or if it did it did not involve what one would expect to justify making the move without further discussion. Then a few months went by and Jytdog came along and on his own made the decision saying it had been decided. It has always concerned me because it has always concerned me that at about that time our Monsanto articles began to lack what I would consider unbiased coverage. But, it's been a long time and perhaps my memory is not correct on this. Gandydancer (talk) 13:28, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

I am currently in the process of personally rewriting the previously deleted page to focus on material involving this particular product. I understand that to be the consensus of the previous discussion. I am not of course doing it as an arb, but as someone interested and experienced in both commercial products and biological/biomedical topics. I shall put a note here when I have finished, which should be within about 12 hours. I'd appreciate it if peoplegave be the chanvce to do so, before commenting further. If anyone then wants to nominate it for deletion, they of course can. DGG ( talk ) 14:46, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Coverage of Roundup Cancer Case

Should coverage of the recent Roundup cancer case include the following expansion? petrarchan47คุก 04:05, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Present text

On August 10, 2018, a San Francisco jury in a superior court, awarded Dewayne Johnson $289 million dollars in damages for linking his terminal cancer (Non-Hodgkin lymphoma) to RoundUp weedkiller.

to

Proposed text

On August 10, 2018, a San Francisco jury in a superior court, awarded Dewayne Johnson a total of $289 million for linking his terminal cancer (Non-Hodgkin lymphoma) to Roundup weedkiller; $39 million was awarded for past and future damages, and $250 million in punitive damages. Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos said Monsanto "acted with malice, oppression or fraud and should be punished for its conduct".

Sources supporting the added details include but are not limited to:

• USA Today, Guardian, NBC, CBS, Vox, NPR

Related discussions:

• Due Weight at Roundup cancer coverage
• Unable to understand recent edits

Discussion

• Support the proposed wording; it provides needed contextual information and correct weighting of significance. -- GreenC 04:16, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support These added details are included, prominently, in every source I've seen on the subject. Present coverage is needlessly lacking basic facts about this 'landmark' court case. petrarchan47คุก 04:20, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
• Question. Was the Judge in this case elected to the position by popular vote, as is often the case, or are they in post by being excellent at Judgery? -Roxy, the dog. wooF 12:06, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

  Why is that relevant? --Izno (talk) 12:44, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Indicates competence. Roxy, in the middle. wooF 14:01, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support - Seems like non-controversial additional details. NickCT (talk) 12:54, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose including judge's extra commentary. The scientific consensus is very clear on glyphosate and its formulations as detailed just below the current text version in that labeled use is not a significant health risk and that glyphosate formulations are not considered carcinogenic[2] as well as at the respective herbicide articles. Science is not metered out by courts, and they can generally be unreliable in detailed scientific topics. This court case is ultimately implying the plaintiff was harmed by normal use of the product, so that puts the court case in WP:FRINGE territory, especially when you dig into further background on the IARC stuff that helped spur the case.

We already have mention of the court case as would be expected of noteworthy events even if they are fringe, but including the judge's commentary gets into WP:UNDUE territory since the whole premise of the case was that Monsanto did stuff that led to the product causing his cancer and health issues. It would be one thing if other sources were discussing the judge's comments in a fringe context, but we normally don't include such statements as a standalone. In short, we already have enough mention of the case as had been regularly discussed on the related talk pages before this edit was introduced. To do more gets into trouble with our fringe-related policies and guidelines, which is why the edit had to be removed in the first place. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:52, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support - Well-sourced, non-controversial, concisely-presented additional facts about a non-trivial event in Monsanto's history. --Tsavage (talk) 15:12, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Petra and others. In addition, I strongly believe that the added information here: "Add consensus text on carcinogenicity" [3] should be removed. I've never seen something of this sort done in WP in all the time that I've worked on corporation articles. It appears that FRINGE is being used for an explanation as to why WP would step in to refute the decision of a U.S. jury in their decision and the judge's comments. This addition to our article just reminds me too much of the present administration's advise that we ignore our justice department and go along with their version of facts. IMO, if anything we should rather be including the major reason for the jury decision which was not the fact that they believed as fact that Monsanto's RoundUp caused this man's cancer but that Monsanto secretly and illegally manipulated the facts about the safety of their product. And yet our article step's in to defend Monsanto.Gandydancer (talk) 16:04, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment only the USA today source uses the quote from the judge, so it is certainly up for debate whether this should be included as opposed to other wording. Did the supporters notice that? The difficulty here is that this is one legal case in Monsanto's history, so it is difficult to decide which details should or should not be included here to summarise it. If we do include extra information, then we should at very least mention that Monsanto are planning to appeal as well e.g. [4] [5]. SmartSE (talk) 16:38, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - well-sourced, important info for readers. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 16:51, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support, but with caveats. First of all, I think it is entirely appropriate to include what the judge said, with attribution. It is directly relevant to Monsanto, and it is a major and noteworthy milestone in the history of the company and its place in society. But, it should be source to the USA Today source, only, because that's the only source listed above that actually contains the quote, as SmartSE correctly pointed out. And, the paragraph must include the fact that Monsanto plans an appeal, per NPOV, as SmartSE also said. In addition, there is a quote from Scott Partridge that is near the end of both the NPR and NBC sources above, that refers to "more than 800 scientific studies and reviews". It is important to include some of that quote as well. I heard another NPR report (I can look for it if editors want) in which the reporter pointed out that the court decision was about corporate conduct rather than about toxicology, and it is important that WP present that accurately: the judge evaluating Monsanto's corporate conduct, and at the same time courts do not determine science. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:26, 17 September 2018 (UTC)