Kind: captions
Language: en
One October evening in 2016, an Arkansas
farmer was sitting in his pickup truck
just outside his field, and he was
growing impatient.
Suddenly, another car pulled up beside
him. So, the farmer got out. Seconds
later,
he was murdered.
The farmer's name was Mike Wallace. He
wasn't killed over money or land. He was
killed over a herbicide,
a chemical designed to destroy weeds.
This herbicide spread fear through rural
America, turning farmers against each
other, all because it belonged to a
certain company.
This company's policies, they pitted
farmer against farmer, and they could
just send henchmen to your door. Even if
you just had the wrong seeds in your
field, they could send you to court and
bankrupt you. In effect, they had a
farmland monopoly. They owned more than
80% of the seeds planted in the United
States. And to get this monopoly, they
played the legal system,
>> colluding with corrupted EPA officials,
>> twisted scientific evidence.
>> Appears to have been caught red-handed.
>> But the chemicals they were making
destroyed the health of communities all
over the world. This is a video about
Monsanto, one of the biggest
agricultural companies in the world.
Our investigation is based on publicly
available documents, recordings, and
third party opinions. All sources are
linked in the description.
In 1942, a chemist named Franklin D.
Jones made an unusual enemy,
poison ivy. You see, his children had a
very violent reaction to the plant. They
would get intense rashes and swelling
when they brushed up against the ivy.
So, Jones wanted a way to kill it.
He experimented by spraying the ivy with
hormones, chemicals that could regulate
the plant's functions the same way they
do in humans and animals. His hope was
that one of these hormones would cause
it to die. Unfortunately, many had no
effect, and others only made the ivy
grow better. But then one day, Jones
noticed that certain samples began to
show autumn colors much sooner than they
should have. He watched as the vibrant
hues turned to twisted shapes and then
within days these plants shriveled up
and died. Jones checked the chemical he
sprayed them with and surprisingly it
was a growth hormone called 24D.
It's an acid made up of a ring of six
carbons and hydrogens called a benzene
ring with an acid tail. There are also
two chlorine atoms in the two and four
positions of the ring which is why it's
called 24D. And to keep things tidy, we
don't have to draw all these carbons and
hydrogens, but keep in mind, they're
still there. Jones realized this
synthetic hormone was incredibly potent.
Tiny amounts of it would still encourage
the ivy to grow, but if he sprayed on a
lot of it, 24D would trigger such
uncontrollable and unsustainable growth
that the poison ivy would die in the
process.
>> So, effectively, he had plant cancer in
a bottle.
>> I was just going to say plant cancer,
right?
>> That's immediately where my brain went.
What was even more remarkable was that
it only targeted the ivy. The grass
around it was barely affected. Like it
was resistant to 24D. So over the next 2
years, Jones performed over a hundred
different experiments by pouring the
herbicide into many different plant
species. And what he figured out was
that 24D was really picky. It killed
broadleafd weeds like dandelions,
chickweed, and poison ivy. but it
virtually ignored crops. Wheat, corn,
and barley were all mostly unaffected by
24D because all of these are species of
grass.
To improve this pickiness further, Jones
also tested chemicals similar to 24D. He
found that adding another chlorine to
the benzene ring, transforming it to
245T,
left grasses even more unscathed. He was
on to something huge.
>> Because up until then, farmers could get
rid of weeds one of two ways. Either you
spray them with dangerous chemicals like
arsenic, or you have to pull the weeds
out manually. Either way, you're at a
loss. But with 24D and 245T, you could
spray your entire crop field and only
the weeds would die. Jones had stumbled
upon the first practically viable
selective herbicides, so he was quick to
patent them in 1945, just as the war was
ending. After the allies victory, the
patent secrecy restrictions in most
countries were lifted. And it turned out
that there were other scientists both in
the US but also in the UK who discovered
these herbicides independently.
Soon the world was blessed with modern
miracle weed killers like weed done and
we bomb and endoede. All formulations of
24D and 245T herbicides.
>> This man is ready to kill weed because
he's going to do it the easy way. These
chemicals literally replace the ho and
everything from farm fields to railroad
tracks and sidewalks. And they are
essentially what gave us that beautiful
green American lawn, just grass and
nothing else. Because with these
herbicides, dad knew there was no longer
any excuse for a weedy lawn. By the late
1940s, the herbicide business had turned
into a roughly $10 million industry and
everyone wanted in, including one of the
biggest chemical companies at the time,
Monsanto.
One of Monsanto's main herbicide
factories was in Nitro, West Virginia,
where they pumped out almost a ton of
245T a day. By 1949, Monsanto's business
was booming when all of a sudden,
the plant exploded.
Over a 100 workers rushed out to see a
dark cloud rising 40 m above the
factory.
They watched as a black stinking powder
started raining down on their faces.
Within hours, many of these men fell
ill. First, they got headaches and
nausea, but then their skin began to
erupt with bumps, pestules, and acne.
The lesions on some of the workers'
faces got so bad that Monsanto's on-site
doctors had to peel off layers of their
skin in an attempt to remove them. The
doctors later noted that when these men
are in a closed room together, there is
a strong odor. They wrote, "We believe
these men are excreting a foreign
chemical through their skins." But
neither the doctors nor anyone else at
Monsanto knew what the chemical was
because both 245T and 24D were marketed
as very safe.
See, when the herbicides were first
getting introduced, Jones, the original
inventor, even remarked that he knew
people who would accidentally drink or
spray the herbicides onto themselves,
and they suffered no ill health effects.
They were fine. And one of the doctors
after him remarked that, "I've
personally taken 1/2 a gram of pure 24D
a day for 3 weeks. You judge the
results." It was the ' 40s, so people
were a bit crazy, but yeah, it seemed
pretty safe.
Back at Nitro, Monsanto analyzed all the
other ingredients they were using to
make 245t, but they still couldn't find
what was causing their workers skin to
erupt in this way.
This is where their search seemingly
stopped.
>> With no culprit, the conditions at the
plant stayed mostly the same and
Monsanto just offered their workers a
choice. Either you'll keep on working
with 245T or you can take the gate. For
many, this was no choice at all since
there were hardly any other jobs in
town. So, most of the workers stayed
with something inside the factory
poisoning them for years to come.
It wasn't until 1957, 8 years after the
explosion, that a German dermatologist,
Carl Schultz, found himself treating
patients with similar looking lesions
and acne. He wasn't surprised by the
symptoms because many of these patients
worked in 245t factories around Hamburg.
But when Schulz would test these
ingredients from the instruction list on
rabbit ears he had at the lab, he would
get no reactions. And this puzzled him.
How do these ingredients do nothing in
his own tests, but at the same time
cause these painful skin disorders
inside 245T factories?
Well, to make 245t, you start with
tetrachlorobenzene, a benzene ring with
four chlorine atoms attached to it.
These chlorine atoms are very
electrogative, so they want to steal
electrons from nearby atoms. Luckily for
them, the six carbons in the benzene
ring are all sharing their electrons in
these fuzzy doughnut-shaped clouds
around the ring. That's what this circle
in the diagram is meant to represent.
The chlorine atoms pull on this electron
cloud bringing it closer to themselves.
And as a result, the carbons in the
benzene ring become slightly positively
charged and the chlorine's slightly
negatively charged. Now, if you heat up
tetrachlorobenzene with sodium
hydroxide, one of the negative hydroxide
ions will want to bind to one of the
slightly positively charged carbons in
the benzene ring. And to do that, it
forces out the chlorine atom, taking its
place.
This creates triricclorophenol or TCP, a
key ingredient in making the herbicide.
From here, if you keep the reaction at
170° C, you can add a series of
chemicals to grow out this oxygen tail
into an acid, giving you 245T.
On paper, this is all there is. If you
follow the exact steps here and control
the conditions, then none of these
ingredients will explain the horrible
face eruptions that the nitro workers
were experiencing. But Schultz wasn't
satisfied with this. Maybe the
conditions aren't perfect. Maybe there
is something in this process, some
secret reaction that is contaminating
the whole chemical supply.
Ideally, the industrial process of
transforming tetrachlorobenzene into
245t should happen at 170° C. But if the
temperature gets any higher, even just a
few degrees higher, there is suddenly
enough energy in the system for two
molecules of TCP to fuse together. This
creates a molecule commonly known as
dioxin.
It forms only in trace amounts, so you
might expect to end up with roughly one
or two molecules of dioxin for every
100,000 molecules of 245t.
It seemed too small to be a problem.
Nevertheless, Schultz decided to test
it. He took some TCP, this time
contaminated with trace amounts of
dioxin, and rubbed it into his own skin.
and he got the same acne as the workers
at the nitro plant.
>> Once Schultz realized the threat here,
he immediately contacted all the big
chemical producers in Germany. And one
of these German companies even sent
letters to both Monsanto and Dao, the
other big herbicide producer in the US,
and they warned them that the
acnecausing effects are stemming from
pollution through byproducts, referring
to dioxin. They even listed when exactly
during the process the contamination was
happening and what to do to prevent it.
Yet, Monsanto denied ever getting these
letters and DAO said they somehow
misfiled them. Regardless, it was
obvious to both companies that something
in the production of 245t was poisoning
their workers. But Monsanto didn't warn
the public about the danger, perhaps
because the herbicides were about to
make them a whole lot of money.
In 1961, the president of South Vietnam
was at war with the newly founded
Vietkong. This guerilla force was set on
overthrowing his rule and uniting
Vietnam under a communist regime. The
Vietkong were masters of the jungle.
They laid deadly traps for their enemies
and ambushed them using underground
tunnels. South Vietnam was losing the
war, so the president faced a choice.
Either accept defeat in the jungle or
destroy it.
He reached out to his allies, the US,
and asked them for help.
And soon they came in flying with
thousands of barrels of herbicide. This
was the start of Operation Ranchhand.
The US's herbicide of choice was Agent
Orange, a 50/50 split of 24D and 245T
supplied by the US's biggest chemical
manufacturers.
The largest supplier by volume was
Monsanto.
Agent Orange ravaged through South
Vietnam, destroying 20% of the jungles,
and civilians and soldiers on both sides
got sprayed with it, too. Mostly by
accident. The government assured them
that it is not toxic to humans, animals,
or drinking water. But Monsanto and Dao
knew otherwise.
See, during Ranchand, they secretly
exchanged information on their
herbicides. And in one of the letters,
DAO acknowledged that dioxin, which had
been contaminating 245t for years, was
the most toxic compound they have ever
experienced, and that even trace amounts
of it caused incapacitating acne. By
1965, it was obvious that both companies
understood what sort of threat dioxin
was. And yet, there are no records that
Monsanto or Dao ever sent communication
to the US government warning them about
the threat. In fact, DAO's vice
president reportedly said, "If the
government learns about this, the whole
industry will suffer."
As a result, the US sprayed South
Vietnam with 72 million L of Agent
Orange, within which was just 80 L of
dioxin. And even though that doesn't
seem like much, the damage was
irreparable.
Civilians and soldiers on both sides
suffered from skin diseases and cancer.
children were born with physical and
mental disabilities. By some estimates,
as many as 3 million people suffered
from the effects of Agent Orange.
This outraged the public. In 1967, 5,000
scientists signed a petition to the
president condemning his use of the
herbicides. And Monsanto was under
scrutiny, too, because regulators were
catching on to the dioxin contained in
245t. The herbicide was about to be
phased out, compromising their bottom
line. Monsanto needed a miracle, and
they needed it fast.
Their idea was to replace 245t with a
safer herbicide, but after 9 years of
research, they weren't getting anywhere.
All of the scientists in the
agricultural department referred to this
new initiative as a dead area.
One of the last remaining scientists on
the project was John E. France. And by
early 1970, he was about to give it up,
too. But before abandoning the project,
France decided to do one final set of
experiments. So he thought up 19
possible assets that could maybe work as
herbicides and decided to test them out.
He prepped the first herbicide,
but nothing happened. The plant was
completely fine and the herbicide had no
activity. Then he decided to test the
second herbicide
and he applied it to a plant.
It was 10 times more powerful than any
herbicide the team had ever seen. And
allegedly it made the plants super na it
made the plants super nasty. Oh, that
was disgusting.
This miracle compound was glyphosate, a
phosphonic acid group on one end and a
caroxile group on the other with a
nitrogen, hydrogen or amino group in
between. To make sure it was
commercially feasible, France and his
colleagues set up tests in these outdoor
fields. And as one of the scientists was
getting back to these test sites, he saw
the results from the plane. It was clear
as day. All he could do is write Eureka
across the performance report. It was
the best herbicide they'd ever seen.
>> So, what made it so great at killing
plants? Well, for plants to survive,
they use a chemical pathway, a series of
reactions to create three important
amino acids, acids without which they
die. This process is known as the
shikimate pathway because it starts with
shikimmic acid, named after the Japanese
shikimi flower. During one of the steps,
two acids S3P and PEP need to transform
into a third compound. But they can only
do that with the help of an enzyme
called EPSPS, which catalyzes the
reaction and helps the two molecules
combine. However, if glyphosate is
present during this reaction, it will
begin to mimic PEP because they have a
very similar geometry. And because of
that, glyphosate actually binds first to
EPSPS, blocking it from acting as a
catalyst. Now the acids can't transform
and the whole shikimate pathway is
destroyed. Without it, there are no
amino acids and the plant dies.
Crucially, the shikimate pathway is
unique to plants and things like
bacteria and fungi. Humans and animals
don't have it. In fact, we have to eat
foods that contain these three amino
acids. But for Monsanto, this was good
news because they could market that
glyphosate targets an enzyme found in
plants but not in humans or pets.
So after decades of toxic products,
Monsanto finally had one which they were
sure was safe. And research was also
showing that after you spray glyphosate,
the microorganisms in the soil break it
down into safe byproducts. It was
biodegradable. Glyphosate was perfect.
So they wasted no time in getting it on
the market. In 1974, Monsanto had a new
hit herbicide,
Roundup.
>> Roundup is better. It goes through the
plant to kill it. tops and ryomes.
>> My roots hurt real bad.
>> Hank. Hank.
>> Roundup. No root, no weed, no problem.
>> Farmers loved it because unlike 24D,
glyphosate killed every weed, not just
broadleaf ones, but grassy, too. It
allowed them to practice something
called no till farming. See, usually to
get rid of weeds, you'd have to plow up
the entire field before planting
anything. And that would hurt the soil,
and it was also just a lot of work. But
with Roundup, what you do is you spray
the whole field, everything dies, and
then you just plant directly into the
residue. It was easier, faster, and
cheaper. And Roundup was safe to use,
too. They marketed it as safer than
table salt and safe enough to drink.
Basically,
>> Roundup can be used where kids and pets
will play and breaks down into natural
materials.
>> By the late 80s, Monsanto was selling 7
million pounds of Roundup and making a
billion dollars each year. And they
weren't going to share a penny of that
money with anyone.
See, with other herbicides, like for
example, Aliclore, which was moderately
popular at the time, you can tweak the
molecule a bit here or there, and you
still get a very potent weed killer. So,
if you patented a specific herbicide,
your competitors could still use
hundreds of its close relatives, which
would still work perfectly well without
violating your patent rights. But
glyphosate was different. if you were to
modify the molecule in any way, its
herbicidal properties were completely
gone. So, Monsanto could rest easy
knowing that until the year 2000, they
would be the only ones able to sell it.
But there was a little problem with
glyphosate. See, unlike 24D, which only
killed broadleaf weeds, Roundup kills
everything. I sprayed some of my own
house plants here, and well, you can see
the results. Chances are, if it's green,
Roundup is going to kill it. And this
was a problem because farmers could only
really spray Roundup on their field
twice. Either right before planting the
seeds or right after a harvest. But for
Monsanto, this wasn't as much of a
problem. See, they thought if we could
somehow make the crops like soybean or
corn resistant to Roundup, well then
farmers could spray it on their field
during the whole year and it would keep
killing the weeds, but not the Roundup
resistant crops. Crops which Monsanto
could sell them. And as a result, they
would have a complete monopoly over both
the herbicide and the seed supply.
>> Monsanto's idea was this. If glyphosate
blocks the EPSPS enzyme in plants, then
they could edit the plant's DNA so that
the cells just create more EPSPS. If
there's enough of the enzyme, then
glyphosate can't block all of it, and so
the plant can still survive. They tried
this out on patunias, but it didn't
work. The flowers would survive a tiny
amount of Roundup, but a normal dose
would still kill them. Monsanto was kind
of stumped and they didn't have time to
rest because while glyphosate and
Roundup were under their patents, a
Roundup resistant seed wasn't and their
competitors knew this. In 1985, a
company called Calgene published a paper
in Nature showing that they made tobacco
slightly resistant to glyphosate. The
paper showed promise, but more
importantly, it made it clear to
Monsanto that they were running out of
time. The researchers were desperate,
calling this patent race the Manhattan
Project. And then one of the engineers
had a genius idea. Monsanto had a ton of
these factories where they were
converting phosphate into glyphosate.
And they had a lot of sludge leeching
out of these factories. So, if there was
anything living around these factories
in this sludge, there was a chance it
was resistant to glyphosate. So the
researchers went to one of these
factories, scooped it out, and found a
strain of Salmonella in there, which was
kind of surprising to them because
Salmonella usually relies on the
shikimate pathway. But here it was
thriving in glyphosate.
Monsanto's scientists isolated the
Salmonella's genetic sequence and found
that it had evolved a way to mutate the
shape of its EPSPS enzyme so that
glyphosate couldn't bind to it and block
the shikimate pathway. The scientists
took that Salmonella DNA and loaded it
onto a gene gun. Not this one here, but
it's actually surprisingly similar. See,
they placed thousands of these
Salmonella DNA strips onto microscopic
gold particles in the gene gun, which
they then fired into the plant tissue
all over at 1,400 kmh. The gold
particles would bombard the plant cells,
and some of them would make it into the
nucleus. Here, the DNA detaches from the
gold and it integrates itself into the
plant's chromosomes. Now, every time
this cell divides, it copies over the
new EPSPS gene.
>> Monsanto scientists planted seeds with
these genes out in the field and sprayed
them with Roundup, but nothing happened.
The soybean was resistant. Monsanto made
sure to act quickly. Soon after, they
found even more potent bacteria, and
they were able to make other crop
species immune, too. And by 1998, they
had patents for glyphosate resistant
canola, corn, and cotton. They called
this lineup of GMO seeds Roundup Ready.
These Roundup Ready seeds took over the
market in an instant. Already by 2001,
more than 70% of all soybeans grown in
the US were Monsantos. With Roundup
making them more than $2.5 billion a
year, it was the bestselling
agricultural product ever. And every
farmer could join in on this Roundup
plus Roundup Ready revolution just by
signing Monsanto's technology use
agreement. I got one of these agreements
from 2011 here and I just wanted to read
some terms. So the grower or the farmer
who accepts and wants to use these seeds
agrees to not save or clean any crop
produced from the seed for planting. And
the farmer also agrees not to supply the
seed produced from the seed to anyone
for planting. Meaning you cannot save
the seeds you bought last year to plant
this year. And you also cannot share or
sell your seeds to anyone else. Here's
another one. The farmer agrees to
identify and allow Monsanto and its
representatives access to the land
farmed by the grower or the farmer. And
this allows Monsanto to examine and take
samples of the crops crop residue or the
seeds located therein. And here's a
final one. The grower accepts the terms
of the following notice requirement
by signing this agreement or by opening
a bag of seeds. So, you're agreeing to
these terms even just by opening a bag
of seeds.
If you thought that this contract was
crazy, you should see the stuff that we
sign up to today online. Um, I have some
terms and conditions here from a social
media website. Here's what it says. We
may collect biometric identifiers and we
may infer your attributes such as age
range and gender. So, they're able to
scan your face and sell that data to
advertisers. And just in the last couple
of months, companies have been making
these aggressive pushes to their terms
and conditions to try and get more of
your data. And they can use it to train
AI models or just sell it to data
brokers. And this doesn't just mean
annoying ads and spam emails and phone
calls. Law enforcement can buy your data
and normal people can buy it too. Even
stuff like your location history and all
of that is perfectly legal. But luckily,
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sponsoring this part of the video. And
now back to farmers and the terms and
conditions they had to sign.
>> Well, couldn't farmers just decide not
to use Monsanto's seeds and herbicide?
>> The thing was, you have Roundup ready
seeds and you spray them with Roundup,
everything's going to be fine on your
end, but your neighbor doesn't have
Roundup ready seeds. So if your
herbicide drifts over to your neighbor's
side, it's going to kill his plants. So
neighbors were concerned thinking their
crops were going to be lost. So they got
Roundup ready as well. And soon enough,
Monsanto controlled the whole market.
And the control didn't end there. As one
seed grower from Ohio remembers it,
Monsanto's salesman would tell people
they could either sign on or they'd all
be out of business within the next 2
years. Monsanto was going to dominate
the entire seed industry and there was
nothing anybody could do about it.
So, hundreds of thousands of farmers
signed the deal, and it wasn't a good
one.
>> One evening in late July 2004, an
Indiana farmer named Dave Renan was
relaxing at home when two men knocked on
his door.
>> They led me to believe that they were
doing a survey for a magazine.
They wanted to know what kind of crops I
planted. They wanted to know what kind
of herbicides I used, the seed I I
bought and purchased and used. Renan
wasn't interested, so he decided to shut
the door. When he heard one of the men
say, "I think he's guilty." Renan didn't
know what they meant, but a few months
later, he got a letter from Monsanto
saying that he had 7 days to turn over
all of his business records to the
company.
>> He was shocked because Renan was one of
the few farmers that never signed a
contract with Monsanto. And yet, here
they were threatening to sue him for
patent infringement. Apparently, someone
had tipped Monsanto off that Renion had
been replanting their seeds illegally,
and farmers all across the country were
getting the same types of letters.
Honestly, it's kind of hard to overstate
how much Monsanto tried to control
farmers. They sent private detectives
and ex- cops to inspect farms all over
the US, waving their terms and
conditions of the contract into farmers
faces to let them onto their property.
They hired plane and helicopter pilots
to survey the farmlands from above for
signs of infringement.
>> The lawsuits, the threats, how could
people possibly stand up to them?
>> And they even had a company hotline, 1
800 Roundup, that farmers could call to
snitch on their neighbors.
>> It still exists. Uh 1800 Roundup. You
You're calling them now?
>> I think I got it right.
If you have information about the misuse
of seed or a compliance issue, please
press three.
>> That phone number was in existence in
the same time that we're talking about
there where people could rat out, you
know, their neighbor.
>> As Renan himself puts it, there is much
mistrust in the countryside today. You
never know who might report on you. You
could actually willfully plant
unauthorized seed in somebody's land if
you want to destroy them.
Now, in 2010, Monsanto responded to
farmers concerns about these
investigations and released a commitment
statement regarding their patents. They
mentioned their pledge to transparency
and ethical behavior, properly
introducing themselves with displayed
identification, and not exercising their
patent rights when only trace amounts of
their seed is present in a farmer's
field.
And while Monsanto ultimately ended up
letting Renan go, by 2013 they sued over
400 farmers, raking in over $20 million,
many of these farmers went bankrupt, and
countless others settled with Monsanto
out of court, even if they were innocent
because they just couldn't risk the
legal fees. You know, they were actually
influencing radio stations at one point,
and the radio stations would publicly
say the name of the people who were
saving Roundup seats on air. It sounds
like a a super villain plot. Really?
>> Yeah. Well, people actually started
calling them Monsatan. So,
this culture of fear and paranoia turned
neighbors against each other, especially
in communities where some farmers didn't
wish to use Monsanto's herbicide system.
One of those farmers was Mike Wallace.
See, Mike had a field of soybean here
that wasn't resistant to Monsanto's
herbicide. But his neighbor who was also
growing soybean did use Monsanto system.
Now to be clear, this herbicide wasn't
glyphosate itself. It was Monsanto's
other herbicide product called dicama,
but it was still packaged in this
Roundup and Roundup Ready system. Now,
one day, Mike noticed that some of his
soybean was dying. And he suspected it
was the herbicide from the neighboring
farm drifting over, killing his soybean.
And he could tell this was the case
because the weeds underneath the
neighbor's soybean were dying allegedly
because of the herbicide. and he
believed this caused him around $100,000
in damages and the neighbor denied that
it was his fault. Now, the tensions
between the two farms grew, so Mike
wanted to chat with one of the workers
from the farm to discuss the situation.
They met on a country field road near
both farms. And what happened next isn't
really clear. Things got sour quickly.
Allegedly, Mike grabbed the worker's
arm, so the worker pulled back and
pulled out his gun, shooting Wallace
until the gun was empty.
Similar kinds of tragedies were
happening all over the world. Monsanto
infiltrated farming communities in
India, Argentina, Canada, Brazil, and
even Vietnam. By the 2010s, they were an
almost untouchable monopoly.
Then out of the blue on March 20th,
2015,
an independent science panel called the
International Agency for Research on
Cancer or IR came out with this a paper
saying glyphosate is probably
carcinogenic to humans.
>> The most popular weed killer in the
world may cause cancer.
>> I classification of glyphosate as a
probable carcinogen.
>> Damage to chromosomes in DNA in human
cells. This came as a shock to everyone,
especially Monsanto.
>> They don't know how IR could reach a
conclusion such as this one.
>> See, other big health organizations like
the US Environmental Protection Agency,
the EPA, and even the World Health
Organization, which is actually the
parent organization to both claimed that
glyphosate posed no carcinogenic risk to
humans and animals.
I think the the IRC designation uh took
the public by such huge surprise because
Monsanto had really done such a good job
for 40 plus years convincing the world
that this stuff was safer than table
salt.
>> Monsanto was furious about this ruling.
So on the same day they sent a scathing
letter to the World Health Organization
complaining how this classification
needs to be rectified immediately. They
claimed I chose to disregard dozens of
studies and that conclusions on
glyphosate must be non-biased, thorough,
and based on quality science. Soon
after, five review papers came out
bashing the IR classification and
criticizing their decision. So why would
I disagree with all the other agencies
and why would they ignore so many
studies?
Well, this is exactly the question
California lawyer Brent Wisner wanted to
answer. Wisner had been looking into
Monsanto for a while now. Allegedly,
Roundup was causing a decline in the bee
population, so he thought he could make
a case out of it. But one day, one of
Wisner's colleagues told him that her
cousin-in-law had been using Roundup on
his farm for as long as she could
remember. And then both he and his dog
developed non-hodkkins lymphoma, or NHL,
a type of cancer targeting the lymphatic
system. And he died in late 2015.
>> He didn't stop using it until he was too
weak to do anything. He didn't think
there was any danger with Roundup.
>> See, the AIK paper that came out saying
glyphosate is a probable carcinogen
actually pointed out that the strongest
evidence was for non-hodkins lymphoma.
And reports of Roundup users getting
diagnosed with NHL were popping up more
frequently. This seemed like more than
just a coincidence. Whisner thought he
had a case, but Monsanto was a corporate
giant he couldn't tackle alone. So he
teamed up with other lawyers and also an
investigative journalist who had been
reporting on Monsanto for decades.
>> So there's a lot to write about. Spent a
lot of time at Monsanto headquarters. It
it became pretty clear this company
really doesn't care about its customers.
>> Right. Okay.
>> Together, this group of lawyers started
a lawsuit against Monsanto and they
forced them to hand over their company
documents. Monsanto had to comply and so
the lawyers got access to their internal
emails, memos and safety studies.
>> Saying one thing publicly and saying
something completely different
internally. The duplicity, the deception
is just, you know, jaw-dropping really.
>> In 1983, Monsanto submitted a glyphosate
toxicology study to the EPA to get it
classified as safe. But the data was
showing that mice receiving higher doses
of glyphosate were developing rare
kidney tumors.
>> The EPA was obviously worried with this
and they wanted to classify glyphosate
as a possible human carcinogen. So they
asked Monsanto to do more studies.
>> And Monsanto fought back against that.
No, you just need to trust what we're
telling you. You know, it's you're
reading the data wrong, etc., etc.
Monsanto wouldn't comply and they pushed
back against the EPA until 1989 when the
EPA suddenly changed its mind. They said
a repeat of the mouse onenicity will not
be required at this time and instead in
1991 the EPA classified glyphosate as
having evidence of noncarcinogenicity
for humans. The cancer concern in mice
was never made public. And this new
classification certainly helped push
Roundup sales, at least until more
independent research came in. See, one
of the most influential research papers
on Roundup actually came out in the year
2000. It was the safety evaluation and
risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup
and its active ingredient glyphosate for
humans, commonly just called Williams,
Crows, and Monroe after its authors.
This was the landmark paper on
glyphosate safety which concluded that
Roundup herbicide does not pose a health
risk to humans.
>> This paper was cited over,200 times
which is a lot
>> and it was considered then by regulators
the foundational research paper to say
that glyphosate was safe. This
independent paper
>> except the paper wasn't independent at
all. See, Monsanto's director of the
toxicology group, William Haydens, was
listed on the paper as someone who
provided scientific support. So, in a
2017 deposition, Whisner and his fellow
lawyers decided to ask Haydens about it.
>> Were your sub your contributions in your
view to the Williams paper substantial?
>> No, they were not. As I said, they were
editorial just to make it easier to
read.
>> But here's how Haydens referred to his
involvement in the paper internally.
I have sprouted several new gray hairs
during the writing of this thing or I'll
strangle Crows or Williams if they ask
for any rewrites and much later we would
be keeping the cost down by us doing the
writing and they would just edit and
sign their names so to speak. Recall
that is how we handled William Crows and
Monroe
>> and they celebrated when it was finally
done. You see in their internal
documents they talk about how this is
going to be our defense glyphosate
around the world.
The patterns of Monsanto's manipulation
were just popping up everywhere. They
tried to change glyphosate cancer
classifications at different agencies.
They seemingly colluded with corrupt EPA
officials to try and kill opposing
research. And they ghost wrote safety
studies. By mid 2017, Wisnner released
all of these internal documents to the
public, now known as the Monsanto
Papers. People were furious. Newly
released docs show Monsanto executives
colluding with corrupted EPA officials
who try to influence media and science
reports. Monsanto appears to have been
caught red-handed.
>> We have a paper trail that goes back to
the 1980s. Stakes for Monsanto are
extremely high.
>> Soon, lawyers were overwhelmed with
calls from cancer patients who used
Roundup and got diagnosed with NHL. They
wished to be included in the lawsuit. By
the end of the year, more than 3,000
victims had signed onto the case, but
Monsanto tried to do everything to
dismantle these carcinogen claims. You
remember the five independent papers
that came out bashing the decision to
call glyphosate a probable carcinogen?
Well, the main review article there was
ghost written by Monsanto.
>> So, you could see this paper getting
edited and changed by people who worked
for Monsanto. And it it's been
frustrating to see journals basically at
every step of the way, you know,
declining to retract.
>> That paper is still online today. And
Monsanto went all the way to discredit
anyone who was opposing their view with
something called their let nothing go
strategy.
>> Let nothing go was essentially like let
nothing go. Somebody tweets online
roundup causes cancer. You don't let
that go. like you have an onslaught of
people responding to that. They had
whole training operations where they
would bring in nutritionists and
academics and other people to train them
like what to say and how to say it.
>> I do not believe that glyphosate in
Argentina is causing increases in
cancer. You can drink a whole quart of
it and it won't hurt you.
>> You want to drink some? We have some
here.
>> I'd be happy to actually, but not not
really. But
>> not really.
>> I know it wouldn't hurt me. If if if you
say so. I I have some glasses.
>> No, I'm not stupid.
>> But they very much became an army that
Monsanto could deploy. When a news
article came out, for instance,
>> are we going to get some comments like
under this video that that are actually
written by Monsanto?
>> I wouldn't be surprised.
>> But all of the confusion Monsanto tried
to create around glyphosate wasn't
enough. By the summer of 2018, the truth
was out and over 11,000 plaintiffs filed
lawsuits against Monsanto. This was
going to destroy them. But
unfortunately, Monsanto had an escape
plan. Just as the first lawsuit against
them was starting, they signed an
acquisition deal with German chemical
giant Bayer.
>> Monsanto cashed in, the executives rode
off into the sunset, and Bayer was left
holding the bag. Why would Bayer buy
Monsanto if if it's so obvious that they
have, you know, hundreds of thousands of
plaintiffs waiting for a verdict? Why
why would a company do something like
that?
>> Well, I think that's right. The big
question that the investors are asking
or have asked, why in God's name did you
do this? Like why did you do this? I
think it was Wall Street Journal that
had a headline, worst acquisition in
history or something like that. Bayer
stock tanked immediately after the
acquisition and things only got worse
for them. A few months later, the first
case against the Monsanto Bayer Company
went to trial. The plaintiff was Dwayane
Lee Johnson, who had developed
non-hodkin lymphoma after accidentally
getting doused with Roundup at work. The
jury, faced with evidence from the
Monsanto papers, sided with Johnson,
awarding him 289 million in damages, and
Bayer had to pay up. By 2025, Bayer had
to settle more than a h 100,000 cancer
lawsuits for the damages caused by
Monsanto's Roundup, amounting to over 10
billion dollars in settlements.
>> Monsanto, which is now owned by
Germany's bear, denies any wrongdoing.
>> And they don't accept that Roundup could
have caused the plaintiff's cancer. So,
after all this publicity and scandal,
how dangerous is Roundup really?
My question has always been, if it
doesn't cause cancer and it's not
dangerous and there's no real risk to
human health, why in God's name would
Monsanto have to spend millions and
millions and millions of dollars to
create ghostritten studies and hire PR
companies to ghost write articles online
and for like why would you have to
engage in so much deception if you truly
had a safe product, right?
Well, according to IARK, one of the
biggest concerns with glyphosate is
genotoxicity. Some studies have shown
that if you get overexposed to
glyphosate, like many farmers would,
then the chemical might substantially
damage the DNA in your cells, which is a
common mechanism of action for many
carcinogens. And other studies have
actually pointed to the shikimate
pathway. Again, we don't use it, but the
bacteria in our gut do. So if you ingest
trace amounts of glyphosate, for
example, through your food, it could
disrupt your gut's microbiome.
>> If you can disrupt the enzyme in the
microfllora in your gut, the epsp
enzyme, the synthace, it could have all
sorts of effects. Now never specified at
what dose glyphosate actually becomes
dangerous, just that overall glyphosate
is a probable carcinogen. And to put it
into context, the other things in the
same classification category are eating
red meat or high temperature frying or
pulling a night shift. But uh these are
lower than the number one category which
is a certain carcinogen. And here of
course you have alcohol and tobacco and
sunlight. And to give you context for
our previous episode on forever
chemicals, PFOA was a category 1, so a
certain carcinogen. But PFOS is actually
a category 2B which is lower than
glyphosate at only a possible
carcinogen.
>> From the data I've seen, glyphosate
doesn't seem to be a particularly potent
carcinogen, but high exposure to
glyphosate is certainly associated with
a modest increase in your ability to get
certain types of cancers. And people who
have higher exposures are clearly at
higher risk.
>> Yeah. However, the EPA and many other
organizations like the European Food
Safety Authority still disagree with the
IARC and claim that glyphosate isn't a
likely carcinogen.
>> But the courts in the United States have
repeatedly told the EPA that they're not
doing a proper analysis. They're not
doing a proper assessment of glyphosate.
They're not following their own rules.
you said like something like 50% of the
papers that were about glyphosate safety
and research and toxicity were probably
like industry funded. Uh you know that's
just a guess off the top of my head. Uh
honestly it could be much higher than
50%. Uh I certainly do not think it's
lower than that. There's there's just
always a desire by these companies to
control the science.
>> Today Bayer still denies that glyphosate
is a carcinogen. they would still tell
you they don't think there's anything
wrong with it.
>> Yeah.
>> When my book came out, Bayer reached out
to me. They sent me an email and it was
really kind of quite strange. It was
like, "Congratulations, we've read your
book and we've learned a lot." I think
Bayer
feels different. And Bayer actually
removed glyphosate from commercial
products. So, this bottle of Roundup
here doesn't even have glyphosate in it
anymore. Part of the reason for that
must be the public backlash and the
lawsuits. But the other reason is that
it doesn't work that well anymore. We
overuse glyphosate.
>> See, since the 1970s, more than 60
species of weed have become resistant to
glyphosate, just like that first
salmonella sample found near the
factory. What do they put in those
Roundup sprays if not glyphosate?
>> Uh, well, mostly full circle. So, it's
24D.
>> Um,
isn't it isn't that crazy?
Well, you know, many people will
probably go through life not being
affected in the slightest by glyphosate,
but others may develop cancer or other
disease. And that's why it's it's really
important to protect the most sensitive
individuals. I think another part of the
problem here is how a company as big as
Monsanto can just infiltrate academia.
They have these big resources, so they
can just push around scientists and
manipulate results. They create so much
confusion and then they just avoid the
punishment.
>> When you don't create firewalls between
the regulated and the regulators, you
have created distrust in science.
Inherently, science is always going to
be political. It's never going to be
disconnected from the realities of the
of the world. It's always socially
constructed. But we can do a lot of
things to put rules and regulations in
place to try and make sure that there's
a better sense of independence and
disconnection between this.
[Music]
I want to shout out two books, Carrie
Gillums, The Monsanto Papers and Bart
Elmore's Seed Money. They were both
incredibly valuable in researching this
topic. And I also want to shout out
people in the comments of our previous
video on PAS suggesting that we should
cover Monsanto. Thank you for suggesting
that idea and thank you as always for
watching.