A flagship study that declared the weedkiller Roundup posed no serious health risks has been retracted with little fanfare, ending a 25-year saga that exposed how corporate interests can distort scientific research and influence government decision-making.Published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology in 2000, the paper ranks in the top 0.1 percent of citations among studies on glyphosate — the key ingredient in Roundup, owned by agri-giant Monsanto and at the center of cancer lawsuits worth billions of dollars.In his retraction note last week, the journal’s editor-in-chief, Martin van den Berg, cited a litany of serious flaws from failing to include carcinogenicity studies available at the time to undisclosed contributions by Monsanto employees and even questions around financial compensation.Elsevier, the journal’s Dutch publisher, told AFP in a statement that it upholds the “highest standards of rigor and ethics” and that “as soon as the current editor became aware of concerns regarding this paper a matter of months ago, due process began.”But it did not address the fact that concerns date back to 2002, when critics wrote to Elsevier about “conflicts of interest, lack of transparency, and the absence of editorial independence” at the journal, including specific worries about Monsanto.The matter exploded into public view in 2017, when internal corporate documents released during litigation showed one of Monsanto’s own scientists admitting to “ghostwriting.”Harvard University science historian Naomi Oreskes, who co-authored a paper this September detailing the extent of the “fraud” in the 2000 study, told AFP that while she was “very gratified” at the “long overdue” action, but warned that “the scientific community needs better mechanisms to identify and retract fraudulent papers.””This is completely in alignment with what we were calling them out for at the time,” Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and epidemiologist at GWU who co-signed the 2002 letter, added to AFP.- Polo shirts – Two of the paper’s three original authors have since died, while first author Gary Williams, a professor at New York Medical College, did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.Monsanto maintains it acted appropriately, and that its product is safe. “Monsanto’s involvement with the Williams et al paper did not rise to the level of authorship and was appropriately disclosed in the acknowledgments.”The company declined to comment on internal emails that suggested otherwise, including one in which a Monsanto scientist asked a colleague whether “the team of people” who worked on the Williams paper and another study “could receive Roundup polo shorts as a token of appreciation for a job well done.”Glyphosate was brought to market as a herbicide in the 1970s and initially welcomed as less toxic than DDT.But its soaring use — especially after Monsanto introduced glyphosate-tolerant seeds that allowed it to be sprayed widely over crops — drew increasing scrutiny in the 1990s, making the 2000 paper hugely influential. According to Oreskes’s research, it was cited as supporting evidence for glyphosate’s safety by groups ranging from the Canadian Forest Service to the International Court of Justice, the US Congress and the European Parliamentary Research Service.- Legal interest – In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”Several countries have since moved to restrict or ban its use, including France, which has prohibited household applications. Bayer, which acquired Monsanto, said it would phase out Roundup for US residential use in 2023 in response to growing lawsuits.Nathan Donley, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, told AFP he does not expect the retraction to sway the US Environmental Protection Agency, now under the pro-agricultural-industry Donald Trump administration, which has thrown its weight behind Bayer in an ongoing Supreme Court case.But “it could play a role in litigation that is moving forward in the US against the EPA’s proposed decision to renew glyphosate,” Donley told AFP, adding that European regulators might also take note.For Donley and others, the deeper concern is that the case may be far from unique. “I am sure there (are a) lot (of) such ghost-written and undeclared conflict papers in the literature, but they are very difficult to unearth unless one goes really deep in litigation cases,” John Ioannidis, a Stanford University professor who founded the field of meta-research told AFP.

President Donald Trump laid out a radical realignment of US foreign policy Friday, shifting the superpower’s focus from global to regional, criticizing Europe as facing “civilizational erasure” and putting a priority on eliminating mass migration.The national security strategy, meant to flesh out Trump’s norms-shattering worldview, elevates Latin America to the top of the US agenda in a sharp reorientation from longstanding US calls to focus on Asia to face a rising China.”In everything we do, we are putting America First,” Trump said in a preamble to the long-awaited paper.Breaking with decades of attempts to be the sole superpower, the strategy said that the “United States rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself.”It said that the United States would also prevent other powers, namely China, from dominating but added: “This does not mean wasting blood and treasure to curtail the influence of all the world’s great and middle powers.”The strategy called for a “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere,” starting with migration.”The era of mass migration must end,” the strategy paper said.The strategy made clear that the United States under Trump would aggressively pursue similar objectives in Europe, in line with far-right parties’ agendas.In extraordinary language for addressing close allies, the strategy said the administration would be “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”Germany quickly hit back, saying that it does not need “outside advice.”Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks said the document “discards decades of values-based US leadership in favor of a craven, unprincipled worldview.”The strategy pointed to Europe’s slide in share of the global economy — which is the result largely of the rise of China and other emerging powers — and said the “decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.””Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”As Trump seeks an end to the Ukraine war that would likely favor Russia gaining territory, the strategy accused Europeans of weakness and said the United States should focus on “ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.”- Updated ‘Monroe Doctrine’ -Trump since returning to office in January has ordered sweeping curbs on migration, after a political career built on fanning fears that America’s white majority is losing its status.The strategy speaks in bold terms of pressing US dominance in Latin America, where the Trump administration has been striking alleged drug traffickers at sea, intervening to bring down leftist leaders including in Venezuela, and seeking to take charge of key resources such as the Panama Canal.The strategy cast Trump as modernizing the two-century-old Monroe Doctrine, in which the then young United States declared Latin America off-limits to rival powers.The strategy paid comparatively little attention to the Middle East, which has long consumed Washington.Pointing to US efforts to increase energy supply at home and not in the oil-rich Gulf, the strategy said: “America’s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede.”The paper said it was a US priority for Israel to be secure, but stopped short of the fulsome language on Israel used even in the first Trump administration.- China still competitor -On China, the strategy repeated calls for a “free and open” Asia-Pacific region but focused more on the nation as an economic competitor.After speculation on whether Trump would budge on Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy claimed by Beijing, the strategy made clear that the United States supports the decades-old status quo.But it called on allies Japan and South Korea to contribute more to ensure Taiwan’s defense.The strategy puts little focus on Africa, saying the United States should transition away from “liberal ideology” and aid, and instead secure critical minerals.US presidents usually release a National Security Strategy in each White House term. The last, released by Joe Biden in 2022, prioritized winning a competitive edge over China while constraining Russia.