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Glyphosate “Safety” Study Ghostwritten by Monsanto Retracted After 25 Years of Deception

Millions of pounds of glyphosate were approved, defended, and sprayed worldwide on the basis of a paper we now know was fundamentally compromised and scientifically invalid.

In a long-overdue move, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology has formally retracted the landmark 2000 glyphosate “safety” review by Williams, Kroes, and Munro — a paper Monsanto and global regulators have relied on for decades to assert that Roundup poses no carcinogenic risk to humans.

Crucially, the Editor-in-Chief confirms that Monsanto employees likely secretly wrote substantial portions of the paper, despite never being listed as authors or acknowledged — a revelation uncovered through U.S. litigation.

The retraction states that the article’s integrity has collapsed entirely, citing undisclosed corporate authorship, omitted carcinogenicity data, financial conflicts of interest, and a complete failure by the surviving author to respond to the journal’s investigation.

Teachers say those "quick fixes" included new behavioral policies known as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or PBIS, a program to keep kids in school by promoting positive behavior instead of suspending them.

McGrath said the policy is being misapplied.

"What's been happening is they get counseled, and then they would come back with a bag of chips, or they would come back with a juice box or a prize," she said. "That's rewarding them for their bad behavior."

During Monday night's board meeting, several teachers described being kicked, bitten and cursed at, while others spoke about students destroying classrooms and frightening their classmates.

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Dec 03, 2025 10:07 pm After I posted earlier today, a parent of one of my daughter's classmates was saying all but 2 of the public elementary schools in Pflugerville, Texas have basically collapsed and aren't worth sending your kids to. According to her, school after school has collapsed in that district over the past 10 years. Then she went on to say that in one school, there is a child who has hour long tantrums and everyone is told to stand back and do nothing until the tantrum plays out. So twenty some kids are basically on standby doing nothing for an hour. They are told that every child has a right to learn as the reason for allowing this. She said, therefore, for her it is either the private school our kids are going to or home schooling. Public school is now out of the question for her family. We then carried on with a discussion of how we have to pay for this nonsense, the amount of money public schools waste and how high our taxes are.

Local News
Modesto teachers say classroom chaos, violence reaching "breaking point"
By Nina Burns
Updated on: October 21, 2025 / 6:40 PM PDT / CBS Sacramento

Modesto City Schools teachers say classroom destruction and violent student behavior are reaching a breaking point, and they're calling on district leaders to take action.

Photos shared with the Modesto Teachers Association show overturned desks, ripped bulletin boards and supplies scattered across the floor. Educators say they're often forced to evacuate students during outbursts and wait for help to arrive.

Prepare for automotive sticker shock next year – again.

Average new car prices briefly topped $50,000 in September for the first time, before slipping back under that level in October.

But now, automotive experts say, car prices are headed back over that level. And this time, they might stay there.

The higher prices for cars – a necessity in many transit-starved cities and towns – are part of a larger affordability crisis that’s squeezed Americans, leaving many living paycheck to paycheck just to get by.

What Is—and Isn’t—a PFAS?

One of the most widely used fluorinated pesticides is bifenthrin. It targets insects’ nervous system and is the prime ingredient in more than 600 pesticide formulations used on corn, soy, vegetables, berries and orchard crops. It is also used to treat seeds and to control ants, termites and other pests in urban settings. Its potential effects on human health are not well known, though there is some evidence that chronic exposure is linked to neurotoxicity, and the EPA has classified it as a possible human carcinogen. Ultimately, the EPA concluded in a 2020 human health risk assessment that “dietary exposure and risk estimates are not of concern for the existing uses of bifenthrin”—at least when levels designated as safe for human consumption are not exceeded. But amounts found in recent years on collard greens, eggplants, spinach, cherry tomatoes, sweet potatoes and peaches have exceeded those EPA safety levels. Removing such residues from produce requires extra scrubbing because bifenthrin is an oily substance.

Bifenthrin (BF) is a Type 1 synthetic pyrethroid that accounts for over 25% of commercially used pesticides worldwide (Deanovic et al. 2018). Its extensive application is underscored by its substantial purchase volume, estimated to exceed 1 million pounds of active ingredient (USEPA 2020). BF's physicochemical characteristics, including high hydrophobicity and photostability (Table S1), contribute to its environmental persistence. These properties and broad‐spectrum applications facilitate the accumulation of its residue in diverse environmental matrices, such as soil, air, and water (Budd et al. 2020; Li et al. 2018; Sanders et al. 2018; Yang et al. 2018). The resulting environmental ubiquity inadvertently creates human exposure pathways and health risks (Corcellas et al. 2012; Liang et al. 2022; Yoshida et al. 2021). Although regulatory frameworks have been developed to ensure its safe use, emerging investigations, spurred in part by BF's growing relevance in green chemistry and nonagricultural sectors, have highlighted its potential toxicological effects (Gargouri, Yousif, Attaai, et al. 2018; Morgan et al. 2018). Findings from these studies underscore the need to revisit the toxicological database from a risk‐safety perspective.

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Dec 03, 2025 10:07 pm After I posted earlier today, a parent of one of my daughter's classmates was saying all but 2 of the public elementary schools in Pflugerville, Texas have basically collapsed and aren't worth sending your kids to. According to her, school after school has collapsed in that district over the past 10 years. Then she went on to say that in one school, there is a child who has hour long tantrums and everyone is told to stand back and do nothing until the tantrum plays out. So twenty some kids are basically on standby doing nothing for an hour. They are told that every child has a right to learn as the reason for allowing this. She said, therefore, for her it is either the private school our kids are going to or home schooling. Public school is now out of the question for her family. We then carried on with a discussion of how we have to pay for this nonsense, the amount of money public schools waste and how high our taxes are.

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Dec 03, 2025 11:23 pm In an accelerating collapse, there are some silver linings. Also during that conversation, we talked about how truly excellent the school is that we send our kids to. Many of the teachers there are what I call "public school refugees" who are experienced teachers and administrators who have left the public schools in disgust so they can now do what they are called to do, albeit for less money. We traded stories about how the teachers there discipline to a higher standard than what we as parents expect. Therefore, we know that things are in good hands and we don't have to babysit situations we hear about from our kids. Of course, as those highly competent teachers and administrators flee the public schools, the collapse of the public schools accelerates.

Anecdotally from this location, in...

...2017 the discussions were brief and along the lines of, "Do you think it's going to collapse?"
...2023 the discussions were along the lines of, "Here are some preliminary signs of possible collapse."
...late 2025, "What has collapsed lately?"

spottybrowncow wrote: Wed Dec 03, 2025 9:18 pm Camille saw it coming long ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8BRdwgPChQ

From Big Chem to Your Table: PFAS Are Being Sprayed on Our Food and No One Told the Public

Take a good look at policies that fly in the face of reason and logic. Understand: You Did Not Consent to This.

They’re spraying PFAS on our food, and the public has no idea.

PFAS—per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—are synthetic chemicals engineered to resist heat, oil, and water. Their carbon-fluorine bonds, among the strongest in chemistry, make them incredibly stable and essentially non-degradable in nature. Developed in the 1940s, PFAS found early use in industrial applications, firefighting foams, and consumer products like nonstick cookware, waterproof fabrics, and food packaging. But in recent decades, they’ve entered an entirely new arena: agriculture.

PFAS now reach food crops through four primary routes: as active ingredients in pesticides, as unlabeled co-formulants or impurities in pesticide mixtures, as leachates from fluorinated containers, and via biosolids (processed sewage sludge) applied to soil as fertilizer. Each of these vectors has been confirmed in the scientific literature. And yet, none of them are disclosed to consumers—and few are understood even by farmers themselves.

In California, the state’s comprehensive pesticide reporting system shows that more than 15 million pounds of PFAS-containing pesticides were sprayed between 2018 and 2023. These included dozens of registered active ingredients used on almonds, tomatoes, grapes, pistachios, and alfalfa—commodities that make their way into baby food, school lunches, and livestock feed. These chemicals aren’t legacy contaminants drifting in from past manufacturing; they’re new PFAS chemistries, registered and sprayed intentionally. In 2025, EPA approved two more: cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram, which are now allowed on leafy greens, peas, citrus, cottonseed, and more. Both belong to chemical families that degrade into smaller PFAS over time.

But most pesticide users—and the public—remain unaware that PFAS are involved at all. That’s because PFAS can be present as so-called “inert” ingredients in pesticide formulations. These aren’t disclosed on product labels and are often shielded under confidential business information protections. In one study published in Journal of Hazardous Materials Letters, researchers found PFOS, a toxic and globally restricted PFAS, in six of ten common agricultural insecticides at concentrations between 3.9 and 19.2 mg/kg. Soil and plant samples taken from fields where these insecticides were used also tested positive for PFAS.

Still more PFAS reach food crops through biosolids. These are the solids left over from wastewater treatment, marketed as free or low-cost fertilizer. Because PFAS survive the treatment process intact, they concentrate in biosolids. Farmers apply them to fields unaware they are seeding the soil with persistent organic pollutants. Multiple studies—including field trials on lettuce, tomatoes, and corn—confirm that PFAS are taken up by plants from these soils. Short-chain PFAS like PFBA and PFPeA, which are highly mobile, accumulate especially in leafy tissues. Even single applications of industrially impacted biosolids can lead to measurable contamination of plants and runoff.

EPA’s biosolids regulations do not yet include enforceable limits for PFAS, though states like Maine have begun to act independently. In 2022, Maine banned all land application of biosolids after PFAS were detected in soil, groundwater, milk, and meat from affected farms.

Why does this matter? Because PFAS are toxic at vanishingly small doses and build up over time. CDC biomonitoring shows that over 97% of Americans have detectable PFAS in their blood. Studies confirm PFAS in umbilical cord blood, placenta, and breast milk, meaning exposures begin in utero and continue through infancy.

The most consistently demonstrated health effect of PFAS is immune suppression. The National Toxicology Program classifies PFOS and PFOA as presumed human immune hazards. In a landmark study published in JAMA, researchers found that children with higher blood PFAS levels had significantly reduced antibody responses to routine childhood vaccines. A 2024 follow-up in Environmental Research found that early-life exposure was associated with lower antibodies to MMR and tetanus vaccines at 18 months.

But the harms do not stop there. The C8 Science Panel, convened as part of a class-action settlement, found probable links between PFOA exposure and testicular cancer, kidney cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, and pregnancy-induced hypertension. Other studies associate PFAS with liver damage, endocrine disruption, lowered birth weight, preeclampsia, miscarriage, and altered adolescent blood pressure. These effects are not rare, nor are they confined to occupationally exposed populations. They appear at exposure levels already present in the general public.

And still, the approvals continue. In 2023, EPA adopted a narrowed definition of PFAS for regulatory purposes, excluding molecules with only a single fluorinated carbon atom—even when those degrade into terminal PFAS like trifluoroacetic acid, which contaminates rainfall, aquifers, and drinking water. This definition allows chemical manufacturers to claim their products are not PFAS while distributing substances that contribute to the same environmental and biological burden. It is, in effect, a definitional loophole designed to support continued PFAS pesticide approvals.

This is where the public must intervene. Moms Across America, a grassroots nonprofit, has taken the lead along with Friends of the Earth. Their independently funded food testing programs have documented PFAS contamination in grocery staples, fast food, and even school lunches. Their advocacy has challenged EPA policies and pesticide registrations, exposed conflicts of interest, and pushed for state-level bans and reforms. They are calling for a national ban on PFAS pesticides, strict limits or prohibitions on biosolids use in agriculture, and full public disclosure of all pesticide ingredients—including inerts.