Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide

“Monsanto's Poison Playbook: How the Chemical Giant
Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide"

TAP is highlighting a report published by Children’s Health Defense that reveals how corporations can act with impunity when they hold undue influence over government agencies.

The Department of Agriculture oversees agricultural practices in the United States. The case of the broad deployment of glyphosate without limits shows how a federal agency can fall asleep at the wheel. 

A new report, by U.S. Right to Know, “Monsanto’s Poison Playbook:  How the Chemical Giant Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide,” illuminates the disinformation, science denial, and manufactured doubt at the core of the pesticide industry’s public relations playbook.

Centering the herbicide glyphosate (known by its brand name Roundup) as a case study, the report is the first comprehensive review of Monsanto’s product defense strategy, including the disinformation tactics it used to manipulate the science and attack scientists and journalists who raised concerns about the health and environmental risks of its flagship product, the world’s most widely used herbicide.
The report also reveals the astroturf operations as well as front groups, professors, journalists, and others that Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) relied on to protect its profits from glyphosate despite decades of science linking the toxic chemical to cancer, reproductive impacts, and other serious health concerns.
The analysis draws from thousands of pages of internal corporate documents released during lawsuits brought by farmers, groundskeepers, and everyday gardeners suing Monsanto over allegations that exposure to Roundup caused them to develop cancer, as well as documents obtained through public records requests in a years-long investigation by U.S. Right to Know, a public interest research group.
 

“The pesticide industry is not just following in the footsteps of Big Tobacco and Big Oil, they co-wrote the playbook—from their attacks on “Silent Spring” author Rachel Carson 60 years ago to the recent Monsanto-led assault on the cancer researchers of the World Health Organization,” said Stacy Malkan, lead author of the report and co-founder of U.S. Right to Know.

This case study provides an important window into how one company worked with many partners across the pesticide and processed food industries, academia, PR firms, and various front groups to sell the world on a toxic pesticide.
 
These disinformation tactics are critical to understand because they have been used to push the entwined myths that we need pesticides to “feed the world” and that they are totally safe,” said author and advocate Anna Lappé, who contributed to the report.
 

Originally published December 6, 2022.  Click HERE to read the full report.

Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide

“Monsanto's Poison Playbook: How the Chemical Giant Sold
the World on a Toxic Pesticide"

TAP is highlighting a report published by Children’s Health Defense that reveals how corporations can act with impunity when they hold undue influence over government agencies.

The Department of Agriculture oversees agricultural practices in the United States. The case of the broad deployment of glyphosate without limits shows how a federal agency can fall asleep at the wheel. 

A new report, by U.S. Right to Know, “Monsanto’s Poison Playbook:  How the Chemical Giant Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide,” illuminates the disinformation, science denial, and manufactured doubt at the core of the pesticide industry’s public relations playbook.

Centering the herbicide glyphosate (known by its brand name Roundup) as a case study, the report is the first comprehensive review of Monsanto’s product defense strategy, including the disinformation tactics it used to manipulate the science and attack scientists and journalists who raised concerns about the health and environmental risks of its flagship product, the world’s most widely used herbicide.
The report also reveals the astroturf operations as well as front groups, professors, journalists, and others that Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) relied on to protect its profits from glyphosate despite decades of science linking the toxic chemical to cancer, reproductive impacts, and other serious health concerns.
The analysis draws from thousands of pages of internal corporate documents released during lawsuits brought by farmers, groundskeepers, and everyday gardeners suing Monsanto over allegations that exposure to Roundup caused them to develop cancer, as well as documents obtained through public records requests in a years-long investigation by U.S. Right to Know, a public interest research group.
 

“The pesticide industry is not just following in the footsteps of Big Tobacco and Big Oil, they co-wrote the playbook—from their attacks on “Silent Spring” author Rachel Carson 60 years ago to the recent Monsanto-led assault on the cancer researchers of the World Health Organization,” said Stacy Malkan, lead author of the report and co-founder of U.S. Right to Know.

This case study provides an important window into how one company worked with many partners across the pesticide and processed food industries, academia, PR firms, and various front groups to sell the world on a toxic pesticide.
 
These disinformation tactics are critical to understand because they have been used to push the entwined myths that we need pesticides to “feed the world” and that they are totally safe,” said author and advocate Anna Lappé, who contributed to the report.
 

Originally published December 6, 2022.  Click HERE to read the full report.

Merchants of Poison

“Monsanto's Poison Playbook: How the Chemical Giant Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide"

TAP is highlighting a report published by Children’s Health Defense that reveals how corporations can act with impunity when they hold undue influence over government agencies.

The Department of Agriculture oversees agricultural practices in the United States. The case of the broad deployment of glyphosate without limits shows how a federal agency can fall asleep at the wheel. 

A new report, by U.S. Right to Know, “Monsanto’s Poison Playbook:  How the Chemical Giant Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide,” illuminates the disinformation, science denial, and manufactured doubt at the core of the pesticide industry’s public relations playbook.

Centering the herbicide glyphosate (known by its brand name Roundup) as a case study, the report is the first comprehensive review of Monsanto’s product defense strategy, including the disinformation tactics it used to manipulate the science and attack scientists and journalists who raised concerns about the health and environmental risks of its flagship product, the world’s most widely used herbicide.
The report also reveals the astroturf operations as well as front groups, professors, journalists, and others that Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) relied on to protect its profits from glyphosate despite decades of science linking the toxic chemical to cancer, reproductive impacts, and other serious health concerns.
The analysis draws from thousands of pages of internal corporate documents released during lawsuits brought by farmers, groundskeepers, and everyday gardeners suing Monsanto over allegations that exposure to Roundup caused them to develop cancer, as well as documents obtained through public records requests in a years-long investigation by U.S. Right to Know, a public interest research group.
 
“The pesticide industry is not just following in the footsteps of Big Tobacco and Big Oil, they co-wrote the playbook—from their attacks on “Silent Spring” author Rachel Carson 60 years ago to the recent Monsanto-led assault on the cancer researchers of the World Health Organization,” said Stacy Malkan, lead author of the report and co-founder of U.S. Right to Know.
 
This case study provides an important window into how one company worked with many partners across the pesticide and processed food industries, academia, PR firms, and various front groups to sell the world on a toxic pesticide.
 
These disinformation tactics are critical to understand because they have been used to push the entwined myths that we need pesticides to “feed the world” and that they are totally safe,” said author and advocate Anna Lappé, who contributed to the report.
 

Originally published December 6, 2022.
Click HERE to read the full report.

Sign Up to Volunteer Here

Let’s Do This!

Please let us know if you are interested in working on or leading a TAP project that will help advance the TAP mission or suggest a project of your own.

We The People Collage

Subscribe

Stay up to date with Tap's newsletter

Rest assured that the information being submitted will only be used by the Truth Action Project to correspond with you.  Please see our privacy policy.

Let’s Collaborate

We’d love to hear from you