Safety Study Retracted Amid Bayer Lawsuits

Bayer’s legal exposure tied to its glyphosate based herbicide Roundup continues to mount. The company has paid more than 10 billion dollars to resolve a large share of lawsuits alleging links between Roundup exposure and cancers, like non Hodgkin lymphoma. Thousands of additional claims remain active in U.S. courts, signaling that litigation costs tied to the product are far from settled.

Adding a new twist to the scientific context of these disputes, a scientific paper published in 2000 and long cited as evidence that glyphosate posed no health risks was formally retracted by the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology in late 2025. The study, titled Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans, concluded glyphosate “does not pose a health risk to humans.”

The retraction notice cited concerns about independence and integrity of authorship, including internal documents indicating that Monsanto employees may have contributed to drafting the paper without appropriate disclosure. It also found that the study’s conclusions were based primarily on unpublished industry data supplied by Monsanto, raising ethical questions about transparency and conflicts of interest. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology’s editor stated that these issues undermined confidence in the paper’s findings and warranted removal from the scientific record.

While many regulatory agencies conduct risk assessments based on a broad body of evidence, the retraction removes one influential review from the literature. For organic and non GMO producers, the continued litigation highlights why input scrutiny, documentation, and risk avoidance remain central to market credibility. The Roundup cases continue to influence how farmers, processors, and brands evaluate liability and long term trust in agricultural inputs.

Sources: Lawsuit Information Center; Sokolove Law; Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology; The Guardian; The New York Times.