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Speaker 1: The herbside. Glypha state isn't everything from bread and cookies

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Speaker 1: to corn and beer. Glyphas is the active ingredient in

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Speaker 1: Monsanto's round Up, the world's top weed killer. Does it

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Speaker 1: cause cancer? That's the question that's been asked for decades.

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Speaker 1: Monsanto is facing more than three hundred lawsuits by cancer

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Speaker 1: victims around the country who claimed to have developed non

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Speaker 1: Hodgkins lymphoma as a result of exposure exposure to round Up.

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Speaker 1: Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Is one of the

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Speaker 1: attorneys representing several California families in the suits against Monsanto.

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Speaker 1: It seems, you know, not just strange, but almost senate

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Speaker 1: sterre that this company would be trying to see the

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Speaker 1: real risk of its product from the people are being bused.

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Speaker 1: Our guests are Katherine Sharkey, professor at n y U

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Speaker 1: Law School, and Peter Walman, Bloomberg News investigative reporter. Katherine.

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Speaker 1: The World Health Organization's International Agency for Search on Cancer

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Speaker 1: classified Glypha state as a probable human carcinogen this month,

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Speaker 1: California became the first state to list it as a

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Speaker 1: known carcinogen. The e PAS conclusion has been that it's

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Speaker 1: unlikely to cause cancer. Where is the weight of the evidence? Uh,

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Speaker 1: So that's a great question. It will be contested in

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Speaker 1: these rash of lawsuits. UM. I can say that there

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Speaker 1: are interesting issues with respect to the role of states

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Speaker 1: regulating things like pesticides in ways that might challenge federal oversight.

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Speaker 1: So it's happening in this case, it's happened in other

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Speaker 1: cases regarding pharmaceutical drugs, food labeling, etcetera. So UM, the

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Speaker 1: court will be deciding UM interestingly looking at findings from

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Speaker 1: both the International Agency for Research, but also looking at

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Speaker 1: the a p e p a s findings and and

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Speaker 1: ongoing work where they might revisit their findings. Eater. In

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Speaker 1: your very thorough story in Bloomberg Business Week, you talk

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Speaker 1: about a panel of outside scientists that e p A

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Speaker 1: convened to take a look at this issue. Tell us

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Speaker 1: about that and what has happened to the findings of

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Speaker 1: that panel. So that was a panel convened in December

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Speaker 1: UM and it looked at a an issue paper that

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Speaker 1: e p A Pesticide Office developed on the question of

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Speaker 1: carcinogenicity of glypha sate. Glyphosate, of course, is the active

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Speaker 1: ingredient in Roundup, which is Lonsanto's product that really owns

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Speaker 1: the herbicide industry all over the world. It's a very

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Speaker 1: highly selling product used by many many farmers. The peer

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Speaker 1: reviewers who gathered in December cast a lot of questions

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Speaker 1: about the e p A view of Glypha sade as

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Speaker 1: being relatively benign. As you mentioned, they view it as

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Speaker 1: an unlikely carcinogen. Well, a majority of these peer reviewers

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Speaker 1: from universities around the country said there was lots of

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Speaker 1: evidence that the e p A sort of glossed over

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Speaker 1: and smissed and raised a tremendous number of questions, especially

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Speaker 1: for an really a kind of a proform a peer review,

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Speaker 1: about the e p a's view how that will figure

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Speaker 1: in the e p A final analysis. Uh, Administrator Pruett,

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Speaker 1: who is the trump ep A boss. Nobody can know,

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Speaker 1: but UH, they have put those scientific questions in the record. Catherine,

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Speaker 1: the San Francisco federal judge who's presiding over the multi

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Speaker 1: district litigation unsealed documents that raised questions about the safety

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Speaker 1: and research practices of Monsanto, raised questions about possible collusion.

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Speaker 1: Tell us about what some of those documents talk about, right, Well, UM.

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Speaker 1: Just to back up just for a second, I think

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Speaker 1: one thing that was just said that's really important is UM,

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Speaker 1: what kind of administrative record there is that UM then

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Speaker 1: litigants can bring into various disputes. They will bring these

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Speaker 1: into disputes like the one that's ongoing on causation. They

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Speaker 1: will also bring them in I would think whether there

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Speaker 1: if there are future disputes down the road about whether

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Speaker 1: the State of California could go ahead and regulate even

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Speaker 1: if the e PA decides it doesn't want to write,

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Speaker 1: these will be important UM for those purposes as well.

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Speaker 1: So my take on the judge in this multi district

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Speaker 1: litigation is he's shown a kind of skepticism already about

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Speaker 1: various of these agency findings by deciding to put these

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Speaker 1: up UM, to unseal them, to put them up to scrutiny. Peter.

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Speaker 1: One thing that your article talks about that I found

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Speaker 1: very striking with that this office, the Office of Pesticide

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Speaker 1: Programs at the e p A that makes the decision

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Speaker 1: on on UH this pesticide gets almost its operating budget

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Speaker 1: from industry. Can you tell us a little bit about

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Speaker 1: specifically with regard to mont Santo, what is Monsanto's relationship

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Speaker 1: with this office, well, that was brought under scrutiny by

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Speaker 1: the documents revealed or i should say unsealed in the

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Speaker 1: California UM federal court matter in San Francisco, where the

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Speaker 1: judge unsealed documents that showed Monsanto had quite a good

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Speaker 1: relationship with the person reviewing the Carsoner genicity in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen. There was very friendly banter and some emails.

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Speaker 1: At one point the e p A person whose name

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Speaker 1: is Jess Rowland said he should get a medal if

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Speaker 1: he's able to kill another study that a different federal

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Speaker 1: agency under the c d C in Atlanta was going

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Speaker 1: to undertake UM. So they had a very close relationship.

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Speaker 1: As far as Monsanto's related ship with UM, the Office

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Speaker 1: of Peticide Programs in e p A, it isn't that

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Speaker 1: different than any other pesticide manufacturer. The fact is they

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Speaker 1: follow the law and perhaps under their own influence, they

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Speaker 1: were able to influence Congress when they set these laws

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Speaker 1: up to basically rely on the industry to provide all

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Speaker 1: of the data in the various health effects reviews that

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Speaker 1: the EPA does. So Monsanto in the case of glyph

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Speaker 1: estate is the one paying the scientists deciding what to

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Speaker 1: submit to the e p A for review, and has

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Speaker 1: a tremendous influence over the process in that way. And

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Speaker 1: a number of the documents that came out in the

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Speaker 1: federal court matter have shown that they're very let's say,

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Speaker 1: they use a lot of discretion as to what scientists

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Speaker 1: they use, who they pay for the information, what what

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Speaker 1: they publish, what they give to the e p A.

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Speaker 1: And you can imagine their millions, really billions of dollars

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Speaker 1: writing on that scientific review. So they're very careful about

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Speaker 1: what the e p A. S s Catherine in about

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Speaker 1: a minute. The question in the federal cases, according to

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Speaker 1: the judge, is not going to be about glypha state,

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Speaker 1: but rather about round up, and so tell us what

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Speaker 1: the distinction is there. Well, as I understand it, it's um.

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Speaker 1: The roundup has various additives and other um chemicals that

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Speaker 1: are added in as well. And so I think that

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Speaker 1: the judges suggesting that they're going to be looking specifically

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Speaker 1: at data and studies that are going to be looking

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Speaker 1: at the effect of roundup and not just glypha state.

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Speaker 1: Although it's hard to believe that the findings that are

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Speaker 1: of relevance to whether glypha state has carcinergic that carcinogenic

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Speaker 1: um consequences would not be relevant. Just one one quick

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Speaker 1: note because I'm just to emphasize this point. Not only

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Speaker 1: the e p A at the f d A when

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Speaker 1: it's approving drugs, it also relies on manufacturer studies, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things to keep in mind is

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Speaker 1: that what the court will have to do here when

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Speaker 1: it's dealing with an area that's regulated by federal regulators

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Speaker 1: is decide how much scrutiny you know to uncover Captain.

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Speaker 1: We will have to leave it there. This topic deserves

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Speaker 1: a lot of time, and we'll give it some more

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Speaker 1: in the future. That's Katherine shark Kee, Professor n y

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Speaker 1: U Law and Peter Waldman, Bloomberg News investigative reporter,