This video was created in partnership with PBS NewsHour.
The record amounts of glyphosate being sprayed in California’s forests—revealed in a yearlong Mother Jones investigation in April—has continued to attract national attention and fuel public debate.
In Lake Tahoe, community members have flooded meetings and organized rallies to stop the US Forest Service from spraying the controversial herbicide better known as Roundup as part of the government’s plan to plant trees in the wake of wildfires.
Members of Congress who oversee the Forest Service have sent detailed questions stemming from our investigation, demanding further information about the practice.
And late last month, our investigation uncovered that Monsanto, the original developer of glyphosate that Bayer purchased in 2018, had secretly orchestrated yet another widely cited study that found glyphosate was safe. The EPA knew what Monsanto had done, determined it was ghost writing and “research misconduct,” and yet the agency continued to cite in government reports as evidence that the herbicide was safe for public use.
Bayer, which manufactures Roundup, is on the hook for more than $12 billion in legal expenses and payouts from lawsuits by people who say the popular herbicide gave them cancer. But last month, the Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that a technicality in federal law bars people from suing the company under state labeling laws, which require companies to disclose risks like cancer. The justices found that only the EPA can mandate safety labels on pesticides, and the agency—which has continued to rely on Monsanto’s ghostwritten studies—says the product is unlikely to cause cancer. Bayer agrees, stating that Roundup is safe when used as directed and that regulators around the world have approved it.