The Environmental Protection Agency official who was in charge of evaluating the cancer risk of Monsanto's Roundup allegedly bragged to a company executive that he deserved a medal if he could kill another agency's investigation into one of the herbicide's key chemicals.
The boast was made during an April 2015 phone conversation, according to farmers and others who say they have been sickened by the weed killer. The EPA manager, who left the agency's pesticide division last year, has become a central figure in more than 20 lawsuits in the U.S. accusing the company of failing to warn consumers and regulators of the risk that its glyphosate-based herbicide can cause non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
"If I can kill this I should get a medal," said the EPA deputy division director, Jess Rowland, according to a court filing made public Tuesday that says the Monsanto regulatory affairs manager recounted the conversation in an e-mail to his colleagues.
The company was seeking Rowland's help stopping an investigation of glyphosate by a separate office, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, that is part of the U.S. Health and Human Service Department, according to the filing.
A federal judge overseeing the glyphosate litigation in San Francisco said last month he's inclined to order Rowland to submit to questioning by lawyers for the plaintiffs, who contend he had a "highly suspicious" relationship with Monsanto.
Rowland oversaw a committee that found insufficient evidence to conclude glyphosate causes cancer and left his job last year after his report was leaked to the press.
Monsanto issued a statement defending its use of glyphosate without directly addressing the allegations about Rowland.
"Glyphosate is not a carcinogen," the company said. "The allegation that glyphosate can cause cancer in humans is inconsistent with decades of comprehensive safety reviews by the leading regulatory authorities around the world."
Monsanto also said the documents submitted by plaintiffs' lawyers "are taken out of context."
"Plucking a single e-mail out of context doesn't change the fact that the U.S. EPA and regulators around the world, as well as a branch of the World Health Organization that analyzed pesticide residues, have concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans," the company said in the statement.
The company on March 10 lost a court bid to keep glyphosate off California's public list of cancer-causing chemicals. A state judge rejected Monsanto's arguments that the chemical shouldn't be added to a list created by a voter-approved ballot initiative that requires explicit warnings for consumer products containing substances that may cause cancer or birth defects.
The plaintiffs' lawyers say Rowland's communications with Monsanto employees show the regulator who was supposed to be policing the company was actually working on its behalf.
