Talk:Johnson v. Monsanto Co.

Background section proposal

Hi all. This article is very sparce and I think it could use a background section with more details about the case and about Johnson for context. I added one, but it got taken down. If someone else, would be so kind as to add one that would be great. (I'm a bit demoralized, since my previous contribution was taken down so quickly.) Any ideas and suggestions are welcome. Skezmoh (talk) 16:37, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Skezmoh, part of the problem is one of our central policies WP:NPOV. This is not an easy topic to edit in for a new/student editor, though I don't discourage wanting to get into it either. It's just finicky in what we can allow and can result in headaches even for those of us who have been around awhile.

Part of that also deals with what we call WP:FRINGE topics, and glyphosate is pretty rife with those from anti-science movements (e.g., anti-GMO). That's in part why we can't just give a carte blanche account of what Johnson claimed, in part because it contradicts the science so much to the point it easily gets into what we call WP:UNDUE weight territory, even in the article subject itself. We can't really give a one-sided account like that, but we also ideally shouldn't have have a tit-for-tat Johnson claimed X, Monsanto claimed Y either. Wanting to have background for the case fleshed out instead of this just being a WP:STUB is definitely valid though.

For language that already has been largely settled upon, check out Monsanto_legal_cases#RoundUp, which is what this article is basically a spin-off of. Some of the language is a little shakey there too, but it's an example of how some of the language had to be crafted with some care. If you want to expand that part of the text though, definitely feel free to discuss ideas here. It's a lot easier to show all the complicated things that need to be weighed here rather than in short edit summaries. I was planning to open this here later since I'm on limited time this week, so thanks for starting this up. KoA (talk) 17:34, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I looked carefully at these edits, and I put back a part of the Background section. I only included material that I felt was NPOV and just factual about what happened. Due to a lot of previous discussions at multiple pages, I would recommend not including the material about "ghostwriting". --Tryptofish (talk) 23:50, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Cancer section

Was this written straight by Bayer/Monsanto? Are you kidding?

"There is limited evidence that human cancer risk might increase as a result of occupational exposure to large amounts of glyphosate, such as agricultural work, but no good evidence of such a risk from home use, such as in domestic gardening."

The citation for this is old. The IARC declared Glysophate to be a 2A carcinogen in 2015. In ~2019 the EPA said it maybe wasn't a carcinogen, and then retracted that statement a year later as the evidence is now so plentiful. There is plenty of evidence that its cancer causing.

At this point, this section is grossly outdated. 129.59.122.76 (talk) 13:33, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Nothing outdated since nothing has really changed. Most respected independent scientific agencies do not treat glyphosate as a significant carcinogen. The IARC was really the single outlier and was pretty heavily criticized for poor methodology to reach their conclusions. Even other scientific agencies of the UN, which the IARC is part of, disagree. Other articles like glyphosate have more info.

It's like how we don't report that climate change is fake. We don't cherry-pick what a few isolated scientists say, but instead rely on independent scientific consensus. That's another topic where there is a lot of rhetoric too, so part of our job is to cut to what the science says here when we're following policy like WP:DUE. KoA (talk) 20:43, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

It is highly dubious that it is not discussed here how the judge considered the evidence to be, and why the trial resulted In Monsanto paying damages. Who cares about what others say? If you sell Roundup this is a legal risk. Why is this not educative but goes to lengths of mentioning downplaying opinions that are not relevant in front of court? The Daubert Standard of evidence was met and studies linking cancer were put forward. Why is none of that shown? 62.240.134.34 (talk) 09:52, 19 June 2023 (UTC)