Talk:Polyethoxylated tallow amine

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June 2013 deletion of primary sources past 1997 review

The current article on polyethoxylated tallow amine (POEA) is a 4-line stub which hardly says anything about the agent - well, it is a surfactant that may hurt some fish. Yet POEA is a major adjuvant of commonly used [[gluphosate]-based herbicides, including many Roundup formulations. The article does not reflect available and reviewed scientific findings from the last decade when a number of models were applied to assess POEA (see in PubMed [1]), none of the results being reassuring. My attempt to update this article past a 1997 review was stopped while in process. The article was purged with the argument that primary sources are not allowed, only reviews are to be used. Wikipedia’s policy says: “Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia", and then warns against their misuse. I believe that editors in Wikipedia have an obligation not to dumb down readers. The deletion of primary sources withholds information and compromises the neutrality of the article. Articles should contain current information. Ekem (talk) 13:29, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ekem. I agree that this article needs to be fleshed out a lot! POEA does indeed appear to be a nasty actor. First thing is, as per WP:PSTS, "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." In other words, secondary sources are strongly preferred, for a whole host of reasons. Second thing is, if we want to make claims about effects on human health (and we do), we need to comply with WP:MEDRS, which falls entirely within WP:PSTS but is more strict and emphasizes 2ndary and tertiary sources even more strongly. It says "Individual primary sources should not be cited or juxtaposed so as to "debunk" or contradict the conclusions of reliable secondary sources. Synthesis of published material that advances a position is a form of original research and should be avoided in Wikipedia articles, which are not a venue for open research. Controversies or areas of uncertainty in medicine should be illustrated with reliable secondary sources describing the varying viewpoints. The use and presentation of primary sources should also respect Wikipedia's policies on undue weight; that is, primary sources favoring a minority opinion should not be aggregated or presented devoid of context in such a way as to undermine proportionate representation of expert opinion in a field. Scientific findings are often touted in the popular press as soon as the original, primary research report is released, and before the scientific community has had an opportunity to analyze the new results. For a short time afterwards, the findings will be so new that they will not be reflected in any review articles or other secondary sources. If the findings involve phase I or phase II clinical trials, small studies, studies that did not directly measure clinically important results, laboratory work with animal models, or isolated cells or tissue, then these findings are probably only indirectly relevant to understanding human health; in these cases, they should be entirely omitted. In other situations, such as randomized controlled trials, it may be helpful to temporarily cite the primary research report, until there has been time for review articles and other secondary sources to be written and published. When using a primary source, Wikipedia should not overstate the importance of the result or the conclusions. When in doubt, omit mention of the primary study (in accordance with recentism) because determining the weight to give to such a study requires reliable secondary sources (not press releases or newspaper articles based on them)." (I added the emphasis) We do not want this article to end up like the bisphenol A article, which is a useless train wreck of primary sources. In any case, I have been meaning to circle back around and work on this but I have not gotten to it. I just did the pubmed search you suggested above and added the "review" filter, and found 2 reviews - I will add content and the sources now. Thanks for working on this! Jytdog (talk) 15:36, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jytdog, both reviews you added seem to be focused on glyphosate. They provide some coverage of POEA in the context of glyphosate formulations, but I only have currently the abstracts available and no access to the articles. I have no idea if the reviews even cover basic stuff such as toxicity class, toxicology models and data, pharmacokinetics, metabolites, half-life, occupational and environmental hazards, etc. In any case, the most recent review that included POEA is the Bradbury article is from 2004, thus the current Wikipedia article ignores any information more recent. By the way, primary articles often have useful background information beyond the actual experimental data and their interpretation.Ekem (talk) 12:43, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy to send them to you if you like. If you find a review that is more recent than 2004 that would be awesome to have. Wikipedia doesn't buy the groceries, we just cook with what is there. In other words, we don't do OR here... Jytdog (talk) 13:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

also as i wrote above, i did the search you recommended (see in PubMed [2]) and then just added the review filter. These two articles are what popped out. Jytdog (talk) 13:47, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I try the library, - that not OR.Ekem (talk) 15:32, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nice. I will try mine too. Jytdog (talk) 15:44, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As it is now, the article is just plain awful, -inaccurate by omitting information, awkward by largely relying on copies of abstracts of two articles that are somewhat linked to POEA. While we are interested about human health, we are also concerned about the effect on the environment, so WP:PSTS but not WP:MEDRS would apply. Clearly, your prohibition of all primary sources is misguided. I'll be back after getting the 2 articles.Ekem (talk) 12:33, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia policy is very clear that "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources." As per policy we go first with secondary and tertiary sources; going to primary sources needs some extraordinary justification and use with great care. Primary sources should not be used because they are recent or easy to find. Piling up content based on primary sources violates the letter and more importantly the spirit of Wikipedia's policies and leads to articles that are confusing train wrecks. I agree that the abstracts I threw up there need to be edited down and that we should cite more detailed information specifically on POEA from those reviews. On the environmental front, I don't know if you looked at the environmental review that is cited there but it has a ton of great, detailed information if you want the article to go into more detail on environmental effects. Jytdog (talk) 14:59, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How not to write an article.

What is this article all about? It seems to consist mainly of true facts written in a misleading way, either intentionally or through ignorance. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:43, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Martin. Please make a point. Better, please help in improve the article! Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 12:15, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I did make a point, that the article seems to consist mainly of true facts written in a misleading way.

Polyethoxylated tallow amine is a surfactant, it is not particularly toxic although drinking it or swimming in it is not to be advised. It is one of many thousands of chemicals used by humans for a wide variety of purposes, many of which are harmful to aquatic life if misused. Let us try to give a balanced and encyclopedic overview of the substance, maybe referring just to a toxicity class as suggested.

As a start, this section is wildly overblown:

There is a reasonable correlation between the amount ingested and the likelihood of serious systemic sequelae or death. Advancing age is also associated with a less favourable prognosis. Ingestion of >85 mL of the concentrated formulation is likely to cause significant toxicity in adults. Gastrointestinal corrosive effects, with mouth, throat and epigastric pain and dysphagia are common. Renal and hepatic impairment are also frequent and usually reflect reduced organ perfusion. Respiratory distress, impaired consciousness, pulmonary oedema, infiltration on chest x-ray, shock, arrythmias, renal failure requiring haemodialysis, metabolic acidosis and hyperkalaemia may supervene in severe cases. Bradycardia and ventricular arrhythmias are often present pre-terminally. Dermal exposure to ready-to-use glyphosate formulations can cause irritation and photo-contact dermatitis has been reported occasionally

It refers to drinking over 85 ml of concentrate!! That is over 1/3 cupful of the stuff. There must be thousands of everyday substances where doing this would be seriously harmful. Let us try to get things into perspective. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:29, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

please be bold, and then let's discuss. Jytdog (talk) 15:16, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I have started by removing a whole paragraph. The two major problems that I see are excessive content on toxicology, the article reads as if the main purpose of this substance is to poison people and the environment; and the excessive connection with a specific brand of herbicide. Is this the only use of PETA? Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:32, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Martin, deleting a whole paragraph is not reasonable. The source is good, and the content is good, albeit excessive and not balanced with other content. This is very far from a good article, I grant you! But wholesale deletion is not constructive. If you want to get involved, help build the article by adding content that is lacking, edit down content that is excessive, etc. Thanks.Jytdog (talk) 13:32, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The content that I deleted is not just excessive it is absurd. I guess you did not read my previous post above, and have not looked at the links I gave below. The whole article is virtually dedicated to toxicology and even with my deletion it still concentrates too much on that subject.

Please explain why you want to give a detailed description of the effects of swallowing over 85ml of the substance when no other article on a similar substance does this. Do you suggest that we add this information to all other chemicals with an entry here? Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:03, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I read what you wrote! I objected to wholesale deleting; I would not object to editing down, especially in the context of adding more content. Wholesale deleting is not improving. Jytdog (talk) 19:21, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps then you could respond to me request above. Why do you want to give a detailed description of the effects of swallowing over 85ml of the substance when no other article on a similar substance does this? Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:37, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Martin I really don't understand where you are coming from. If you read this talk page, and read the actual article you are critiquing carefully, you will see that the current text you are criticizing, is literally a copy/paste from the abstract of the Toxicological Reviews article. There is no wild overemphasizing of anything in the abstract. And since it is the abstract of an article written for toxicologists, it is obvious to the intended reader that a third of a cup is quite a lot and could only be the result of intention or a bad accident. To me, the abstract is saying that the stuff is pretty safe -- it takes that much to achieve what toxiciologists call "significant toxicity." And if you actually read the source you will see that it also discusses the lesser effects of lower doses, and that this information comes from a review of 93 cases of poisonings with glyphosate formulations, if you actually read that case review article you will see that most of those were intentional. I really don't understand where you are coming from. you've been in the trenches too long i think. Again, the article needs a lot of improvement and you are welcome to work on it! Jytdog (talk) 23:11, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have never questioned the accuracy or the sourcing of the material you added. I am questioning the desirability of including in an encyclopdia detailed information on the toxicological effect of the intentional ingestion of large quantities of the subject of the article. Do you think we should do this for every substance with an article in WP, I am sure the information is available? Why do we not do this for all the surfactants I have listed below?

Perhaps you could answer my question, which I ask for the third time. Why do you want to give a detailed description of the effects of swallowing over 85ml of the substance when no other article on a similar substance does this?

I think the only way forwards here is to have an RfC on the balance of this article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:25, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, been to WP:Battleground much recently, Martin? I have said repeatedly that a) the article needs improvement; b) this content could surely be edited down. Your throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater solution was just to delete it wholesale. Like I said, please feel free to improve the article! It seems quite urgent to you so you please start reading sources and improving it!! Absolutely no need for an RfC - we don't disagree at all on substance, just on style. (and btw if you want to see LOTS of tox information, please see any number of articles - say Glyphosate or Organophosphates or BPA. ). Jytdog (talk) 13:35, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That is because some Organophosphates are seriously toxic, they include nerve agents which are classified as weapons of mass destruction!!

The Glyphosate article is another example of ridiculous concentration on toxicity, again related to a particular brand of herbicide. That article, like this one, conflates the toxic effects of glyphosate, PETA and other substances used in commercial herbicide formulations.

If you want comparable substances to PETA you need to look at the surfactants that I have listed below.

I do not want to delete the whole article, just half a paragraph of irrelevant toxicology detail. Everything is toxic, if you consume enough of it. Have you read about this terrifying substance this terrifying substance?

If we cannot get some sense of proportion here and RfC is the only way that I can see forward. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:29, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PETA? Martin this is a completely psycho conversation. It's like you are not reading what I write. I have encountered you on other pages and found you to be pretty reasonable, but it is like a different person here. You are not responding to anything I write and are distorting what I do write; I never said you deleted the whole article. I said that the 85ml is actually a sign the stuff is pretty safe. I have invited you to read the source you deleted and provide a summary more satisfactory to you. This is so weird. Jytdog (talk) 16:03, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PETA= Polyethoxylated tallow amine, the subject of this article.

I guess I must have misunderstood you when you said, 'a) the article needs improvement; b) this content could surely be edited down. Your throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater solution was just to delete it wholesale.'

I want to completely delete a section on the toxicologically effects of drinking over 85 ml of a Polyethoxylated tallow amine containing compound. Why do you want to keep it? Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:42, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Now we are conversing, at least a little. Polyethoxylated tallow amine = POEA as the article says. Yes you did misunderstand - the ONLY thing I have objected to is your deleting an entire paragraph and its source. What I have suggested about ten times, is that if you do not like that paragraph, which is simply the abstract of the source, please read the source yourself and provide a more "balanced" summary. I do not believe you have looked at the source. It is very good. Have you looked at it? Please answer that. thanksJytdog (talk) 17:33, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked at the source but what it says is irrelevant to this conversation. I see no reason why we should provide any summary of the toxicological effects of drinking a large volume of PETA. Please explain why you want to include that information in this specific article. We do not do it for most other chemicals. Doing so to just this one specific surfactant gives undue weight to its (low) toxicity. Also, the source is talking about a cocktail of PETA and other substances. We have no sources relating to people who have just drunk PETA alone. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:42, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We need to slow down. First. Nobody to refers to this chemical as PETA. You can keep doing so but it raises questions of WP:COMPETENCE. Second, please confirm that you read the source. It makes no sense to discuss content based on this source if you haven't read it. Third, please confirm that you understand that the current paragraph in our wikipedia article is the abstract of the source. Fourth - and this is probably the most irritating thing in everything you have written -- please confirm that you understand that the 85ml figure is the significant tox dose of glyphosate formulation, not POEA alone. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:52, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a talk page. The abbreviation used used is unimportant. Please to not try to make this personal.

Yes I do understand that the source refers to the consumption of 85 ml of herbicide containing other ingredients than POEA, I said so just above, 'the source is talking about a cocktail of PETA and other substances'. That is one reason why the source and its abstract are irrelevant to this article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:43, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you do the math on that, as per the article, most of these formulations have 15% POEA; 15% of 85ml is 12.75 ml, which is a bit less than a tablespoon of POEA. Still quite a lot. In any case please see P164 for the place where the 85ml number comes from, and please see p162 for the discussion of POEA alone. I have been meaning to swing back by here and create better content based on this source, but have not had time. As I have suggested, this appears to be very urgent to you so I suggest that you do this; I do not love it that we are currently just using that abstract, which was just a quick and dirty solution as per the conversation above your lovely section header. Jytdog (talk) 18:31, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The 30 is so pointless. Martin if you don't like the length of the tox info, as I have said too many times now, please read the sources yourself and create a more condensed version. The only thing I objected to was your wholesale deletion of the paragraph and the source. I don't understand how this can be so urgent to you and how you can spend all this time Talking, when you don't just do the obvious thing, and write a new, condensed summary discussion of POEA toxicity from the source. Jytdog (talk) 15:54, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To help you get things in perspective have a look at how much there is about toxicity in the paraquat article. Paraquat is much more toxic than glyphosate or POEA.

Jytdog, I have tried asking for a third opinion. I have never done this before. Let us see how it goes. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:25, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some articles for reference

In order to give a picture of how this article might look, I give links below to related articles, all found in the Surfactant article.

Part of the manufacturing process is, I would guess, Ethoxylation. Do we know anything else about how it is made.

Other surfactant articles are Sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate, Lignosulfonates, Sodium dodecyl sulfate, Cetrimonium bromide, Sodium laureth sulfate, and Benzalkonium chloride. This is just a random selection to give us an idea of how this article might be structured. There limited toxicology sections in some of these articles and I can see no strong brand name links. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:44, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Third opinion

Please comment here.

Okay, I will, coming here from the listing at Third Opinion. This opinion is based upon the presumption that this edit encapsulates this dispute. Martin's argument seems to focus on this point, "I see no reason why we should provide any summary of the toxicological effects of drinking a large volume" taking that issue as being absurd, as if the article in question was about something which would never happen in the real world or, to quote Martin, "It refers to drinking over 85 ml of concentrate!! That is over 1/3 cupful of the stuff. There must be thousands of everyday substances where doing this would be seriously harmful. Let us try to get things into perspective." I find it rather remarkable that neither editor has focused on the statement in the removed section that, "Most reported cases have followed the deliberate ingestion of the concentrated formulation of Roundup" (emphasis added). It seems to me that the toxicity of an ingestion of 85 ml of this stuff is clearly relevant to the article, since people are intentionally drinking Roundup in the real world and since there is a question of whether the addition of the material to the glyphosate makes the mixture more toxic. That would seem to me to at least get us past the dispute as it now stands. I agree that the two tox entries are too detailed and extensive for an article of this length and need to be trimmed down. (And I also wonder whether the length of the quotations, even though properly quote-marked and attributed, may violate the Non-free content policy.) It also occurs to me that there may be WP:MEDRS issues which need to be evaluated and taken into account. (Indeed, I have to wonder from the abstract — I've not read the full study — whether this study about glyphosates really says anything about POEA in particular vs surfactants in general and whether, in that light, the study can really be cited as saying anything definitive about POEA vs. simply some comments about it in passing.) In short, I think that there is a real possibility that there is a great deal more to consider about the suitability of this study as a source in this article, but the objection that the inclusion is absurd merely due to the quantity involved does not seem to me to be sufficient reason to exclude the material in light of the known misuse of the material. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:38, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As discussed above, the source has a section specifically on POEA toxicity.Jytdog (talk) 15:55, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity my arguments are:

As TransporterMan says above, the effects of consumption of a herbicide containing POEA, glyphosate and other chemicals cannot be used to indicate the toxicity or the toxic effects of POEA.

In any case the detailed description of the effects of the above ingestion give far too much weight to one particular property of this material, its toxicity. There must be many industrial or agricultural chemicals where ingestion of even 15 ml would cause serious harm. For example paraquat is much more toxic then POEA yet that article has less on the toxic effects than this one. Better models on which to base this article would be the other surfactants that I have listed above, some of which have brief and proportionate sections on toxicity..

The substance is far too closely linked with Roundup, a specific brand of herbicide. It must be used by someone else for something. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Remove brand names

I suggest that brand names should be removed from this article. There is far too strong a connection between a substance that is just a surfactant and a brand of herbicide. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:38, 1 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

POV flag removed

rmved flag from article, as dispute from June 2013 appears to be resolved.--Wuerzele (talk) 06:52, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Williams et al 2000 paper

@KoA: Thanks for your recent clean-up of the toxicity information. Regarding the Williams et al 2000 paper, I still have concerns that this paper is not an independent reliable source. We have three different authors characterizing this paper as "ghostwritten" by Monsanto in 2 different academic papers.[3][4] Not only that, but Monsanto literally admitted that they ghostwrote the paper: "If we went full-bore, involving experts from all major areas (Epi, Tox, Genetox, MOA, Exposure – not sure who we’d get), we could be pushing $250K or maybe even more. A less expensive/more palatable approach might be to involve experts only for the areas of contention, epidemiology and possibly MOA (depending on what comes out of the IARC meeting), and we ghost-write the Exposure and Tox & Genetox sections. An option would be to add Greim and Kier or Kirkland to have their names on the publication, but we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak. Recall this is how we handled Williams Kroes & Munro, 2000."[5][6] The Monsanto Papers include dozens of emails like this where Monsanto discusses ghostwriting scientific papers related to RoundUp.[7] I know this sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory, but these are real emails from real court documents. The fact that the paper has not yet been retracted is unfortunate, but we know that it is not an independent source, so it does not meet WP:RS in my opinion. (It should also be noted that Monsanto apparently has a history of interfering with the retraction process, so maybe it isn't surprising the paper hasn't been retracted.) If you have the time, reading through [8] is really eye-opening. Nosferattus (talk) 18:30, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nosferattus, the idea that the paper was ghostwritten has been discussed plenty before on other pages, and it largely gets into WP:FRINGE territory. When you cite "The Monsanto Papers", that is not a reliable source and is really just narrative package pushed by the lawyers of glyphosate litigation. You're also citing USTRK, an organic lobbyist group. We wouldn't cite Monsanto uncritically here, nor would such lobby sources you're bringing up be an exception either. Unfortunately those of us who work on these types of articles often have to deal with some pretty undue or outright fringe stuff coming from those groups, especially when you get into the WP:PRIMARY level of sources like you're bolding. The anti-GMO/glyphosate topic is just messy with that kind of stuff.

This has been discussed plenty elsewhere already, but the short of it is that for our purposes as editors (not internet sleuths) if there was an issue with the source, the university would either have to speak up (instead it found no evidence of ghostwriting or such misconduct)[9] or the journal would issue a retraction. Neither have happened. Speaking from a university-perspective, administrators would generally come down hard on that kind of ethical breach in agricultural departments, as would journals. That's the framework we're dealing with for when publications have breaches like that. Instead, all that has happened is the occasional paper like you linked to that runs with the assumption of ghostwriting, but falls very short on any substance we could use here.

At the end of the day, the article in question is cited uncritically by other independent secondary sources, and that's where the focus lies in source selection here in the updates I made. It's pretty uncontroversial information to boot when it comes to the Williams paper too. The citation was kept because those other sources are still saying the information they cite from it is still relevant, so it's generally only used in paired sourcing anyways. If more information comes to light one day that could be a discussion, but even then, content on this page wouldn't really substantially change either. KoA (talk) 21:10, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean "assumption of ghostwriting"? William F. Heydens, Regulatory Product Safety Assessment Lead at Monsanto, said that Monsanto ghostwrote the article and Williams, Kroes, and Munro just edited and signed their names. This is on page 4 of document 187-12 of Case 3:16-md-02741-VC (In Re Roundup Products Liability Litigation) filed on March 14, 2017.[10] Are you saying that this document is a hoax? FWIW, the editor of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology has stated that the matter "is being investigated and addressed with the publisher", which I don't think would be the case if this were simply a conspiracy theory. Also [11] and [12] are not primary sources. We have both primary and independent secondary sources saying that the paper was ghostwritten. And even if all of those sources are wrong and the court documents are somehow a hoax (which seems very unlikely), it isn't a good look for Wikipedia to be uncritically citing a paper that is at the center of a scientific fraud controversy and lawsuit. And yes, I'm very aware that GMO topics are full of conspiracy theories and FRINGE POV, but sometimes a duck is a duck. Nosferattus (talk) 02:36, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Nosferattus. Looks like the paper is bad. Andre🚐 05:14, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nosferattus, despite all of the numerous conversations on this topic, it's never been that cut and dry that there was ghostwriting on this source (that we can say as editors at least). There's a very careful threading of the needle going on in what I mention here and in my edits because we can't just charge ahead with claims of ghostwriting. Because of the reality of what has happened (not narrative), we do have to be very careful in approaching the topic. You are repeatedly citing litigation from the lawyers (in addition to the industry lobby group), and that is a very WP:PRIMARY source we cannot use in addition to lacking independence. That is a single line from an email, and it's pretty well known how easily emails in court cases are easily taken out of context to the point that we generally avoid such sources in talk page discussions. It opens up an odd can of worms too where suddenly Monsanto and the opposing litigants and now somehow reliable.

When it comes to the Kaurov paper, there isn't anything additional in that paper aside from circling back to that single email. They run with the premise of ghostwriting, but have no real additional details on it we could use. Similar case for the McHenry paper, and McHenry is a consultant for the Roundup litigation, so I hope the irony isn't lost there. To paraphrase what you just said, it isn't a good look for Wikipedia to jump to the POV of those with financial ties to this (i.e., threading the needle I mentioned earlier).

In reality, that email came out, but no evidence of ghostwriting has come up since in actual investigations. I already mentioned the university ethics investigation, but your comment which I don't think would be the case if this were simply a conspiracy theory is very much poisoning the well. All journals would use that language to say they are checking into a claim regardless of validity, and I have not seen any updates in sources in that arena either. The irony though is that if you look at the actual paper, the main Monsanto employees in question are right there in the acknowledgements despite all the claims of ghostwriting and never being mentioned. That's where I get really concerned about WP:BLP and claims of ghostwriting because there's a mismatch with claims there.

At the end of the day, actual independent experts in the field with more knowledge than you or even me do consider the publication reliable, and there's no reason to leave the citation out, especially when it's cited because another independent secondary source is citing it for the information we have in the article. We do that with sources like WP:MEDPRI where there's even more question on validity, and the same is often done if there's a question, but other secondary sources are fine with it. There is no standalone use of the source. There is a meta-issue at play too with the Kaurov paper where I'm really cautious about the idea of saying, "Look, we cleaned out all citations of this article you said was ghostwritten." That really runs counter to WP:PAG in terms of removal. Juggling all this goes back to threading the needle I mentioned where having chained citations is doing a lot preemptively already with a pretty simple solution. KoA (talk) 17:32, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If Monsanto admitted it, how is it FRINGE? — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 03:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Monsanto literally admitted that they ghostwrote the paper - how's that not an instant irrevocable WP:INDEPENDENT failure? — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 03:56, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the paper. It clearly doesn't meet WP:IRS. Since there was another source, the main text doesn't need modification. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:45, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A good edit. Andre🚐 17:40, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like there may have been a mistake in the removal. There wasn't a question of independence. The other secondary source is why the citation was included since we often include the citations (in this case a review cited by a secondary source) when that independent source mentions them as important. For those not familiar with that, a parallel is in MEDRS when we have a secondary source, but also cite the primary source they are reviewing as a supplemental citation, not a standalone. That isn't always done, but it's almost never controversial to include the supplemental citation when the secondary one is independent.

This removal also really complicates things in terms of edit/talk procedure. The article is under 1RR with the GMO/pesticide CTOP. One of the expectations discussed at ArbCom is when there is a dispute that editors don't keep reinserting or removing disputed content even if it's different editors. Right now, the source has been removed twice. I took a stab at a compromise edit that that juggled a lot of competing issues while keeping the source in prior to that, but now without consensus for removal, we likely need to go back to some sort of status quo. I don't think anyone including me would be happy with the original standalone citation/text at least, and I'm not seeing any WP:PAG issue with the compromise text either that integrated the citations. KoA (talk) 19:14, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You appear to be the only one in this thread advocating to retain it. Meanwhile, 4 other editors want to remove it. That is a consensus. Andre🚐 19:22, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is not how WP:CONSENSUS policy works, especially in terms of WP:!VOTE. KoA (talk) 20:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be a WP:1AM. Andre🚐 20:43, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Obviously unusable in any context. The sourcing stating that it was ghostwritten was extensive, and no one has presented any credible reason to doubt it or any sources disagreeing at all. Truthfully, we should probably cover the fact that Monsanto attempted to use a ghostwritten paper this way in more depth on both this and other articles; the academic sourcing is extensive (^{[1][2][3][4][5]}) - and I'm concerned that it may have been removed without proper examination of the sources, if this was overlooked. We should revisit the "other discussions" mentioned above. Here is a quick search for previous discussions that should be reconsidered - the argument that it is fringe seems utterly baseless to me; nobody has presented any sources for it at all, and there is extensive academic sourcing stating that Monsanto partially or functionally ghostwrote key parts the paper as uncontested fact. --Aquillion (talk) 14:24, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed. Andre🚐 18:03, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Aquillion, the context on my FRINGE comment is that it's been a decades old tactic to constantly claim ghost-writing, shill-gambits, etc. when it comes to partisan or especially competing industry sources in the science denialism/anti-GMO/anti-glyphosate realm (talking about in content/sources themselves, not editor conduct here). There's no real dispute on that. Claims of glyphosate being the cause of the world's woes like autism, IBS, etc. has been an extension of that for awhile (e.g., Seralini affair, and cancer claims have at least in part been an iteration of that when we navigate sources as editors in this topic. That's especially when it comes to claims from the organic industry or lawyers in related litigation. We're often left navigating both that and claims from the pesticide companies, so it's rarely as simple as you're describing. It's honestly painstaking try to sort through all the nuance for even editors who've hung around the topic for years, but that's in part why we rely on independent sources that tell us when some industry or industry-adjacent publications have valid scientific claims (or if the publication is off-base). Normally that defuses the question in independence.

  That's the background, but on to this article. Take your first source for instance. That's from a consultant for lawyers involved in the other end of glyphosate litigation.[13]. Same for #2. Often times pushes in sources on this particular topic are from sources with a financial/advocacy interest or those adjacent that editors seem to miss often, and not just from Monsanto/Bayer. #3 was mentioned above in my reply to Nosferattus, and I'm not seeing references to this study in 4 or 5 either. Broken clocks and all for other potential ghostwritten publications, but for this particular source, we really don't have much to go on to claim ghostwriting here, so that's why I'm extremely cautious about the route this talk section is going after the topic has been beaten to death in other talk sections already (to list just a few)[14][15][16]. At this point, all that is being done is to include the supplemental citation like we often do when reviews mention a key publication in their content we're sourcing. KoA (talk) 18:52, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Becoming an expert witness or a consultant doesn't erase your credentials... Andre🚐 19:09, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Being paid by a company is definitely a conflict of interest. It would be no different if it were a Monsanto/Bayer consultant did the same and later went on to write about how great their products are. KoA (talk) 19:15, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  But the point is about removing the Monsanto ghostwritten study. Removing that study isn't equivalent to adding the critical one. Andre🚐 19:19, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That's really creating a double standard then. That would then make somehow Monsanto a reliable source if they were criticizing the organic industry. It wouldn't matter if the consultant was promoting a product or being critical of a competitor/someone their company is adversarial to. They're still not independent and we don't reach for those sources for analysis. KoA (talk) 20:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  No it doesn't work that way. We can remove both sources and use neither. It isn't 1 or the other. Andre🚐 21:29, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "we really don't have much to go on to claim ghostwriting here"

  We have extensive evidence that this is so, from the Monsanto emails themselves (primary sources), to reliable independant third party sources. The Williams, Kroes & Munro paper is irreperably tainted and fails WP:IRS. Which doesn't mean that it's wrong. Just that it is completely useless for Wikipedia's purposes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:22, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @KoA: You are really bending over backwards here to defend an indefensible paper. Monsanto said they ghostwrote it, Monsanto gave the authors gifts (according to another email), and neither of these were isolated incidents. While you suggest that I'm taking the email quotation out of context, the reality is that the more context you read, the more incriminating it gets. If you read that entire email chain, it is clear that ghostwriting the paper is part of a larger strategy of manipulating the toxicology research around glyphosphate in anticipation of the 2015 IARC report. And suggesting that it is a BLP violation is absurd. BLP doesn't apply to corporations. Nosferattus (talk) 19:42, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  (edit conflict) Headbomb, even as someone who comes down hard on science ethics issues like ghostwriting, we need to be very careful about calling bare-bones evidence as "extensive". If Monsanto is suddenly a reliable source then I guess we have conclusive evidence they did not ghostwrite according to this source Although 15 years later Dr. Heydens referred to such fully acknowledged contributions as ghostwriting, he described his actual role in the Williams et al paper under oath as follows: "I made some minor editorial contributions to that 2000 paper that do not mount to the level of a substantial contribution or an intellectual contribution and, thus, I was only recognized in the acknowledgements and not as an author, and that was appropriate for the situation." What do you do when the two Monsanto's supposedly contradict themselves? Is the context of the email wrong, or is the Monsanto post the one that's wrong?

  If the sarcasm isn't clear, I don't "trust" either primary source as an editor, and the other sources out there pretty much just say there was this one tiny bit of an email without detailing the rest of the story. Listing someone who contributed only minorly to the paper in the acknowledgements is not ghostwriting though as much as I personally don't like seeing interested parties getting involved in manuscripts for even minor details they list. If there was more than that going on in this study, then we really need sources on those details rather than basic assertions X was ghostwritten.

  That's all more for meta-discussion that may come up elsewhere though. For the edit in question though, we're not concerned about the independence of the source because it isn't being used as an independent source. It exists tied to the other source acting as the standalone, and there's nothing wrong with that in terms of WP:PAG. That's typically how even more definitively problematic sources can be handled (in terms of standalone use) when a secondary source uses them to still cite the study as a supplemental. It's not required to do that, but I've never seen a case where someone showed it was problematic to do so. In terms of moving discussion, that's where I have to push and ask where the PAG-based problem is by having a dual citation since the independence issue is already handled?

  Either way, I mentioned the expectation of 1RR above. Could you self-revert your removal of the source until there is consensus for that since it's been longstanding content and discussed elsewhere plenty already? As I mentioned already, the recent edits were really intended as a compromise threading the needle between competing issues whether PAG-based or not, and that included keeping the source in while addressing or preempting potential issues with the source. There shouldn't be remaining problems with the edit, but that can definitely be discussed in the meantime. KoA (talk) 20:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  In the email, Heydens didn't say "I" ghostwrote the paper, he said "we" ghostwrote the paper. So his later statement doesn't make any difference as no one has accused Heydens personally of being the person that ghostwrote it. Nosferattus (talk) 23:11, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Is it true that the authors of these studies being referenced are "consultants" for prosecutors in anti-glyphosate lawsuits? The lawsuits by the fringe anti-science organic groups? If yes, then they're trash. Particularly if they wrote and published these papers while they were being said consultants. Are y'all really promoting fringe hacks a la Seralini here without properly discussing it? Silverseren^C 20:48, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The question is whether the allegedly Monsanto ghostwritten paper should be removed, not whether the critical papers should be used. It's clear that the allegedly Monsanto ghostwritten paper should be removed. It's controversial and not necessary. That doesn't mean we accept the critical paper as gospel. Andre🚐 21:27, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That's not the arguments I see above from other editors, with them saying the critical papers are reliable, with no attempt to actually address the authorial subject matter. Also, if the critical papers aren't reliable, then what are you using as a source to claim that the original paper is ghostwritten? And, no, you can't use an off-hand comment from an email from one person as an original research claim. Particularly when KoA just posted a quote above stating the exact opposite of the ghostwritten claim. Silverseren^C 21:32, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "the editor of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology has stated that the matter "is being investigated and addressed with the publisher"," that to me is enough on its own not to use the paper. If they come out with an investigation that debunks all of this we can always put it back. Further, Naomi Oreskes is prima facie reliable. KoA argues that the Kaurov paper is "nothing new" but it doesn't have to be new. It is enough to cast a cloud of doubt on the 2000 allegedly ghostwritten paper. We don't need to then use the Kaurov paper for anything necessarily either. Andre🚐 21:41, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Further, Naomi Oreskes is prima facie reliable. Why? From looking up her comments on the subject, she's been pushing several insinuations about the "unknowns" on health effects from gm crops. Going back years, it looks like. While also repeatedly saying she doesn't know much about the subject when asked directly? Considering her past writings were about climate change and big oil, I'm not sure why she would be considered an expert or reliable in any fashion on this separate topic. Wouldn't this be yet another scenario of "expert on a subject opines their opinion on subjects they have no background in" like we see happen with so many Nobel winners? Silverseren^C 22:08, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  This is key to the problem in your logic. Instead of looking at Naomi Oreskes' credentials as an academic and her body of work and her expertise on paper (prima facie, meaning on its face, as in the cursory glance I am proposing to use to evaluate her) you scrutinized her conclusions to see if they were fringey, as in whether you disagreed with them, and then are rationalizing that as unreliability. She's prima facie reliable in her field, which is the history of science full stop and related controversies, which she obviously studied before publishing on it, along with a coauthor. For the question of whether Roundup is carcinogenic, she is not qualified. But she is eminently qualified to analyze a scientific controversy such as whether a paper was ghostwritten. We aren't or at least I am not proposing to use her for the polyethoxylated tallow amine article. She's not a biochemist or pharmacological oncologist or whatever the good sources for this happen to be. BUT she is prima facie reliable for scientific controversy such as whether a giant ag co funded bad research. Andre🚐 22:25, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Instead of looking at Naomi Oreskes' credentials as an academic and her body of work and her expertise on paper I would say this was poorly worded, as this just seems to fall directly into issues like Linus Pauling per what I already noted. The rest of your comment is a better argument, but hardly a "prima facie" statement whatsoever. Though then you run into a problem.

she is eminently qualified to analyze a scientific controversy such as whether a paper was ghostwritten She doesn't appear to be doing that. At least in the paper linked below. The paper below presumes the entire paper is ghostwritten based off of that comment in an email and then criticizes that the paper was cited by so many other later papers. There doesn't appear to be anything in there on her analyzing whether the paper was actually ghostwritten or not. She just assumes it with no actual attempt to back that up outside of said email? So that doesn't seem to support your argument on whether a giant ag co funded bad research, since she doesn't address the research at all. I could go into more, such as how the background section of her paper even more strongly implies her FRINGE stance (re: IARC and citing Charles Benbrook as reliable on that subject), but that seems outside the scope of the current discussion. Silverseren^C 22:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The expert accepts that it was ghostwritten. She doesn't need to show her work as to why she accepts that. It's enough that an expert accepts it. This isn't a known scientist slowly growing kooky with age and adopting weird ideas about vitamin C health or something. It's an expert on a specific topic looking into that topic and accepting or not, certain evidence and then publishing something about it. If a historian of another stripe publishes some chronology based on archival records, they don't need to convince you the archival records contain that. You have to trust them on it. she doesn't need to spell out exactly why she believes the email and not whatever conflicts with it. I don't think it's enough for a Wikipedia editor to read a paper and a few statements and pronounce a working historian of science with top credentials to be irredeemably on the fringe because she made some murmurings about unknown unknowns once or twice. That isn't enough. We need a source that is itself reliable and characterizes her as fringe or problematic. Actually, she gets attacked for her work that shows companies tried to hide climate change and tries to take down climate deniers, so she's not some right winger or a cuckoo bird, she is anti-fringe and hardly granola-adjacent. She has very strong, as I said prima facie, credentials. If I took away her name and her statements, you'd say she sounds reliable behind the veil of ignorance, no question. Andre🚐 22:44, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If I took away her name and her statements, you'd say she sounds reliable behind the veil of ignorance, no question. So, the statements from the linked article? Those statements, that you say stand on their own?

If you gave me the paper without her name and the background explanation for the paper's stance says this: The IARC relied predominantly on peer-reviewed studies, 70 % of which indicated genotoxic effects. In contrast, the U.S. EPA relied largely on registrant-commissioned, industry-funded studies, 99 % of which reported negative results, that is, insignificant toxic effects (Benbrook, 2019; see also Lanier-Christensen, 2025), I would say that it's an unreliable FRINGE piece. Just like anything written by Andrew Wakefield or Gilles Seralini. In fact, I have said the latter two things before on Wikipedia, repeatedly. Though it's admittedly been a while since 2015.

I don't understand the rest of your argument. There's plenty of climate change supporters that are fringe cuckoos when it comes to biotechnology. People can support science on one topic, while being a pseudoscience pusher on another. And for the subject here, we would need actual published papers addressing the original paper and why it's unreliable. The first two linked are by paid for consultants on the organic foods lobby side of lawsuits. And then you have Oreskes not even attempting to back up the claim of ghostwriting other than quoting the one off-hand line from an email and not bothering to say anything more than that. I call that lack of support for a scientific argument.

Particularly when it seems from the person in question being quoted as saying: Although 15 years later Dr. Heydens referred to such fully acknowledged contributions as ghostwriting, he described his actual role in the Williams et al paper under oath as follows: "I made some minor editorial contributions to that 2000 paper that do not mount to the level of a substantial contribution or an intellectual contribution and, thus, I was only recognized in the acknowledgements and not as an author, and that was appropriate for the situation." Seems like if any other source is going to argue against that, they would first need to actually address the paper in specific and analyze the validity of the statement. Oreskes certainly doesn't do that or even claim to be trying to do that. Her paper is entirely about how that original paper was cited in the scientific literature. It doesn't claim to be about anything more than simply that. Silverseren^C 23:00, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No one has accused Dr. Heydens of ghostwriting the article. In the email, he said "we" ghostwrote the article, i.e. Monsanto. Nosferattus (talk) 23:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, prima facie meaning without looking at her statements, consider whether she is a good authority for her field. The only question here is whether this apparently reliable critique casts doubt on the 2000 paper. Not whether the other papers are scientifically proven. That isn't the standard for a historian. At the least, the 2000 paper has a shadow on it now, which is enough to have the jury be out on it. And it's also not enough to hand-wave away the other papers because they were expert witnesses or consultants. That just makes those papers not independent. It doesn't lift the stigma on the 2000 paper as long as we don't specifically believe that those papers are completely fabricated falsehood, which there is no reason to believe. The bottom line is that by measuring after you evaluate fringeness instead of going in with a tabula rasa, you're effectively substituting your priors for whether GMO/glyphosate skepticism is legit or fringe, instead of dispassionately evaluating the nature of the authority for the reason to doubt the specific 2000 paper. Andre🚐 23:21, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also I haven't seen any evidence that Kaurov, Oreskes, and McHenry are paid consultants for anyone, nor that U.S. Right To Know is an organic food lobbyist. I'm tired of being the only person citing any sources here. Nosferattus (talk) 23:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My 2c, right to know is a banner for a variety of campaigns for organic food labelling countering the industry groups that want to make it harder to label organic food so that consumers can't make educated decisions about reducing their synthetic pesticide intake. USRTK is indeed an anti-GMO group, and they are not necessarily a reliable source on their own any more than other advocacy groups are, but they might put out some reliable reports, that should be attributed for analysis and opinions. They mostly file FOIAs and release stuff and I would say it is reliable enough if it is the output of a FOIA. Option 2, basically. Andre🚐 23:41, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

USRTK is part of the antiscience industry in the US. Anti-GMO, antivaxx, lableak – the whole enchilada. Citing it would risk making Wikipedia look ridiculous. Bon courage (talk) 05:02, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think citing the study ghostwritten by Monsanto makes Wikipedia look pretty bad. Andre🚐 05:07, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is respectably published, not withdrawn or even subject to an expression of concern. Doing-down science because it doesn't accord with personal beliefs is also part of the antiscience zeitgeist. Bon courage (talk) 05:22, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By that token the papers criticizing it aren't withdrawn either. Andre🚐 05:25, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Smoking and Lung Cancer: Report of the Tobacco Manufacturers' Standing Committee" was also published in a reputable journal (Nature in fact) and hasn't been retracted. Would you recommend that we cite it in our tobacco article? Defending science doesn't mean throwing common sense and reasonable skepticism out the window. It also doesn't mean Wikipedia has to use questionable sources. Nosferattus (talk) 16:03, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to an article in Accountability in Research: "[Williams et al 2000] was ghostwritten by the standard definition since Douglas Bryant, who wrote the draft and coordinated the revisions, is not listed as an author."[17] Nosferattus (talk) 03:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

1. McHenry, Leemon B. (1 August 2018). "The Monsanto Papers: Poisoning the scientific well". International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine. 29 (3–4): 193–205. doi:10.3233/JRS-180028. ISSN 0924-6479. PMID 29843257.
2. Matheson, Alastair (6 December 2024). "The "Monsanto papers" and the nature of ghostwriting and related practices in contemporary peer review scientific literature". Accountability in Research. 31 (8): 1152–1181. doi:10.1080/08989621.2023.2234819. ISSN 0898-9621. PMID 37424374.
3. Kaurov, Alexander A.; Oreskes, Naomi (1 September 2025). "The afterlife of a ghost-written paper: How corporate authorship shaped two decades of glyphosate safety discourse". Environmental Science & Policy. 171 104160. doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104160. ISSN 1462-9011.
4. Schölin, Lisa; et al. (2025). "Mapping commercial practices of the pesticide industry to shape science and policymaking: a scoping review". Health Promotion International. 40 (1) daaf001. doi:10.1093/heapro/daaf001. PMC 11829166. PMID 39953887.
5. Glenna, Leland; Bruce, Analena (1 September 2021). "Suborning science for profit: Monsanto, glyphosate, and private science research misconduct". Research Policy. 50 (7): 104290. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2021.104290. ISSN 0048-7333.

References