Congratulations to Stéphane Foucart and Stéphane Horel for winning the 2018 European Press Prize for their exceptional research in the The Monsanto Papers.

Foucart and Horel won the investigative reporting award for “uncovering how Monsanto interferes with science, policy and people—to undermine the credibility of the International Agency for Research on Cancer,” according to a press statement.

The Monsanto Papers unveils the attacks on Christopher Wild, director of the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and others involved in the IARC’s March 20, 2015 decision to classify glyphosate as a “probable” human carcinogen. Glyphosate is an herbicide that has been used for more than 40 years and is present in at least 750 products marketed by about 100 companies—including Monsanto’s Roundup—in more than 130 countries.

“We have been attacked in the past, we have faced smear campaigns, but this time we are the target of an orchestrated campaign of an unseen scale and duration,” Wild told the award-winning journalists.

The IARC panel consists of about 20 researchers from different countries who are selected for their experience, scientific competence and the absence of any conflicts of interest. In contrast, the attacks aimed at Wild and the IARC came from Monsanto operatives relying on the company’s own studies. 

In Part 2 of their coverage, Foucart and Horel expose the treasure trove of internal documents obtained via discovery by the law firm Baum Hedlund Aristei and Goldman. Baum Hedlund represents victims or relatives of victims who allege exposure to glyphosate caused them to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. 

Foucart and Horel explain how these documents—including internal Monsanto emails, text messages, company reports, studies and other memoranda, totaling 10 million pages—show that Monsanto manipulated the science and actively subverted science to push its own interests.

“Stéphane Foucart and Stéphane Horel are journalistic heroes,” said Gary Ruskin, co-founder and co-director of U.S. Right to Know. “Through painstaking investigative work, they assembled The Monsanto Papers into compelling articles about corporate scandals and wrongdoing. Their work is a model for what the best reporting about food or large corporations should look like.”

The Monsanto Papers, originally published by Le Monde in June 2017, was translated by GM Watch and the Health and Environment Alliance.

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