Ring of Fire’s Sam Seder and Farron Cousins recently released documents that show Monsanto Executives were colluding with EPA officials to manipulate scientific data.

Sam: So, Farron, before we talk about the really blockbuster news from this week regarding Monsanto, let’s go back and talk about the history of the EPA and Monsanto’s Roundup, which of course is known as a glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup. Just give us some background so that people understand where we are as of this week with the release of these documents, what that means. But just give us some background on Roundup.

Farron: Well, basically, in 1985, Roundup had been on the market for several years. 1985 the EPA, after studying it for many, many years, decided they were going to classify it as a possible human carcinogen. And then after six years, six years ago they had said, “Yeah, okay, possible human carcinogen.”

In 1991, they decided to, I guess, take a second look at Monsanto’s request and for some reason looked at the exact same science, the exact same studies, that showed that there was a connection between exposure to glyphosate and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. They looked at the exact same science. Nothing had changed, and they said, “Okay, we’re going to take away this possible human carcinogen designation, and now you’re free to go, Mr. Monsanto.”