Investigation · The Agrochemical Cartel Hub

Capturing the referee

Owning the seed and bundling the chemical only pays if the umpire calls the game your way. So the cartel staffed the umpire.

The same lawyer who built a law firm’s food-and-drug practice representing Monsanto walked into the FDA, wrote the rule that made it hard to tell rBGH-treated milk from any other, and later walked back out to a Monsanto vice-presidency. Two decades on, an EPA official who oversaw the government’s glyphosate cancer review told a Monsanto executive that if he could kill a rival agency’s study he “should get a medal.” Those two facts are documented. What they add up to is the argument.

The record ↓Why it matters

§1 · Summary Brief

What this page is about

Regulatory capture is not a metaphor here; it has names and dates. Michael R. Taylor was a partner leading the food-and-drug practice at King & Spalding — the firm that acted for Monsanto — before he left in 1991 to become the FDA’s first Deputy Commissioner for Policy, the post from which the agency issued its 1994 guidance on labeling milk from cows treated with Monsanto’s genetically engineered growth hormone (rBGH/rBST). He later returned to Monsanto as a vice-president. Jess Rowland was a deputy office director at the EPA who chaired the committee that reviewed glyphosate’s cancer risk; an internal Monsanto email unsealed in the Roundup litigation records him telling a Monsanto executive that if he could kill another agency’s glyphosate review he “should get a medal.”

We grade the documented facts — the job histories, the rBGH labeling guidance, and the existence of the email in the court record — as fact. We do not claim a proven bribe, an unlawful conflict of interest, or that any single official changed an outcome by himself. The pattern is the point: the firms that own the seed and the chemical also supply the people who referee them.

What we are NOT claiming

We are not asserting that Michael Taylor broke conflict-of-interest law, or that his work on rBGH labeling was a proven corrupt act — a contemporaneous conflict allegation was raised and we present it as an allegation, not a finding. We are not asserting that Jess Rowland actually succeeded in blocking the ATSDR review, that he was paid, or that a quid-pro-quo has been proven; what is documented is that the email exists in the court record and says what it says. What we do state as fact: the revolving-door job sequence, the 1994 rBGH labeling guidance, and the unsealed email.

▶ Dossier

The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Step through it here, or present it fullscreen.

The Agrochemical Cartel

Capturing the referee.

Owning the seed and bundling the chemical only pays if the umpire calls the game your way. So the cartel staffed the umpire.

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Timeline

The record, in order

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Every dated event on this page, assembled chronologically. The page may cover events in a different order for the narrative; this is the straight timeline.

§2 · The Record

Two entries, graded

The revolving door: Michael Taylor, from Monsanto's law firm to the FDA and back

FACT

Michael R. Taylor was a staff attorney at the FDA (1976–1980), then from 1981 to 1991 a partner at King & Spalding, where he built and led the firm's food-and-drug regulatory practice; the firm's clients in that field included Monsanto. On July 17, 1991 he left the firm to become the FDA's first-ever Deputy Commissioner for Policy. From that post, the FDA issued its February 1994 interim guidance on the voluntary labeling of milk from cows treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH/rBST) — Monsanto's Posilac product — which discouraged 'rBGH-free' or 'hormone-free' claims unless accompanied by a statement that the FDA had found no significant difference between the milks, making a clear marketplace distinction difficult. Taylor then served as USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service administrator (1994–1996) and later joined Monsanto as a vice-president for public policy. The job sequence is documented; a conflict-of-interest allegation over his rBGH role was raised at the time and we present it as an allegation, not a proven violation.

'If I can kill this I should get a medal': an EPA reviewer's email to Monsanto

FACT

Jess Rowland was a deputy division director at the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs and chaired the agency's Cancer Assessment Review Committee, whose report supported glyphosate's safety. In an internal Monsanto email dated April 2015 — later unsealed in the multidistrict Roundup products-liability litigation (In re Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2741, N.D. Cal.) — a Monsanto regulatory-affairs executive, Dan Jenkins, recounted that Rowland had offered to try to stop a separate glyphosate review being planned by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), saying, 'If I can kill this I should get a medal.' The plaintiffs cited the email as evidence of an improperly cozy relationship between Monsanto and its EPA regulator. We grade as fact that the email exists in the court record and states what is quoted; we attribute the characterization of it, and do not assert that Rowland was paid, that a quid-pro-quo has been proven, or that he in fact blocked the review.

§3 · Why It Matters

Own the seed, bundle the chemical, staff the umpire

Every other spoke in this hub — the enclosure of seed, the consolidation into four firms, the gene police — depends on regulators signing off. Capture the referee and the whole model is safe: the growth hormone gets to market without a label that would let shoppers avoid it; the herbicide keeps its clean cancer rating even as a rival health agency’s review is quietly discouraged. Neither Taylor’s revolving door nor Rowland’s email needs to be a proven crime to matter — the mere fact that the people evaluating a company’s products keep coming from, or angling toward, that company changes what a regulator dares to conclude. That is the through-line from this hub into Deregulation Reality: when the referee is captured up front, the pesticide-immunity playbook downstream — ghostwritten science, friendly labels, and a Supreme Court shield against the lawsuits — barely has to do any work.

§4 · Standing Invitation

If you are named on this page

If you are named on this page, or are a party materially affected by the claims made here, and you wish to respond, correct the record, or add context, use the Contact page. Responses are published verbatim alongside the original claim, with the sender identified and the date of receipt. The channel stays open for the life of the page.

This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.

§5 · Sources