04:40 - To begin the episode, Charles reflected on his early career, when he was recruited by the Carter administration to draft and publish a number of policy reports and analyses related to food and agriculture conservation.
One of those reports was the National Agricultural Lands Study, which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the President’s Council on Environmental Quality in 1979, later published in 1981, to study the availability of the nation’s agricultural lands, the potential for their conversion to other uses, and the ways in which these lands might be retained for agricultural use.
You can read that full report here.
05:45 - While reflecting on his time as Staff Director of a House Subcommittee overseeing pesticide regulation during the Reagan administration, Charles acknowledged that this era carried strong pro-business priorities and significantly reduced oversight of pesticide companies. He also recalled the unfolding scandal at Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories (IBT) — now regarded as one of the most extensive scientific fraud cases in U.S
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, IBT Laboratories, a major U.S. contract testing facility, was discovered to have falsified and fabricated data in hundreds of toxicology studies conducted for chemical and pesticide companies, including Monsanto. These studies were relied upon by regulators to approve a wide range of commercial products, glyphosate being among them.
After a federal investigation, three IBT executives were convicted in October 1983 for submitting fraudulent safety data to the EPA:
Notably, Paul L. Wright had previously worked for Monsanto and later returned to the company after leaving IBT, just before his conviction was upheld and he was sent to prison.
The IBT case became a watershed moment in chemical regulation, revealing deep flaws in how pesticide safety data were generated and reviewed. The fraud invalidated numerous studies across the industry, forcing regulators to reevaluate the integrity of safety testing for products like glyphosate that had relied on IBT’s data ([source](https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/22/us/3-ex-officials-of-major-laboratory-convicted-of-falsifying-drug-tests.html#:~:text=After 12 days of deliberation,guilty were the most serious.), source).
The Center for Food Safety published a full review of this scandal and the role of Dr. Adrian Gross in initiating the investigation and later bringing it to Charles' attention as part of his service on the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over pesticides.
You can read that full article here.
Charles later described two specific examples he encountered during his time on the House subcommittee. The first was testimony from Ed Johnson, Director of the Office of Pesticide Programs, who stated on record that the safety ratings for several widely used pesticides - which virtually all Americans were exposed to - were based on data that may have been flawed. The second was a reference to an internal Office of Pesticide Programs document reviewing more than 800 IBT studies, concluding that roughly two-thirds were highly questionable, including what Charles recalls as 32 studies commissioned by Monsanto.
During our literature review, we were unable to locate a public record of these two references, which Charles had witnessed first hand during his work within the House Subcommittee. However, his account provides important historical context, illustrating that government authorities were aware of study tampering and unreliable data underlying glyphosate’s safety determinations - issues that continue to shape how the chemical remains regulated and used today.
18:25 - Charles noted that during the period of the IBT scandal, glyphosate itself was not yet the dominant pesticide on the market. Its broad-spectrum nature meant that it killed virtually any plant it touched, making it less practical for widespread agricultural use at the time. That changed when Monsanto was granted a patent to genetically engineer crops to tolerate glyphosate (U.S. Patent No. 5,633,435). These Roundup Ready crops were designed to survive direct application of the herbicide, sending glyphosate use “through the roof,” in Charles’ words.