The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice

by Carey Gillam

Lee Johnson was a man with simple dreams. All he wanted was a steady job and a nice home for his wife and children, something better than the hard life he knew growing up. He never imagined that he would become the face of a David-and-Goliath showdown against one of the world’s most powerful corporate giants. But a workplace accident left Lee doused in a toxic chemical and facing a deadly cancer that turned his life upside down. In 2018, the world watched as Lee was thrust to the forefront of one the most dramatic legal battles in recent history.
 
The Monsanto Papers is the inside story of Lee Johnson’s landmark lawsuit against Monsanto. For Lee, the case was a race against the clock, with doctors predicting he wouldn’t survive long enough to take the witness stand. For the eclectic band of young, ambitious lawyers representing him, it was a matter of professional pride and personal risk, with millions of dollars and hard-earned reputations on the line. For the public at large, the lawsuit presented a question of corporate accountability. With enough money and influence, could a company endanger its customers, hide evidence, manipulate regulators, and get away with it all—for decades?
 
Readers will be astounded by the depth of corruption uncovered, captivated by the shocking twists, and moved by Lee’s quiet determination to see justice served. With gripping narrative force that reads like fiction, The Monsanto Papers takes readers behind the scenes of a grueling legal battle, pulling back the curtain on the frailties of the American court system and the lengths to which lawyers will go to fight corporate wrongdoing.    
 
 

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, Business, Science, Crime, Health, Investigative

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 2, 2021

Reviews

[Erin Naso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even more background and proof that Monsanto is the devil.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A gripping story where the author did a great job portraying complex characters.

In the past decade, there have been numerous law suits aimed at holding Monsanto accountable for hiding the fact that their flagship weedkiller, RoundUp, can cause cancer. This story focuses on one of the first of those cases. Lee Johnson was a hardworking school handyman, who had an accident that led to him being covered in RoundUp. He then developed an aggressive cancer that upended his life with his family and was expected to kill him before his case came to trial. In addition to Lee's story, we also get to know the lawyers who chose to pursue these cases. While they can make an absurd amount of money if they win these cases, they also risk a lot of money and put in a ton of effort to get these cases to trial.

Bad Blood, the story of the Theranos blood testing scandal, is still one of my favorite reads of the past few years. While this wasn't quite as incredible, it was good in a lot of the same ways. It turns out that science/true crime crossovers are really a perfect intersection for me! It feels less ethically fraught than true crime about violent crimes and the science side of things is of great interest to me. This was a very well-told story. Because this book had been written, I was pretty sure what the overall outcome would be. The author still managed to build a lot of suspense over different points during the trial. The science detail was minimal, but explained clearly.

As is the case with a lot of nonfiction, the people stories were a particularly strong element. The lawyers were complex characters. They take a pretty extreme cut out of any payout. They may do the work from the goodness of their hearts, but they certainly also become incredibly wealthy off of it. Compared to the payouts individual people they represent get, the amount of money they receive feels pretty obscene. On the other hand, they clearly have to spend a ton of money up front to have a chance of winning a case. I get why a large payout is necessary for anyone to be willing to take that risk. They also work hard enough it can come at quite a high cost to their personal lives. I thought the author did a great job with this complexity. Even Lee, while clearly sympathetic, is shown as a full human beings with his own flaws.

I'm going to talk about the endings of this one a bit, because I had a mixed reaction to it. With most stories about evil corporations, the most satisfying parts are when they clearly get punished for bad behavior. There were parts of this story that were that satisfying. It's clear that the outcome of these cases will help people in the future. Sadly, it's also clear that they US justice system is biased in favor of corporations. Individuals get truly pitiful payouts and can have to wait ages to actually see any money. Corporations may have to pay amounts that sound astronomical to an individual, but they're rarely more than a slap on the write for the company. While the outcome of this trial served justice, seeing how little that did to help Lee Johnson or punish Monsanto was just depressing.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey

[Charlie Cray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carey Gillam's "The Monsanto Papers" is the best non-fiction corporate corruption legal thriller published since Jonathan Harr's "A Civil Action."

The unique value of this book stems from Gillam's unparalleled understanding of the topic, access and understanding of key facts to raise up and dramatize what is the highest-impact product liability lawsuit against a company with a long and highly-spohisticated history of regulatory capture and evasion of responsibility. There isn't a better telling of a David v. Goliath lawsuit that I can think of.

The book seamlessly weaves the story of a the plaintiff - a groundskeeper named Lee Johnson who is exposed to glyphosate on the job and soon starts developing painful blisters that spread all over his body. He is quickly diagnosed as having the specific type of cancer (Non Hodgkins Lymphoma) associated with glyphosate exposure. On top of that we get a good understanding of the personalities and exhaustive work conducted by the trial lawyers to prepare and carry his case.

The plot is carried primarily by the unfolding story of the litigation itself.

It takes a deft hand to skillfully convert the grinding slog of mass tort litigation into high drama. In fact, this is a complex story told so clearly and crisply that I consumed it in one day, which I had not expected.

The nuances of the litigation preparation and discovery process, the evidentiary analysis and taking of depositions is conveyed and narrated so well that each stage of the case keeps you wanting to learn what's next (even if you know the outcome). Legal discovery is a game of chess, and each deposition - especially those involving company scientists or plaintiffs' consultants -- is a careful dismantling of character armature. The twists and turns in the case slowly add up to an almost epic drama.

Yet Gillam keeps things right-sized. Nothing seems over dramatized, and no critical facts are left out (except for the discussions behind the scenes at Monsanto headquarters, which she was not a party to). The careful education of the jury at the beginning of the trial is a useful vehicle for educating readers about key questions of toxicology and epidemiology.

I finished the book wanting to know when the movie will come out. When it does, it will be compared with Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action, Dark Waters. Maybe Silkwood. If the movie is at least as good as the book, there will be ample reasons for that. But it's hard to imagine the movie being better than the book.

PS. Speaking of movies, The Corporate Crime Reporter just published its list of the top 100 corporate crime movies more: https://www.corporatecrimereporter.co....

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Think of this as "A Civil Action" for the age of Big Agriculture. If you're interested in litigation and wonder how juries got to those huge verdicts vs. Monsanto a few years ago, the machinations revealed here will intrigue you. The author is definitely on the side of the trial attorneys -- when one is revealed to have stepped out of line and ends up facing criminal charges, it's almost a footnote, whereas Monsanto's conduct is viewed with little such sympathy. But she provides the detail to show how she reached her conclusion, and reading this fast-paced account, it's easy to see why jurors did as well -- even if the judges who heard the same evidence remained skeptical.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful book

I’m grateful for the author of this book. With so much going on in this trial, you need someone with a thoughtful and comprehensive approach. She took this approach and created an important document that anyone interested in the future of public health should read.

[Marc Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an important book and Carey cover this story in such a great way. It is a story about one cancer victim’s search for justice in the face of so much injustice, a story of both suffering and determination, and a story about what it took to uncover decades of corporate deception.

“My work is based on the belief that by sharing information and ideas, airing debates, and unveiling actions and events critical to public policy, we help advance and strengthen our community — our humanity,” Carey Gillam

I was very happy to be one of the earlier receivers of this book and I also had Carey on my podcast Inside Ideas where we talk about the book and more. Find episode 74 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEYPA...

Or check out the links below:
https://www.innovatorsmag.com/in-purs...
https://www.innovatorsmag.com/inside-...
https://medium.com/inside-ideas/carey...
This is a book from Island Press: https://islandpress.org/

[Janna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads like a John Grisham novel! The sad part is this is a true story of corporate malfeasance instead of a work of fiction. Very eye opening to see what some corporations are getting away with (with the help of our supposed justice system).

[Abby Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good thing I took complex litigation so I could follow along!

[Tracie Gutknecht · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non-Fiction

Living in Iowa, which is a huge Ag state, I had heard a little bit about the issue with Monsanto and the chemical glyphosate found in the herbicide Roundup and other products, but I didn't really know the story.

Similar to the court cases against the tobacco industry, people were getting cancer from exposure to Roundup. There were no warnings on the labels and the marketing lauded the safety of the product. So much so, that they claimed it was almost safe enough to drink.

A report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published an article denouncing Roundup (and other glyphosate products). They concluded that the data met the criteria for classifying these products as a probable human carcinogen. This was a landmark moment. Law firms that specialize in these big personal injury cases began looking for possible victims and the victims finally had some "proof" that their belief about the product was the reason for their cancer.

The book introduces the reader to several of the claimants but primarily follows the story of DeWayne "Lee" Johnson. He worked in the grounds department for a school district. He was spraying the grounds at a school when the hose to the tank of the herbicide became dislodged and the chemical spewed everywhere. Johnson got doused. He did not have access to a shower at work and was only able to wash up in a hand sink. Less than a year later he was diagnosed with mycosis fungoides (non-Hodgkin lymphoma with large cell transformation). It was a terminal diagnosis. Unable to work and believing that the cancer was caused by the herbicide, Johnson scoured the internet for some connection. When IARC published their article, attorneys started advertising and Lee was finally able to connect the dots and file suit.

After Lee connects with the firm of Baum Hedlund, the book focuses on the attorneys and their fight with Monsanto. We read all about the ghost written reports Monsanto paid scientists for to claim there were no issues with the product. We get presented with all kinds of data to support the claims against Monsanto and then we get to the trial.

It was fascinating!

Roundup, like cigarettes, is available and because of the ongoing litigation still does not have to put a warning label on the bottle that it could cause cancer. One of the statistics presented said that using Roundup twice could increase your chances of getting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma by 64%. Scary!

This was a quick read, but oh so worth it!

[digger Blaque · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike Gillam's other excellent book on the topic of Monsanto's toxic Roundup herbicide, this true story of the first Roundup trial (and what led up to it) is written as a narrative-- and a very engaging narrative I must say. My takeaway is this: during the discovery phase of Lee Johnson's trial (Johnson was a victim of Roundup use and contracted non-Hodgkin's lymphoma because of it), Monsanto released millions of pages of documents to the plaintiff's lawyers. Internal communications and emails revealed that Monsanto was well aware that Roundup was genotoxic early on, years before Johnson's lawsuit. They covered up the studies indicating this, ghostwrote scientific papers claiming the herbicide was safe than had scientist supporters sign the papers and coordinate attacks on scientists who found that the herbicide did cause cancer (such as IARC, part of the World Health Organization). The corporation (now owned by Bayer) manipulated the EPA (which was easy due to the "revolving door" policy, where regulators are actually former or future Monsanto employees). At the trial, a non-partisan group (the jury) were witness to a first: a scenario where Monsanto's science was compared side-by-side with science showing that Roundup (containing glyphosate as its active ingredient) was a carcinogen and they found in favor of the.... Okay, no spoilers here but you get the picture. The scientific verdict is in, folks. Do not use Roundup and certainly never trust Monsanto-Bayer.

[Gemini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew Monsanto was a horrible mega-corp but I didn't know that they were so damn evil as to do everything possible to keep their cancer-causing products on the market w/out a warning label. They didn't take responsibility for any of the harm they caused to people & basically denied all of it. This book basically shows how this all transpired & what happened during the lawsuit in court. It simply is a book that needs to be read by all who have ever used their products & also the folks who are anti such corporate giants like them. I can't even imagine what these folks just have gone through but it is simply awful. The author tells this story through some detail & it can be a bit much to read along with the victim's struggle going up against Monsanto. It's a pretty long book so it is worth preparing yourself for all that comes about throughout the trial. The legal stuff can be jarring. Check it out & learn something.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books such as this one are so important to our society. Gillam takes the reader from beginning to start with one man's quest for justice after an exposure to Roundup led to his serious case of cancer.

It is important for the public to be aware of how corporations operate and that they should not be quickly trusted to do the things we assume they are responsible for doing. Things such as making sure their products are actually safe. This account of Lee Johnson's battle with Monsanto should be studied to see just how corrupt even our establishments that operate to protect the public have been manipulated by big business (in this case the EPA).

I highly recommend this book for all to read. Gillam writes this very highly scientific and technical book in a manner that anyone can absorb.

Props to the jurors for standing up for their verdict.

[The other Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing. I had thought the focus was going to be more on Monsanto and its corporate malfeasance. That was certainly talked about, but the focus was firmly on the lawyers and the lawsuit--from the lawyers seeing big money in suing Monsanto to their hunt for victims to sue on behalf of, strategizing how to present their case, taking depositions, filing motions, etc., etc., through to the trial. So, so many transcripts of depositions and testimonies and court appearances...

Gillam doesn't have Ben Browder's gift for making all that legal maneuvering sound exciting, or even interesting, and I just couldn't get invested in what was going on with the lawyers knowing that they were going to get more money out of any settlements than the victims. The author should have just focused on Monsanto and what it was doing.

[Jessica Nyhoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to a podcast with Carey Gillam about this case and had to read her book right away. This is so important to read. I knew there had to be some sketchy stuff done by big corporations, but to learn the extent of it is disheartening. The ghostwriting of scientific articles and the EPA working with corporations instead of taking care of the people was a big wake up call for me. They know their products cause cancer and go out of their way to hide it from consumers.

My biggest takeaways from this book:
1. Science can be bought
2. Inform people to stop using pesticides (especially those with glyphosate).

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an engaging thriller. I agree with other reviewers that book is as important as A Civil Action was in the 1990s. It is also reminiscent of the Erin Brockovich story. It reads like a John Grisham novel. It details the building of the case against Monsanto and the injuries sustained by DeWayne "Lee" Johnson from the use of the popular weedkiller Roundup. As an environmental consultant, I found the use of ghostwritten papers to be a disgusting ploy. I have encountered this in my career but not with quite to the level displayed here.

If you are interested in the environment, product liability or just would like to read a good courtroom drama, I highly recommend this book.

[Alexander Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. Gillam not only tells a story about a man who was exposed to glyphosate and eventually developed NHL, she goes on to explain the corrupt and dishonest practices Monsanto engaged in to market ranger pro and roundup as safe consumer products for decades. Gillam also exposes the manipulative practices that lawyers in the mass tort system often engage in, demonstrating how these lawyers can often exploit their clients for their own benefit.

[Kathleen Warnick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful book, well written, most informative with an unsettling look at the deficits in our government’s regulatory system. While I know there to be many committed individuals with great integrity, a few who do not behave ethically can destroy a whole agency and are not there to serve the best interests of the public ….

[Scott Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is exactly what you think it is. Exposè of a corrupt corporation. More focused on legal cases for all the cancer they caused. Now hand me some more of that genetically modified chicken I’m starving.

[Ted Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

I followed this story in the press. I also worked in the farm chemical business for many years. So was drawn to this story. The author has done a very good job in describing how the litigation against Monsanto came to be. Reads like a “page turner” even if one knows the outcome. Well done.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

These jurors made the right decision. Shame on the judge that reduced the amount. If a judge has the authority to take such action, what's the point of having a jury trial? Our court system is broken as it gives so much protection to the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read. Horrifying and compelling at the same time, this story reveals the behind-the-scenes reality of sprawling corporates and their complete lack of regard for anything other than profit margins (safety and health be damned). Very satisfying to watch the story unfold.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book. Makes you realize just how corrupt big business and even our own government agency's that are supposed to be watching our for us really are.

[Armen Shirvanian]

My interview with author Carey Gillam about "The Monsanto Papers":

http://www.armenshirvanian.com/podcas...

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read. A tight procedural legal thriller centered around Lee Johnson.

[Carole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enlightening and infuriating.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. Read based on the rcommendion by Chef and living Saint, Jose Andres, founder of World Central Kitchen. True crime and court room drama made a compelling read -

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got a bit bogged down in parts but it was an interesting book about a deplorable situation.

[Devin Lowell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more about the Round-up litigation than the titular "Monsanto Papers," but I found that fascinating.

[Chekhov’s Fingers · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great topic, and Monsanto is shown to be pure evil. But the writing is extremely dull and drawn out. Portions of this book could have been 2 pages, but instead were 30.

[Clara]

This was so interesting I felt very invested in each of the characters and the overall journey