Monsanto Attacks Scientists Who Found Problems With Weedkiller Dicamba

"In a normal year, Kevin Bradley, a professor of weed science at the University of Missouri, would have spent his summer testing new ways to control a troublesome little plant called water hemp.

This has not been a normal year.

'I don't even talk about weed management anymore,' Bradley tells me, and he sounds disgusted. 'Nobody calls me and ask me those questions. I barely have time to even work with my graduate students. Everything is about dicamba. Every single day.'

Dicamba, an old weedkiller that is being used in new ways, has thrust Bradley and a half-dozen other university weed scientists into the unfamiliar role of whistleblower, confronting what they believe are misleading and scientifically unfounded claims by one of the country's biggest seed and pesticide companies: Monsanto."

Dan Charles reports for NPR October 26, 2017.