Top Scientist Booted From Research Institute

Daniele Mandrioli should have seen it coming. Maybe he did.

As the chief scientist overseeing a sweeping multi-pronged study of the safety of glyphosate, a widely used weed killing agent used in Roundup, Mandrioli was daring to touch the third rail, metaphorically speaking.

Studying the health effects of glyphosate – a pesticide brought to farms, parks, playgrounds and backyards by Monsanto Co. more than 50 years ago – has long been a dangerous move for many scientists.

Mandrioli learned that lesson recently when he lost his job leading the renowned Ramazzini Institute Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center, which operates out of a historic Italian castle near Bologna in producing research on the health effects of more than 200 compounds.