Major Study Clears Roundup as Cancer Threat

Large U.S. farm study finds no cancer link to Monsanto weedkiller

A large long-term study on the use of the big-selling weedkiller glyphosate by agricultural workers in the United States has found no firm link between exposure to the pesticide and cancer, scientists said on Thursday.

Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), the study found there was no association between glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's popular herbicide RoundUp, "and any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies overall, including non-Hogkin Lymphoma (NHL) and its subtypes".

It said there was "some evidence of increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) among the highest exposed group", but added this association was "not statistically significant".

The article doesn't mention the strength of the "evidence of increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia." p = .06 or p = 0.45? It matters. If the former, it might be worth an even larger study to see if the effect is real. If they were to examine the correlation with enough possible cancers with roundup exposure there would be a mix of positive and negative, but non-significant relationships, merely by chance. In fact there a non zero chance of finding a significant positive correlation even when the underlying truth is zero relationship. The idea of statistics is to minimize that possibility, which can never be fully eliminated.

The findings are likely to impact legal proceedings in the United States against Monsanto, in which more than 180 plaintiffs are claiming exposure to RoundUp gave them cancer - allegations that Monsanto denies.

The findings may also influence a crucial decision due by the end of the year on whether glyphosate should be re-licensed for sale across the European Union.

EU countries had been due to vote on the issue on Thursday, but again failed to agree to a proposal for a five-year extension.

The EU decision has been delayed for more than a year after the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reviewed glyphosate in 2015 and concluded it was "probably carcinogenic" to humans. Other bodies, such as the European Food Safety Authority, have concluded glyphosate is safe to use.

Roundup (and Monsanto) have been on the enviroweenies hit list for years. I'm sure this won't alter their efforts to ban it and take us back to 19th century farming. But now they'll have to find another excuse.

A Roundup Roundup

Another Left-wing Science Scandal

. . . glyphosate was remarkably benign from an environmental standpoint. In general, insecticides are toxic to humans because humans are quite a bit like bugs. Herbicides, on the other hand, are generally not very toxic to humans, because we aren’t a lot like plants. But even in this context, glyphosate stood out as a harmless chemical. It targets an enzyme that is found in plants, but not in humans or animals. Moreover, glyphosate breaks down easily and does not persist in the environment. It is pretty much the perfect herbicide (until resistance starts to develop, but that’s another story).

This sounds like a win-win situation–cheaper food, better health, longer lifespans–but some people irrationally hate genetically modified crops, even though the modification–in this case, making the corn or soybean plant tolerant of glyphosate–has nothing to do with its nutritional value. After decades of world-wide experience with glyphosate, it was accepted that the product was safe. So it was a bombshell when the International Agency for Research on Cancer declared, in March 2015, that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic,” based on tests on rodents.

Hundreds of cancer patients promptly sued Monsanto, claiming the company had concealed the danger of carcinogenicity, notwithstanding the fact that it would be hard to find a farmer who hadn’t been exposed to glyphosate. The European Union said it would consider IARC’s finding when deciding whether to continue to allow glyphosate to be used in Europe. “Environmentalists” had scored a major coup.

But the whole thing turned out to be a fraud. Reuters has investigated, aided by access to deposition testimony in one or more of the lawsuits against Monsanto, which evidently was not subject to a protective order. Briefly put, the author of the IARC’s carcinogenicity study, Aaron Blair, an epidemiologist from the U.S. National Cancer Institute, covered up his own research showing that exposure to glyphosate did not lead to a higher incidence of cancer in humans. The story, as reported by Reuters, is astonishing:

Previously unreported court documents reviewed by Reuters from an ongoing U.S. legal case against Monsanto show that Blair knew the unpublished research found no evidence of a link between glyphosate and cancer. In a sworn deposition given in March this year in connection with the case, Blair also said the data would have altered IARC’s analysis.

But the data were not considered by IARC because including them would have made the report too long. Or something. You can read the Reuters story, or even this surprisingly sane Mother Jones article, for the details.

It seems obvious that this is another case where left-wing “scientists” concealed data that would have refuted their theory–here, that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic.* Remarkably, despite exposure of the scandal, IARC “stands by its findings.” Politics above all.

When I was involved in measuring pollutants in various Maryland and Washington D.C. waterbodies and organisms, we didn't even bother with glyophosate because it just wasn't there.