“Transparent” Monsanto-Paid Panel Claims Glyphosate isn’t Carcinogenic
A Monsanto-hired panel of scientists and experts are reassuring consumers that RoundUp, the agrochemical giant’s top-selling, glyphosate-based herbicide, is not carcinogenic. The panel’s declaration challenges the World Health Organization’s (WHO) March 2015 assessment that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.”
You weren’t expecting the truth, were you?
Monsanto hired 16 Intertek Scientific & Regulatory Consultancy experts to dispute the WHO’s classification of glyphosate, because with enough money you can “prove” anything you want, right? The group of industry consultants and academics included 4 individuals that previously consulted for Monsanto and 2 former Monsanto employees who published peer-reviewed data on glyphosate while employed by the company.
Monsanto promises that the panel worked independently and transparently, and that the company only provided information and data for their review of the WHO’s glyphosate classification. The panel said the IARC’s assessment was selective and suffered weaknesses.
The panel presented its findings to the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis on Dec. 7. They hope to publish the study in the future after peer review.
The experts said the data reviewed by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) was somewhat misinterpreted or incorrectly weighted. In an abstract of its findings, the panel also accused the IARC of ignoring other data before classifying glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.
“Thus, none of the results from a very large database, using different methodologies, provides evidence of, or a potential mechanism for, human carcinogenesis,” the abstract said.
In fact, the panel claims it has no evidence whatsoever that glyphosate causes cancer.
The Intertek team stressed that its findings align with the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) same conclusion, announced in November, that “glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also considers glyphosate safe when used as directed. In 2013, Monsanto received the approval of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for higher tolerance levels for glyphosate.
Of course, we know that glyphosate is anything but safe and that Monsanto regularly pressures governing and regulatory bodies to promote their anti-human health products and ideas. The truth is that glyphosate has been linked to everything from cancer to chronic diseases, to endocrine system disruption. The main ingredient in RoundUp has even been found in intolerable levels in breast milk.
We also know we can’t trust anything Monsanto says. This evil corporation has been accused by well-respected researchers of covering up data that shows glyphosate is carcinogenic for nearly 40 years.
Sources:
[1] Reuters
[2] RT
