No Glyphosate, Cancer Link

OMAHA (DTN) -- A review of science found no link between glyphosate-laced food intake and cancer during a joint meeting of World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations officials last week in Geneva, Switzerland.

The announcement comes just weeks after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inadvertently posted on its website the result of a cancer review the agency conducted, finding a link between glyphosate and cancer to be unlikely.

The findings of the WHO, FAO meeting contradict findings from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC. The group issued a controversial opinion in March 2015, suggesting a "probable" link between glyphosate use in agriculture and human cancers.

The group's conclusion was rejected by Monsanto, the company that developed glyphosate, as well as by glyphosate task forces in the United States and the European Union. Glyphosate is off-patent and sold by many agriculture companies. EPA said it plans to consider the IARC's conclusions as part of the glyphosate review process expected to be completed in 2016.

The WHO/FAO report released Monday points to a large study conducted on food intake and potential exposure to glyphosate and cancers caused via food intake.

"However, it is notable that the only large cohort study of high quality found no evidence of an association at any exposure level (to non-Hodgkin lymphoma)," the report said. "Glyphosate has been extensively tested for genotoxic effects using a variety of tests in a wide range of organisms.

"The overall weight of evidence indicates that administration of glyphosate and its formulation products at doses as high as 2,000 mg/kg body weight by the oral route, the route most relevant to human dietary exposure, was not associated with genotoxic effects in an overwhelming majority of studies conducted in mammals, a model considered to be appropriate for assessing genotoxic risks to humans."

WHO and FAO conclude glyphosate is not carcinogenic in rats but "could not exclude" the possibility it is carcinogenic in mice at "very high" doses.

"In view of the absence of carcinogenic potential in rodents at human-relevant doses and the absence of genotoxicity by the oral route in mammals," the report said, "and considering the epidemiological evidence from occupational exposures, the meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet."

Last week, three Nebraska corn and soybean farmers, Larry E. Domina, Robert L. Dickey and Royce D. Janzen, and agronomist Frank Pollard sued Monsanto in U.S. District Court District of Nebraska in Lincoln, claiming their exposure to Roundup caused cancer, according to the lawsuit.

Monsanto said in a statement Monday the company was not surprised by the WHO/FAO conclusion.

"This rigorous conclusion is based on the overwhelming weight of evidence on glyphosate and should give greater confidence to consumers around the world," the company said.

Phil Miller, Monsanto's vice president for global regulatory and government affairs, said in a statement the WHO/FAO conclusions add to a growing weight of evidence of glyphosate's safety.

Monsanto took the occasion to point to the IARC's conclusion last year as outside a building consensus around the world.

"We welcome this rigorous assessment of glyphosate by another program of the WHO, which is further evidence that this important herbicide does not cause cancer," Miller said.

"IARC's classification was inappropriate and inconsistent with the science on glyphosate. Based on the overwhelming weight of evidence, the joint meeting on pesticide residues has reaffirmed the findings of regulatory agencies around the world that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a cancer risk."

Read the WHO/FAO summary report here, http://www.who.int/…

Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @toddneeleyDTN

(SK/BAS/CZ)

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