By David Zaruck & Julie Kelly
Tuesday, May 03, 2016
There’s a cancer growing at the World Health Organization
(WHO), and it happens to be their very own cancer agency.
IARC — the International Agency for Research on Cancer —
is under the purview of WHO and tasked with classifying whether certain foods,
chemicals, and lifestyle choices cause cancer. Of the nearly 1,000 hazards IARC
has reviewed, only one (caprolactam) has been deemed non-carcinogenic. But one recent
decision is raising suspicions that the agency is more of an activist group
than a scientific one.
In March 2015, IARC surprised the international
regulatory and scientific community by classifying the widely used herbicide
glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic.” Because it is extensively used with
crops that have been genetically modified, anti-GMO and environmental groups
have long had glyphosate in their crosshairs (mostly because the herbicide is
sold by their bête noire, Monsanto, and marketed here as Roundup), and they
cheered IARC’s decision. Over the past year, the glyphosate-causes-cancer story
has been repeated by the media, environmental NGOs, and pro-GMO labeling groups
to promote the false narrative that GMOs are unsafe (although glyphosate is
also used in non-GM farming).
The ruling contradicted most analyses of glyphosate,
which is widely viewed as the aspirin of weed killers, hugely beneficial with
few risks. It massively improves crop yields while largely eliminating the need
for tillage, thereby slashing carbon dioxide emissions and soil erosion.
Thousands of highly regarded studies demonstrate its lack of cancer-causing
potential, and official reviews by government regulatory agencies around the
world and in the U.S. have universally determined that it is safe for humans.
(In an interesting twist, over the weekend, the EPA
posted a report labeled “final” from its own cancer-review committee that found
glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” The report, dated
October 2015, strongly questioned IARC’s flawed process. Late Monday, the
agency pulled the report from its website, saying it had been inadvertently
posted. “The documents are still in development,” the EPA told us. “Our
assessment will be peer-reviewed and completed by the end of 2016.”)
Across the pond, some agencies are challenging IARC
head-on. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), a scientific review body of
the European Union, also examined IARC’s claims and determined that glyphosate
was probably not carcinogenic. EFSA charged that IARC had ignored the vast
number of higher-quality studies that issued glyphosate a clean bill of health,
and that it had focused on a handful of cherry-picked studies.
Then details about the IARC’s process started to come to
light. A key person behind IARC’s move was an American environmental activist,
Christopher Portier. IARC insiders quietly inserted him as the technical
adviser to the agency’s glyphosate-review panel (he also served on the advisory
panel that recommended a review of glyphosate the year prior). The agency did
not reveal that Portier had a massive conflict of interest: His employer is the
Environmental Defense Fund, a group well known for its opposition to GMOs and
pesticides.
Portier’s activism didn’t end with publication of the
IARC monograph. With the agency’s “probably carcinogenic” decision in his
hands, Portier launched a public campaign against glyphosate. He briefed
governments from the German Bundestag to the European Commission. He spoke to
NGO groups such as the U.K. Soil Association, where he presented himself as an
IARC co-author and termed glyphosate as “definitely carcinogenic.” He organized
a letter with 95 co-signers to the EU’s commissioner for health, urging him to
ditch EFSA’s advice.
This was too much even for the usually understated
executive director of EFSA, who expressed his impatience during a hearing in
the European Parliament:
For me this is the first sign of
the Facebook age of science. You have a scientific assessment, you put it in
Facebook and you count how many people “like” it. For [EFSA], this is no way
forward. We produce a scientific opinion, we stand for it but we cannot take
into account whether it will be “liked” or not.
The two agencies are currently not on speaking terms.
Portier wasn’t the only activist involved. The lead
author of the glyphosate report, Kathryn Guyton, gave a speech in 2014 to an
NGO group — before the review process had begun — in which she stated that the
herbicide studies planned for 2015 had shown clear indications of a link to breast
cancer, demonstrating her total lack of objectivity. An observer report
indicated that the glyphosate meeting began with the participants being told to
rule out the possibility of classifying the substance as non-carcinogenic.
There is no question that the IARC-Portier
anti-glyphosate campaign is triumphing. France is banning consumer sales of the
herbicide (sold over the counter under various names, including Roundup), and
both the French and Dutch are moving to ban it for agricultural uses as well.
Colombia suspended the use of glyphosate in its coca-eradication efforts.
Political pressure within the European parliament is moving to heavily restrict
its use.
Activists here also continue their campaign against
glyphosate. California added it to the Proposition 65 list, a catalog of more
than 800 chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive
harm based on the specious IARC findings. Environmentalists and organic
companies tout phony studies claiming that glyphosate is found in everything
from breast milk to bagels.
Meanwhile, farmers who use glyphosate to protect their
crops and boost yields are caught in the crossfire. Even if glyphosate is
banned, they will need to use another herbicide, probably more toxic, because
the romantic notion of hand-weeding millions of acres of crops is promoted only
by those who have never done it.
When a cancer is spreading, doctors intervene to find the
source, aggressively eradicate it, and treat the patient. This is what the WHO
will do in May when they convene for an extraordinary meeting to consider
glyphosate. Removing the malignant tumor that the IARC has become may be the
best means to allow the patient to survive.
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