Media Confused By EPA About Cancer Causes

The headlines are everywhere: EPA Weighs In on Glyphosate, Says It Doesn’t Cause Cancer; EPA Says Glyphosate Likely Not Carcinogenic; Herbicide in Monsanto’s Roundup ‘Unlikely’ to Cause Cancer. That’s good news, right? Especially with Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry negotiating “incentives” for Monsanto to build giant GMO greenhouses in the Avra Valley on land being purchased from Marana Town Council member Herb Kai. (See Arizona Daily Independent, September 20, 2016.)

That’s good news, right? Especially with Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry negotiating “incentives” for Monsanto to build giant GMO greenhouses in the Avra Valley on land being purchased from Marana Town Council member Herb Kai. (See Arizona Daily Independent, September 20, 2016.)

But reporters obviously did not read the 227 page Environmental Protection Agency’s September 12 “Glyphosate Issue Paper.” If they had they would have seen, buried on page 140, “…due to conflicting results and various limitations identified in studies investigating NHL (non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer), a conclusion regarding the association between glyphosate exposure and risk of NHL cannot be determined based on the available data.” The full paper can be accessed here.

In other words, maybe yes, maybe no – more studies are needed. Yet the EPA then stated that glyphosate – the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup — was “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” and the press ran with it. The International Association for Research on Cancer, an arm of the United Nations’ World Health Organization, last year ruled glyphosate a “probable carcinogen.” Their research was based on 44 studies from around the world; the EPA’s 1985 finding that glyphosate was safe was based on fewer studies that turned out to be mostly funded by the pesticide industry, including Monsanto.

One of the studies the IARC looked at was the ongoing Agricultural Health Study begun in 1993 of 90,000 people, mainly farmers and their wives in Iowa and North Carolina, who have double the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The EPA is part of that study, along with the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Environmental Health Science and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Their update states:

“Farmers in many countries, including the United Sates, have lower overall death rates and cancer rates than the general population. Lower death rates among farmers for heart disease and cancers of the lung, esophagus, bladder and colon, in particular, are thought to be due, at least in part, to lower smoking rates, as well as more physically active lifestyles and dietary factors.

“However, compared with the general population, the rates for certain diseases, including some types of cancer, appear to be higher among agricultural workers, which may be related to exposures that are common in their work environment. For example, farming communities have higher rates of leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and soft tissue sarcoma, as well as cancers of the skin, lip, stomach, brain and prostate.” Access the data here.

Glyphosate, along with “inert ingredients” like POEA that have been found to harm humans, is sprayed in Pima County to control buffelgrass. Saguaro National Park and Tucson Water both use aircraft to spray land close to residences in the Avra Valley, and people and their pets have been sickened. Cattle forage on adjacent properties has been killed. The European Union refused to renew glyphosate’s license for the standard 15 years, granting only an 18-month extension while further studies are made, and with heavy restrictions on where and how the herbicide may be used to avoid public exposure. Some countries have banned it outright.

It is not yet clear if Monsanto, being taken over by the German multinational Bayer for $66 billion, will be spraying glyphosate on its “Roundup Resistant” GMO seed stock in the Avra Valley. Residents hope not.