The Glyphosate Cancer Lag Phase is over

September 2021

Cancer is, without doubt, one of the most devastating of modern diseases. Treatment is limited and unpleasant, and prevention is difficult because of the biology of cancers.

Cells become cancerous when physical and/or chemical stressors disturb gene function to the point where the normal protective cell repair and rebalancing mechanisms are overwhelmed. The prevention problem arises because there isn't one single cause, but rather a whole raft of contributing factors which combine in complex ways to trigger the disease of the cell. For example, exposure to stressors at a low intensity for a long time may cause cancer just as surely as a high dose of the same stressor for a brief period. A variable lag phase, ranging from months to decades makes identifying the cause of any cancer particularly tough.

All these complications are bad news for people whose food, water, air and environment are laced with potentially carcinogenic agrichemicals. They're even worse news for the people whose job it is to spray the world with these chemicals. However, they're excellent news for agrichemical and biotech companies who don't want any evidence that their top moneyspinners may be guilty of causing cancer.

The Agricultural Health Study* has been collecting data on real pesticide exposures and real health outcomes on farms for many years: it's producing data that the agrichemical industry and its regulators don't want to hear.

*The American Agricultural Health Study is an on-going, long-term study of nearly 50,000 farm workers in two major US farming states. It has been gathering data on health and pesticide exposure since 1993, before the advent of GM crops. Data are updated periodically, and the latest follow-up now being published covers 2014-2015.

Since most cancers have a lag-phase of years or decades between exposure to the carcinogen and manifestation of symptoms, the latest data are likely to be the first to reveal problematic agrichemicals.

Since glyphosate-based herbicides, used globally and on a massive scale on GM crops, are now being linked to non-Hodgkins lymphoma (a blood cell cancer), the records of the Agricultural Health Study have become particularly important.

Last year, a team of environment and public health scientists published a meta-analysis* of the latest data from the Agricultural Health Study plus five human studies with reference to glyphosate exposure. To reduce the background 'noise' of excess irrelevant information inherent in all epidemiological studies, they focused on the health of farm workers known to have worked extensively with glyphosate.

*Meta-analysis is a statistical tool frequently applied to consolidate the results from similar but separate individual studies so that an overall conclusion about the effects of exposure can be drawn.

Their results suggested a "compelling link between exposures to (glyphosate-based herbicides) and increase risk for (non-Hodgkins lymphoma)". The increased risk equates to eight cancers per thousand highly exposed workers. This occupational risk clearly exceeds the one in one thousand generally accepted by policy makers, and far exceeds the acceptable risk to the general population which ranges from one in ten thousand to one in one million.

Pro-biotech front organisation, the Genetic Literacy Project*, waded in with several derogatory articles about the meta-analysis. In one particularly disturbing piece, it trivialised the huge Agricultural Health Study as a 'single' study, and dismissed the selection of data from highly exposed workers as 'cherry picking'. It assures readers that "for the ordinary consumers, there's nothing to worry about".

*Genetic Literacy Project is a corporate front group whose motto is 'Science not ideology'. It was formerly funded by Monsanto who, according to documents revealed in court, funnelled money into the organisation to "shame scientists and highlight information helpful to Monsanto and other chemical producers". US Congress has also found that, to discredit the World Health Organization, Monsanto "turned to industry trade groups, such as CropLife and industry front groups, such as Genetic Literacy Project and Academics Review as platforms of support for industry spokespersons".

Is our chronic, low-level exposure to glyphosate indeed anything to worry about?

Not many studies have been carried out on the actual load of glyphosate the human body is carrying. What information we have suggests that environmentally-exposed subjects carry about a tenth of the glyphosate load found in occupationally-exposed subjects.

Comment. One-tenth of the amount of a substance known to cause cancer is still a lot, and might just take a bit longer to manifest as disease. Consider also that the safety margin of a chemical applied by regulators is at least a hundred times lower than the measured maximum safe level: farm workers are clearly exposed to pesticides in excess of the 'safe' level, and who knows what the effects of one-tenth of an unsafe level might be.

The authors of the meta-analysis noted that, in the course of the Agricultural Health Study, the use of glyphosate (and therefore the exposure levels of both applicators and the public) has increased, not only due to extra spraying on resistant weeds in GM-planted fields but because the herbicide is now being used shortly before harvest on many important non-GM crops to speed drying.

Of greatest concern is that, now that the data of the Agricultural Health Study span more than 20 years, increased cancers emerging after a 20-year lag phase seem to be happening. Much worse may yet be to come.

OUR COMMENT

Beware information supplied by the Genetic Literacy Project: its mission seems to be the age-old ploy of 'educating' the public, media and policy-makers to want GM, and cancer too?

Besides the long-term risk to your own health, you might realistically be concerned that the conventional crops you're eating are being produced at the expense of the health and lives of the farmworkers. Think about raising this issue with your representative in government.

There's never been a better reason to buy organic food.


SOURCES

• Luoping Zhang, et al., February 2019, Exposure to Glyphosate -Based Herbicides and Risk for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Meta-Analysis and Supporting Evidence, Science Direct

• Steven Saltzberg, Glyphosate meta-analysis appeared to raise legitimate concerns that Monsanto's Roundup may cause cancer, then Genetic Literacy Project pointed out study's fatal flaws, Genetic Literacy Project, 19.02.19

• Lianne Sheppard, Glyphosate Science Is Nuanced. Arguments About It On The Internet? Not So Much, Forbes Magazine, 20.02.20

• Genetic Literacy Project, Source Watch

• Mission Statement, https://geneticliteracyproject.org

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