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.
