Date of this Version

7-11-2016

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monographs Programme identifies chemicals, drugs, mixtures, occupational exposures, lifestyles and personal habits, and physical and biological agents that cause cancer in humans and has evaluated about 1000 agents since 1971. Monographs are written by ad hoc Working Groups (WGs) of international scientific experts over a period of about 12 months ending in an eight-day meeting. The WG evaluates all of the publicly available scientific information on each substance and, through a transparent and rigorous process,1 decides on the degree to which the scientific evidence supports that substance's potential to cause or not cause cancer in humans.

For Monograph 112,2 17 expert scientists evaluated the carcinogenic hazard for four insecticides and the herbicide glyphosate.3 The WG concluded that the data for glyphosate meet the criteria for classification as a probable human carcinogen.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the primary agency of the European Union for risk assessments regarding food safety. In October 2015, EFSA reported4 on their evaluation of the Renewal Assessment Report5 (RAR) for glyphosate that was prepared by the Rapporteur Member State, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). EFSA concluded that ‘glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential’. Addendum 1 (the BfR Addendum) of the RAR5 discusses the scientific rationale for differing from the IARC WG conclusion.

Serious flaws in the scientific evaluation in the RAR incorrectly characterise the potential for a carcinogenic hazard from exposure to glyphosate. Since the RAR is the basis for the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) conclusion,4 it is critical that these shortcomings are corrected.

Comments

Originally published in Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

Additional Authors:

Christopher J Portier, Bruce K Armstrong, Bruce C Baguley, Xaver Baur, Igor Belyaev, Robert Bellé, Fiorella Belpoggi, Annibale Biggeri, Maarten C Bosland, Paolo Bruzzi, Lygia Therese Budnik, Merete D Bugge, Kathleen Burns, Gloria M Calaf, David O Carpenter, Hillary M Carpenter, Lizbeth López-Carrillo, Richard Clapp, Pierluigi Cocco, Dario Consonni, Pietro Comba, Elena Craft, Mohamed Aqiel Dalvie, Devra Davis, Paul A Demers, Anneclaire J De Roos, Jamie DeWitt, Francesco Forastiere, Jonathan H Freedman, Lin Fritschi, Caroline Gaus, Julia M Gohlke, Marcel Goldberg, Eberhard Greiser, Johnni Hansen, Lennart Hardell, Michael Hauptmann, Wei Huang, James Huff, Margaret O James, C W Jameson, Andreas Kortenkamp, Annette Kopp-Schneider, Hans Kromhout, Marcelo L Larramendy, Philip J Landrigan, Lawrence H Lash, Dariusz Leszczynski, Charles F Lynch, Corrado Magnani, Daniele Mandrioli, Francis L Martin, Enzo Merler, Paola Michelozzi, Lucia Miligi, Anthony B Miller, Dario Mirabelli, Franklin E Mirer, Saloshni Naidoo, Melissa J Perry, Maria Grazia Petronio, Roberta Pirastu, Ralph J Portier, Kenneth S Ramos, Larry W Robertson, Theresa Rodriguez, Martin Röösli, Matt K Ross, Deodutta Roy, Ivan Rusyn, Paulo Saldiva, Jennifer Sass, Kai Savolainen, Paul T J Scheepers, Consolato Sergi, Ellen K Silbergeld, Martyn T Smith, Bernard W Stewart, Patrice Sutton, Fabio Tateo, Benedetto Terracini, Heinz W Thielmann, David B Thomas, Harri Vainio, John E Vena, Paolo Vineis, Elisabete Weiderpass, Dennis D Weisenburger, Tracey J Woodruff, Takashi Yorifuji, Il Je Yu, Paola Zambon, Hajo Zeeb and Shu-Feng Zhou

Identifier

FIDC006611

Rights

by-nc

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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