Renewable Farming

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. Previous research on animals, including rats, has led to similar findings.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. Previous research on animals, including rats, has led to similar findings.

In 2012, the first-ever lifetime feeding study evaluating the health risks of glyphosate and GE foods found that rats fed a type of GE corn that is prevalent in the U.S. food supply developed massive mammary tumors, kidney and liver damage, and other serious health problems after a feeding trial of two years. According to the authors:5

“The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize (from 11 [percent] in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup, and Roundup alone (from 0.1ppb in water), were studied [two] years in rats. In females, all treated groups died [two to three] times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible in [three] male groups fed GMOs. All results were hormone- and sex-dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable.

Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls, the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments.

In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5 [to] 5.5 times higher … Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were also generally 1.3 [to] 2.3 greater. Males presented [four] times more large palpable tumors than controls, which occurred up to 600 days earlier.”

The findings were a nail in the coffin for the pesticide/biotech industry, but then the journal began to receive Letters to the Editor alleging fraud and calling upon the editors to retract the paper.

After what the journal described as a “thorough and time-consuming analysis” of the study, they said they found “no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data.” All they could find “wrong” with the research was that it used a low number of animals, but they, quite outrageously, retracted this important paper nonetheless. Even the retraction statement admits that the results presented are “not incorrect” but rather may be “inconclusive.”