International Study Reveals Glyphosate Weed Killers Cause Multiple Types of Cancer
A comprehensive carcinogenicity study on the world’s most used herbicide, glyphosate, involving scientists from Europe and the U.S., has found that low doses of the controversial weed killer cause multiple types of cancer in rats.
In this long-term study, published on Tuesday, glyphosate alone and two commercial glyphosate- based formulations, Roundup BioFlow (MON 52276) used in the EU and Ranger Pro (EPA 524-517) used in the U.S., were administered to rats via drinking water beginning in prenatal life, at doses of 0.5, 5, and 50 mg/kg body weight/day for 2 years. These doses are currently considered safe by regulatory agencies and correspond to the EU Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) and the EU’s No Observed Adverse Effect Level (NOAEL) for glyphosate.
In all 3 treatment groups, increased incidences of benign and malignant tumors at multiple anatomic sites were observed compared to controls. These tumors arose in haemolymphoreticular tissues (leukemia), skin, liver, thyroid, nervous system, ovary, mammary gland, adrenal glands, kidney, urinary bladder, bone, endocrine pancreas, uterus and spleen (hemangiosarcoma). Increased incidences occurred in both sexes. Most of these involved tumors that are rare in Sprague Dawley rats (background incidence < 1%) with 40% of leukemias deaths in the treated groups occurring in early life and increased early deaths were also observed for other solid tumors.
“We observed early onset and early mortality for a number of rare malignant cancers, including leukemia, liver, ovary and nervous system tumors. Notably, approximately half of the deaths from leukemia seen in the glyphosate and GBHs treatment groups occurred at less than one year of age, comparable to less than 35-40 years of age in humans. By contrast, no case of leukemia was observed in the first year of age in more than 1600 Sprague Dawley historical controls in carcinogenicity studies conducted by the Ramazzini Institute and the National Toxicology Program (NTP),” stated Dr. Daniele Mandrioli, Director of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the Ramazzini Institute and Principal Investigator of the study.
The multi-institutional Global Glyphosate Study is being led by the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the Ramazzini Institute in Italy and involves scientists from Boston College, George Mason University, King’s College London, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Scientific Centre of Monaco, University of Bologna, the Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology of the Italian National Research Council, the Italian National Institute of Health and the National Food Safety Committee of the Italian Ministry of Health.
The Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the Ramazzini Institute, with over 200 compounds studied in over 50 years, is the largest bioassay program in the EU: vinyl chloride, asbestos, benzene and radio frequencies are amongst the carcinogenic agents that have been investigated in its laboratory. Most recently, the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the Ramazzini Institute also published a peer-reviewed report in collaboration with the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) on the toxicological effects of nicotine.
These new results provide robust evidence supporting International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) conclusion in 2015 that there is “sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity of glyphosate in experimental animals”. Furthermore, the study’s data are consistent with epidemiological evidence on the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides.