Note to poor readers: Nothing I've written below argues one way or the other whether Roundup is carcinogenic. My remarks have to do with the way the matter was handled and reported.
A Scientist Didnāt Disclose Important Dataāand Let Everyone Believe a Popular Weedkiller Causes Cancer
A World Health Organization group called RoundUp a āprobable carcinogen,ā but it didnāt have all the facts.
A Scientist Didnāt Disclose Important Dataāand Let Everyone Believe a Popular Weedkiller Causes Cancer ā Mother Jones
A World Health Organization group called RoundUp a āprobable carcinogen,ā but it didnāt have all the facts.....I suspected as much.
Dude, you and article's author don't appear capable of reading, understanding and accurately paraphrasing the content in the article you cited. Why should anyone value your suspicions? [1]
From the article:
Aaron Blair, the scientist who led the IARCās [International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the UNās World Health Organization (WHO)] review panel on glyphosate, had access to data from a large study that strongly suggested that Roundup did not cause cancer after allābut he withheld that data from the RoundUp review panel. Weirder still: Blair himself was a senior researcher on that study.
...court documents reviewed by Reuters from an ongoing US legal case against Monsanto show that Blair knew the unpublished research found no evidence of a link between glyphosate and cancer.
From linked "background" content referenced in the
Mother Jones article:
Blair told Reuters the data...was available two years before IARC assessed glyphosate.
The WHO most certainly did have the facts that didn't militate for thinking Roundup is a possible carcinogen. Blair's study didn't need to be published for the other members of the WHO panel that issued the statement about Roundup to have read it and determined that it was a credible study.
The
Mother Jones and Reuters articles note that Blair's study hadn't been published at the time of the IARC's decision; so someone apparently that event's non-occurrence is material. I don't think it is, but it's possible that it is. (I don't think there is or was afoot a conspiracy of sorts. I just don't believe that the people on the panel were unaware of Blair's study findings.)
Having occasionally been a member of research groups/panels, I don't believe that the other panel members were unaware of Blair's research. For every analytical panel/group of which I've been a member, the very first thing we do in the very first meeting we have is introduce ourselves, and part of that brief introduction includes each person describing the nature of their expertise and identifying what they most recently and are currently working on outside of the specific work of the panel itself. Moreover, in the course of literally socializing during the panel's tenure, people share information about the nature of their current and past work, most often because another member(s) is simply curious (or more) about it or the individual and asks, be it at lunch or via email, or "at the watercooler," so to speak. I would need to willingly suspend disbelief, as one might while watching a movie, to accept that similar chit chats and what not didn't occur among the IARC panelists considering the carcinogenic properties of glyphosate.
Although lacking is your ability to accurately relay what you (presumably) read in the article you linked is, contextually you are correct to be irked that the WHO, in this instance, failed to exercise the due diligence and general integrity expected of science professionals. At the very least, Blair should and could have given a pre-publication/pre-peer review copy of his paper to the panelists who were, after all, experts in the field more than adequately capable of reading it and determining whether it was adequately rigorous and sound for them to give it credence in arriving at their opinion(s). Even more curiously, the IARC in its announcement of its conclusion states that its members based their conclusion on "
evidence in humans [drawn] from studies of exposures, mostly agricultural, in the USA, Canada, and Sweden published since 2001," yet they make explicit reference to only two studies, both done by the EPA, and don't even bother to list in notes or a "references consulted" list the other studies. [2]
It is shameful that even in light of the new information having come to the fore, the WHO has not recanted or retracted its earlier articulated finding regarding the potential cancer-causing properties of glyphosate.
Notes:
- While I understand why Mother Jones published a sensational headline -- they have revenue needs that depend on "clicks." That doesn't make their beguilingly sensationalizing the story's headline -- a matter that is important and relevant is, if accurately "headlined," duly sensational in its own right -- acceptable in my mind for by doing so, they distort the matter's context and give readers of only the headline the wrong impression.
I don't have a big problem with folks copying and pasting published headlines, provided the headline accurately reflects the content of the corresponding article. When the headline conveys one tone and the article's content doesn't fully match that tone, I have a problem with one's merely parroting the headline. It's bad enough that we find ourselves in a time when non-journalists and non-newsmakers must perform our own "double checks" of the content we receive from those two groups. It's, however, doubly disturbing to see "regular" people perpetuate the disingenuousness by aping those groups' sensationalist approach to information sharing.
- My objection to the IARC's not citing their referenced works is the same one I have with Trump saying things like "people are saying" or "many people have said." Who the hell said it? "Show" me the document, video, tape, etc that fully and accurately depicts what exactly it is they said. As my signature states:
When pontificating and sharing your analysis, providing citations that point readers to your underlying research will help convince them that you have thought seriously about the matter under discussion.
- Thomas G. Krattenmaker
