Glyphosate-based herbicides kill cancer cells and have ‘no significant toxicity’ to humans? Another study says ‘yes’—but what does it mean?

Cameron English | July 31, 2019

While biotech giant Bayer battles thousands of lawsuits alleging its weed killer Roundup causes cancer, several studies published over the last six years have suggested that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the the much-maligned herbicide, may actually prohibit cancer cell growth.

A paper published June 24 in the Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B is the fourth such study since 2013 to suggest that Roundup may have cancer-fighting properties. The authors reported that the co-formulants—substances that enhance the performance of the active ingredient glyphosate—inhibited the growth of cancerous human liver, lung and nerve cells, while glyphosate was relatively harmless:

Glyphosate-based herbicides are broad-spectrum pesticides widely used in the world …. but recently, there has been an ongoing controversy regarding their carcinogenicity …. Data obtained showed that all tested ethoxylated formulants and their mixtures with declared active ingredient glyphosate isopropylamine salt (GP) have significant inhibitory effect on cell proliferation, while the declared active ingredient has no significant toxicity.

If Roundup or one of its ingredients turns out to be an effective cancer treatment, it would be a stunning twist in the midst of Bayer’s ongoing legal battle. But that’s not yet the appropriate conclusion to draw from this evidence. The four existing studies are very preliminary. Three of them, including the June 24 paper, are in-vitro or cell culture studies, which involve dousing cells in chemicals to see what happens, a notoriously unreliable way to measure real-world toxicity.........To Read More....

Sidelined Because She Rejects Radical Green Agendas?

Paul Driessen Apr 06, 2019

 Aurelia Skipwith has a BS in biology from Howard University, a Master’s in molecular genetics from Purdue and a law degree from Kentucky. She has worked as a molecular analyst and sustainable agriculture partnership manager. She was also co-founder and general counsel for AVC Global, a Washington, D.C.-based agricultural supply chain development company that helps small farmers link up with multinational buyers and with agronomy, business, financial and other service providers.

For two years, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Interior Department, where she performed her duties so well that last October President Trump nominated her to become the next Director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) at Interior. She is an ideal candidate for the post.

She’s also only the third woman ever nominated for this position – and the first African American. Her impeccable scientific, legal, agricultural and conservationist background would ensure fairness, balance, integrity, solid science and multidisciplinary thinking in FWS decision making.

And yet, Ms. Skipwith lingers in confirmation limbo, along with hundreds of others whose nominations have been stalled for many months to well over a year. Too many Democratic senators appear determined to prevent the president from having people onboard who would implement his policies.

In fact, the US Senate has already been forced to hold cloture votes – ending drawn-out debates – on 128 Trump nominees! In glaring contrast, the Senate had a grand total of only 24 such cloture votes for all six previous presidents combined: Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II and Obama! That’s 32 times more nominees by this president sidelined by Congress than during all ten previous presidential terms.

 

Why is Ms. Skipwith being treated this way? It appears to be simple ideological politics. Senate Democrats seem to be acquiescing to the demands of Deep Green environmentalists and Deep State career bureaucrats who do not like having their views and policies challenged.

Her molecular analysis and sustainable agriculture work were with Monsanto, the ultimate Evil Corporation to many of her opponents, because it manufactures both Roundup weedkiller and genetically engineered (GE) crops like Bt corn and Roundup-Ready soybeans. As Deputy Assistant Secretary, Ms. Skipwith supported reversing Obama era bans on planting such crops and using advanced-technology neonicotinoid pesticides in wildlife refuges administered by Fish & Wildlife.

The 2014 bans resulted from collusive sue-and-settle lawsuits between environmentalist groups and Obama DOI officials. They were reversed in August 2018, following a careful review process. As I have noted in many articles (here, here and here, for example), GE crops, glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) and neonics are safe for humans and the environment. They also enable farmers to produce more food from less land, using less water and fewer pesticides, and with greater resistance to droughts, floods, insects and climate change, than is possible with conventional or organic crops.

 

Genetically engineered crops promote sustainable agriculture and help the world feed billions who otherwise face prolonged malnutrition and starvation. And yet, radical greens oppose them. They even attack Golden Rice, which prevents blindness and death in malnourished children and parents, by incorporating genes that produce Vitamin A precursors, vastly expanding nutritional values in rice.

 

Americans alone have consumed more than four trillion servings of foods with at least one GE ingredient – without a single documented example of harm to a person or the environment.

Regarding glyphosate, only one agency, the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), says the chemical is “probably carcinogenic” to humans – and its analysis is tainted by fraud and blatant conflicts of interest. Studies by the European Food Safety Authority, Food and Agriculture Organization, Germany’s Institute for Risk Assessment, Australia’s Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, and other respected organizations worldwide have concluded that glyphosate is safe and non-carcinogenic.

 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists conducted a “comprehensive systematic review of studies submitted to the agency and available in the open literature,” and concluded that the chemical “is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans.” Health Canada conducted a similarly extensive review of global studies, found no likely cancer risk, and noted that “no pesticide regulatory authority in the world” believes glyphosate is a cancer risk to humans “at the levels at which humans are currently exposed.”

As cancer researcher Arthur Lambert noted recently, “exposure to carcinogens influences the risk of developing cancer, which is a function of many factors, including the dose and duration of the exposure” – to glyphosate for example. But other factors also play integral roles, including inherited genes and genetic mutations, how well one’s immune system can find and eliminate mutated cells before they develop into cancer, personal lifestyle choices, and exposure to additional carcinogens over the years. Separating all those factors is virtually impossible.

 

Risks associated with glyphosate fall “somewhere between the small hazard that comes from eating a considerable amount of bacon (for colorectal cancer) and consuming very hot tea (for esophageal cancer),” Lambert notes. In fact, IARC lumps bacon, sunlight and plutonium together in its “definitely carcinogenic” category and lists as “possible” carcinogens pickled vegetables, caffeic acid found in many fruits and vegetables, and even drinking hot beverages or working the night shift.

If glyphosate poses few risks of cancer in humans, its threats to ducks, geese, turkeys and other animals in wildlife refuges are likely infinitesimal. The same is true for GE crops and neonicotinoid pesticides.

Most neonics are used as seed coatings, which get absorbed into plant tissues as crops grow. They protect plants against insect damage by targeting only pests that actually feed on the crops – and are largely gone by the time mature plants flower, which means they are barely detectable in pollen.

As to claims that neonics harm bees and thus should be banned from wildlife refuges, a 2015 international study of wild bees found that most wild bees never even come into contact with crops or the neonics that supposedly threaten them. The same study also determined that the 2% of wild bees that do visit crops – and so would be most exposed to these pesticides – are among the healthiest bee species on Earth.

The eight senators who recently expressed concern that chlorpyrifos and other pesticides threaten multiple protected species should applaud Interior’s reversal of bans on modern agricultural technologies (which reduce the use of such pesticides). Ducks Unlimited and the National Wild Turkey Federation certainly did.

The bans “were clearly not based on science,” they said, adding that the reversal restored GE crop use as an “essential tool” for waterfowl and wildlife management in national wildlife refuges. Many refuges were established along migratory bird flyways to provide food for waterfowl. But some can provide sufficient food only through cooperative agreements that let local farmers plant crops on refuge lands in exchange for leaving some of their crops unharvested, to supplement natural food on the refuge.

Genetically modified crops maximize crop yields, the FWS has explained, and “a blanket denial” of their use limits the latitude that refuge managers need to fulfill the purposes of each refuge. The ban on neonics was equally problematical because they are often used with GE crops and Roundup.

Aurelia Skipwith’s actions reflect the best in science-based government decision making. Her broad expertise enables her to separate fact from fiction, and reality from ideological agendas. She is the right person for this job – and indeed may turn out to be one of the best FWS directors ever. The Senate should confirm her forthwith.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of many articles on the environment. He has degrees in geology, ecology and environmental law.

Chemicals and Cancer

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!

By Rich Kozlovich

Recently the Environmental Protection Agency accepted public comments regarding Ohio’s request for an emergency Section 18 exemption for propoxur in order to help bring this plague of bed bugs under control. A letter was sent to EPA from one of the anti-pesticide groups insisting that EPA refuse this request claiming, among other things, that propoxur causes cancer; in spite of the fact that the MSDS sheet clearly states that propoxur is not carcinogenic.

In an article I saved some time back a writer outlined the three pillars of science.

• The first is fallibility. The fact that you can be wrong, and if so proven by experimental input, any hypothesis can be—indeed, must be—corrected. .

• The second pillar of science is that by its very nature, science is impersonal. There is no ‘us’, there is no ‘them’. There is only the quest.

• The third pillar of science is peer group assessment. This allows for validation of your thesis by fellow scientists and is usually done in confidence.

We shall avail ourselves of these pillars to come to an understanding of the subject of chemicals and cancer. I will state this from the onset. Pesticides do not cause cancer, and that includes DDT. Science is firmly based on these three pillars; these claims about chemicals and cancer are superstition; which is based on mysticism. Let's listen to real scientists and those who have followed this issue for years.

Angela Logomasini, director of risk and environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, states that “In recent decades, many have claimed that cancer is rising because of increased use of human made chemicals. But if chemicals were a source of health problems, one might expect that as chemical use increased around the world, there would be a measurable adverse effect on life expectancy, cancer rates, or other illnesses. Yet in developed nations, where chemical use has greatly increased, people are living longer, healthier lives.”

In another article entitled “The True Causes of Cancer” Logomasini observes that, “Environmental activists have long claimed that man-made chemicals are causing rampant cancer rates that could be addressed only by government regulation. Accordingly, lawmakers have passed laws directing government agencies to study environmental causes of cancer, estimate the number of lives allegedly lost, and devise regulations to reduce death rates. However, lawmakers should be aware of some key problems with how this system has worked in practice. First, the claim that chemical pollution is a major cancer cause is wrong. Second, agencies have relied on faulty scientific methods that grossly overestimate potential cancer deaths from chemicals and potential lives saved by regulation. As a result, regulatory policy tends to divert billions of dollars from other life-saving uses or from other efforts to improve quality of life to pay for unproductive regulations.”

An article which appeared in the New York Post by Jeff Stier of the American Council on Science and Health entitled, “A Cancer Non-Epidemic” states; “We have an epidemic of disbelief about cancer in this country -- but it's the opposite of what you probably expect. Cancer death rates have been falling for years, and now are falling even faster. Yet it's still stories about allegedly ignored cancer threats that grab our attention. If death rates were rising, the situation would (rightly) be front-page news. But the new report by the Centers for Disease Control and the American Cancer Society notes that the rate of decline in U.S. cancer deaths has doubled. And that story got buried (A18 in The New York Times, nowhere in the Wall Street Journal). Most people will have forgotten the good news by the next time an activist group talks up "the cancer epidemic."

In 2006 this was published on the National Cancer Institute, U.S. National Institutes of Health web site. “Annual Report to the Nation Finds Cancer Death Rates Continue to Drop; Lower Cancer Rates Observed in U.S. Latino Populations -A new report from the nation's leading cancer organizations finds that Americans' risk of dying from cancer continues to drop, maintaining a trend that began in the early 1990s. However, the rate of new cancers remains stable. The "Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2003, Featuring Cancer among U.S. Hispanic/Latino Populations" is published in the October 15, 2006, issue of Cancer*. The report includes comprehensive data on trends over the past several decades for all major cancers. It shows that the long-term decline in overall cancer death rates continued through 2003 for all races and both sexes combined. The declines were greater among men (1.6 percent per year from 1993 through 2003) than women (0.8 percent per year from 1992 through 2003).”

Bjorn Lomborg in his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, notes that if you were to compare the cancer rates and demographics from the turn of the last century to the turn of this century you would see two startling statistics. In the early 1900's few people smoked and few people lived to be over sixty five, which is why sixty five was chosen as the retirement age for Social Security purposes.

When the Chesterfield Girl died of lung cancer in 1992, Pulitzer Prize winning nationally syndicated columnist George Will wrote an article about it.

He recited an account where “at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis in 1919, a doctor summoned some medical students to an autopsy, saying the patient’s disease was so rare that most of the students would never see it again. It was lung cancer.”

Cancer is mostly an affliction of smokers and the aged. Yet we see the cancer rates dropping and we have a lot of smokers and a lot of over sixty five people. It those two demographics were taken out of the modern equation the drop in cancer rates would even more impressive.

“Dr. Bruce Ames is the recipient of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Prize and of the Tyler Prize for environmental achievement. He has served on the National Cancer Institute board of directors, and he's a member of the National Academy of Sciences” found through his research that naturally occurring chemicals, when fed in extremely high doses to test animals, were as likely to test carcinogenic as synthetic chemicals produced by chemical companies.

“At one time, he was the darling of the environmental movement. But now, the members of that movement have turned on him with a vengeance, accusing him of aiding and abetting "Corporate America," although he accepts no money other than his university salary”. Unfortunately his conclusion “was a very politically incorrect conclusion.” Ames said that, “The environmentalist activists, ‘have a religion’ that says that corporations are behind an exploding epidemic of cancer.”

This idea that “a rodent is a little man” became a valuable weapon for environmental activists and in 1958 the Delaney Clause required the Food and Drug Administration to ban any substance that cause cancer in animals….even when fed doses that could never be reached in a person’s lifetime of massive everyday use. In short, Delaney outlined the idea that if a substance causes cancer at any level, it causes cancer at every level. This is not science. Until then it was clearly understood that the dose makes the poison. At some point the molecular load of any substance becomes too small to impact cells. This “any dose is deadly” mentality lingers in spite of the fact that toxicologists disagree.

In 2005 the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) petitioned the EPA to “eliminate "junk science" from the process by which it determines whether a substance is likely to cause cancer in humans.”

“The petition, filed on behalf of ACSH by the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF), a public interest law firm, argues that current EPA guidelines violate the Information Quality Act (IQA) -- the law that requires the federal government to ensure the "equality, objectivity, utility, and integrity" of information it dispenses to the public.”

“Specifically, EPA routinely declares chemicals "carcinogens" -- implying a likelihood of a health threat to humans -- based solely on the creation of tumors in lab rodents by the administration of super high doses irrelevant to ordinary human exposure levels. Furthermore, effects in a single species may not be applicable to another species (rat tests do not even reliably predict effects in mice, which are closely related to rats, let alone effects in humans), though similar effects in multiple species might be an indicator of a genuine problem.”

Bruce Ames notes that “there are major problems with this procedure.

• One, animals aren't necessarily the best stand-ins for humans. In fact, 30% of the time, a chemical that causes cancer in mice won't do so in rats and vice versa, even though these species are much closer to each other than they are to humans.

• For another, the dose given the animals is on average almost 400,000 times the dose that the Environmental Protection Agency tries to protect humans against.”

The ACSH went on to “request that EPA eliminate statements that indicate that a substance may properly be labeled a "likely" human carcinogen based solely or primarily on the results of animal studies. Such statements are scientifically unsound, argues the petition, which notes that the great majority of toxicologists share that assessment.”

EPA continually dodged this by extending their deadline for responding. Finally five months later they claimed that their “Risk Assessment Guidelines are not statements of scientific fact -- and thus not covered by the IQA -- but merely statements of EPA policy.” My question was then and still is; if EPA policy isn’t based on science, then what is it based on?

I think Dr. Elizabeth Whelan answers this best. “This is a free country, and we all have the right to be guided by superstitions, no matter how nonsensical; for example, my mother still forbids me to open an umbrella in her apartment. But we should no longer tolerate the mindless regulatory ritual of banning useful, safe chemicals "at the drop of a rat."

Sources:
1. Leaders & Success: Bruce Ames, by Michael Fumento
2. Cancer Trends , and, The True Causes of Cancer, by Angela Logomasini
3. A Cancer Non-Epidemic, and, We Should Expect More from the EPA, by Jeff Stier, Esq.
4. Annual Report to the Nation Finds Cancer Death Rates Continue to Drop; Lower Cancer Rates Observed in U.S. Latino Populations - National Cancer Institute, U.S. National Institutes of Health.
5. The Skeptical Environmentalist, by Bjorn Lomborg

This originally appeared in the May Issue of the Ohio Pest Management's quarterly newsletter, The Standard. RK

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My Definition of a Scientist

By Frank Schnell — October 31, 2018

A scientist is a person who is able and willing to live with uncertainty as long as it takes to dispel that uncertainty through an objective, logical process (a.k.a. the Scientific Method).Most non-scientists are victims of a potentially dangerous combination of two common attributes of human intelligence:

(1) an extreme aversion to uncertainty and
(2) the ability to rationalize.

The former is expressed as a fear of the unfamiliar which inhibits one’s evolution from Frightened Animal to Thinking Human Being. The latter enables one to intellectually neutralize discomfiting truths or uncertainties and is used (especially, but not exclusively) to support political and religious ideologies. In their darkest forms, those ideologies give one permission to continue behaving like a beast while still imagining that one is a superior life form. .........To Read More....


Will "Alternative Truth" Prevail?



Credit: John Tenniel

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” - Alice in Wonderland

By Frank Schnell — April 16, 2017

Science is, above all, a methodology designed for discovering objective“truths” about the natural world. All lawyers and politicians speak quite highly of Truth, and all routinely claim that it is on their side, rather than their opponents’, however, the real function of legal and political debate is not to discover truth, but to win. And, whenever “winning” is the prime directive, Truth is always the first casualty in the battle..........To Read More....

The Age Of Stupid

By Frank Schnell — August 19, 2016

When, exactly, was the Age of Stupid? Was it when people practiced human sacrifice to placate the brutal gods they worshiped? Was it when people believed the Earth was flat and everything else in the universe revolved around them?  Or, was it when people thought that all diseases were due to an imbalance of the four humours and could be treated by bleeding the patient?

Maybe it was when they believed in witches and burned them alive at the stake for the on-lookers’ entertainment and spiritual enlightenment.  Or perhaps it occurred more recently when people took “comet pills” to protect themselves from cyanogen gas in the tail of Halley’s Comet, which they believed would envelope the Earth and cause mass extinction.

Surely, the Age of Stupid was in full flower when people believed in Piltdown man and perpetual motion machines, zero-threshold environmental toxins, and catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Or it’s the Age of Stupid today.........To Read More....

Chemicals, Cancer and Common Sense

By Frank Schnell — April 15, 2016

Risk Estimation:  It would come as a surprise to most people to learn that so-called quantitative cancer risk assessments do not actually quantify true risk.  The actuarial risk calculated by insurance companies (e.g., the risk of dying in an auto accident), is based on actual data on the incidence of disease-, disaster- or accident-related mortality. 

However, actuarial data on disease incidence or mortality in humans resulting from very low exposures to chemicals in the environment simply do not exist. 

Instead, data from occupational studies of more heavily exposed humans are used, where available.  However, epidemiological studies seldom have the quantitative exposure data needed for a quantitative risk assessment.  To create a surrogate for this missing low-dose data, animals are exposed to very high doses of substances to guarantee that statistically reliable results are obtained. 

These animal results (or, much less often, the results from occupationally-exposed humans) are then extrapolated, using mathematical models incorporating numerous default assumptions, to humans exposed to very low environmental levels of the same substance.  The resulting cancer risk calculated by regulatory agencies is, of necessity, entirely theoretical and will vary greatly depending on the assumptions made and the models used in the assessment.  The limitations of quantitative risk assessment were clearly acknowledged in EPA's 1986 Guidelines for carcinogen risk assessment, as follows:

“The risk model used by EPA [i.e., the linearized multistage model] leads to a plausible upper limit to risk that is consistent with some proposed mechanisms of carcinogenesis.  Such an estimate, however, does not necessarily give a realistic prediction of the risk.  The true value of the risk is unknown, and may be as low as zero."  (U.S. E.P.A., 1986)      (emphasis added.)..........To Read More.....

War On Science: Bogus Human Carcinogens

By Frank Schnell — March 10, 2016

In the last 15 years, EPA has invented three bogus human carcinogens: dioxin, formaldehyde, and TCE.

Prior to the late 1990s, EPA’s cancer Risk Assessment Guidelines (CRAGs) required sufficient evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship in humans before a substance could be classified as a “known human carcinogen”.   However, during the late 1990s, EPA modified its CRAGs to allow itself to classify substances as known human carcinogens without sufficient epidemiological evidence to support such a decision.

The new CRAGs were specifically designed to enable the agency to classify the “celebrity” pollutant dioxin as a human carcinogen, using the agency’s speculative policies (e.g., the so-called TEF approach to the risk assessment of “dioxin-like” compounds) as surrogates for the missing evidence of carcinogenicity in humans.

Dioxin had been a “celebrity” pollutant ever since it came to public attention during the Vietnam War. The chemical’s status followed, not from the its known toxicity in humans (which was largely limited to chloracne, a serious skin condition associated with heavy exposures), but from its association with the second most divisive war in American history.  EPA’s determination to classify it as a human carcinogen had little to do with toxicology and everything to do with the politics of pollution............To Read More....


How Natural Variations Became Environmental Crises: The Word Game

 By Frank Schnell — February 16, 2016

In How Natural Variations Became Environmental Crises: The Numbers Racket, we looked at how officially safe levels of exposure gradually went from conservative, to ultra-conservative, to completely ridiculous.

Even before the manipulation of numbers became commonplace, the manipulation of words was a major tool in promoting fear about science and keeping it alive. Simple words in common usage, like risk, known, similar and equivalent were given esoteric, colloquial meanings that bore little resemblance to their definitions in Webster s Dictionary and of which the general public was completely unaware..

Thus, unbeknownst to the average citizen, EPA s so-called quantitative cancer risk assessments have never assessed the true risk of potentially carcinogenic exposures. In EPA s 1986 Risk Assessment Guidelines, the following, uncharacteristically honest, and seldom quoted (except by me) statement was made: The true risk is unknown and may be as low as zero. Obviously, if the true risk is unknown, then the risk that is supposedly quantified in EPA risk assessments is not the true risk.

Throughout my career as an ATSDR toxicologist, I routinely quoted the zero true risk statement in all of my toxicological evaluations for health assessments that addressed potential cancer hazards on site. And, it never failed to irritate agency management and even some of my colleagues......To Read More....

How Natural Variations Became Environmental Crises: The Numbers Racket

By Frank Schnell — February 15, 2016

George Washington may be the only popularly elected ruler in history who, when his supporters offered to crown him King, relinquished his power instead. Politically speaking, that was a very unnatural thing to do.

Historically, federal agencies have not surrendered their power, even after their congressional mandates were accomplished. Instead, they have invented new problems to solve, thereby justifying their continued existence.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created by Congress in 1970 to write and enforce regulations designed to protect the environment and, by extension, human health. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a sister agency of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), was created by Congress ten years later (1980) as a non-regulatory public health information agency that analyzed the public health implications of environmental data provided by EPA and others, and wrote Public Health Assessments for concerned citizens at contaminated sites...........To Read More.....

Dose-Response, NOAELs and Hormesis

By Frank Schnell — January 22, 2016

In the 16th century, Paracelsus, the Father of Toxicology, established that All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy.

The truth of this 500-year-old statement should be intuitively obvious to anyone who has ever taken aspirin for a headache. If you take too little, you will get no relief; if you take the right amount, your headache will go away; and, if you take too much, your ears will ring and your stomach will hurt.

Thus, dose alone determines whether a substance (aspirin in this example) will have an adverse effect (a poison), a beneficial effect (a remedy), or no effect at all.

One could describe most modern medications as judiciously applied poisons.........To Read More....

Dr. Frank Schnell, PhD, is a retired toxicologist for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the CDC, in Atlanta, Georgia, and is a member of the American Council on Science and Health Scientific Advisory Panel.
 

Putting Science on the Stand

By Richard Zuber August 16, 2018

In a closely watched decision, a California jury ruled last week that Monsanto owed former Bay Area school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson $289 million in damages. Though Monsanto maintains that its products are safe, pointing to clean bills of health from a wide array of national health agencies, Johnson's attorneys argued that the company covered up the risks of the weed-killers Roundup and Ranger Pro – which they say were responsible for their client's terminal cancer.

The lawsuit thus carefully avoided delving into the complex epidemiology of Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate, arguing instead that the groundskeeper's illness arose from glyphosate's interactions with the weed-killer's other ingredients. Yet with even less available evidence about the safety of Roundup's formulation than about glyphosate, the verdict has revealed far more about the challenges of evaluating science in the courtroom than about the herbicide's alleged risks.............. Read more

Increase in Childhood Cancer Is Not Due to Pesticide

By Alex Berezow — August 9, 2018 @ American Council on Science and Health

Like the word "chemical," the word "pesticide" has been hijacked and then unfairly demonized.
Scientists use the word pesticide to refer to "any chemical, generally used in an agricultural setting, that can be used to kill another unwanted organism." Pesticides can be natural or synthetic, and they can be used to kill plants (herbicides), insects (insecticides), fungi (fungicides), or rodents (rodenticides).

Society uses the word pesticide pejoratively, assuming that anything that can kill another organism can also kill humans. This is almost never true. It is biologically impossible for some pesticides, such as Bt toxin, to harm humans. And the pesticides that can harm humans are used at such low concentrations that their presence has no effect on us.

Despite this, the word pesticide continues to carry a lot of negative emotional baggage. It's little wonder, therefore, that pesticides have been blamed (usually incorrectly) for all sorts of problems, from environmental pollution to cancer. Nothing is more emotionally charged than pediatric cancer, and pesticides have been blamed for that, too. But is it true?

Increase in Childhood Cancer Is Not Due to Pesticide

A new study published in The Lancet Oncology examined the incidence of pediatric cancer from 1991 to 2010. It was a gigantic study that included 1.3 billion person-years. (One "person-year" is an epidemiological term that refers to one person being studied for a period of one year. Ten person-years could be one person studied for ten years, two people studied for five years, five people studied for two years, etc.) The study found:

During the past three decades, incidence increased by about 1% per annum for all cancers combined and this increase affected most major diagnostic groups, including leukaemias, lymphomas, and CNS [central nervous system] tumours. However, in the past decade, incidence appears to have stabilised overall and for the major diagnostic groups in European populations.

In other words, pediatric cancer rates have stabilized after a period in which they were increasing. Why were they increasing?

To put it bluntly, we don't really know. The authors propose that improvements in diagnosis and reporting likely explain some of the data. People with bizarre agendas insist that pediatric cancer is due to Wi-Fi, cell phones, or chemicals, but that is total nonsense. Though it was not the goal of this analysis to investigate etiology, it does provide a hint that pesticides are probably not responsible for pediatric cancer, either.

In an accompanying commentary, Belgian cancer epidemiologist Philippe Autier writes:

Another contrast across European regions concerns the use of pesticides in agriculture. In 2014, the quantities of pesticide sales per capita were about three times greater in Spain, Italy, and France than in Sweden or the UK. If increasing cancer incidence trends were due to pesticides, dissimilarities in incidence trends for leukaemia and lymphoma would be expected between European regions, which was not the case.

Put another way, if pesticides cause pediatric cancer, then countries that use more pesticides should have more cases of pediatric cancer. But they don't. Therefore, pesticides probably don't cause pediatric cancer.

The bottom line is that more research is necessary to uncover the causes of childhood cancer. But eliminating unlikely candidates, such as pesticides, is an important step in unraveling the mystery.

Source: Eva Steliarova-Foucher, et al. "Changing geographical patterns and trends in cancer incidence in children and adolescents in Europe, 1991–2010 (Automated Childhood Cancer Information System): a population-based study." Lancet Oncology. Published: 8-August-2018. DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(18)30423-6

Source: Philippe Autier. "Increasing incidence of cancer in children and competing risks." Lancet Oncology. Published: 8-August-2018. DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(18)30498-4

Could Herpes Cause Alzheimer's? Maybe

By Josh Bloom — June 27, 2018 @ American Council on Science and Health

A recent study in the journal Neuron has found a strong link between two rather obscure and poorly understood families of human herpesviruses and Alzheimer's Disease (AD). This is a fascinating development.

Dr. Joel Dudley of Mount Sinai Medical School and colleagues identified two herpes viruses that were strongly associated with AD. The group found that people who had AD when they were alive had more of two viruses, human herpesvirus-6A (HHV-6A) and HHV-7, (1) in their brains than those who did not.

The paper, which is long and complex, once again raises the possibility that AD is caused by a virus, a theory that has been hotly disputed for years. I wouldn't bet against Dudley for two reasons: 1.A fundamental but unanswered question about AD has always been whether the plaques that form in the brains of its victims are the cause of the disease or the result of damage from something else. like infection or head trauma. Since all attempts to prevent or dissolve the plaques have failed to impact AD (2), perhaps something else, like a pathogen, is the causative factor and the plaques are merely an aftermath. 2.Pathogens, especially viruses, are increasingly implicated in diseases in which there was no apparent connection until one was discovered. Dr. Dudley makes this quite clear:

“Even if the questions remain, this research offers strong support for a long-controversial hypothesis that viruses might be involved in the development of Alzheimers disease. We didn’t have a horse in this virus race whatsoever. It’s the data that took us there. And now, not only is the viral hypothesis resurrected: it has specific testable pathways and networks and interactions that can be explored and reconciled with the rest of the work emerging in Alzheimers.”

Joel Dudley , M.D.

I think that it a given that we will continue to see some important and surprising discoveries that will reveal that pathogens are the root cause of poorly understood maladies, for example, a range of viral infections and the development of autoimmune diseases (3). Epidemiology certainly backs this up. About 15% of cancers worldwide are attributed to viral infections. Two other cancers are attributed to bacterial infections.

CANCERS CAUSED BY VIRUSES

•Infection by both hepatitis B and C cause hepatocarcinoma (liver cancer).
•The human papillomavirus (HPV) causes cancers of the cervix, anus, vagina, penis, and head and neck.
•Kaposi's Sarcoma, a cancer that was rare before the onset of the AIDS epidemic is caused by human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8).
•Certain lymphomas and Hodgkin’s disease are caused by the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV, HHV-4) causes mononucleosis as well as
•Human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV), a retrovirus (5), causes certain leukemias and lymphomas. Although 10-25 million people worldwide are infected, only 5% of them get any disease from the virus.

CANCERS CAUSED BACTERIA

•Helicobacter - Ulcers and stomach cancer
•Tuberculous - Lung cancer

There are nine herpes families that infect humans (4). Most of these are either well-known or at least have recognizable names - HSV-1 and-2, Epstein-Barr, varicella-zoster, cytomegalovirus. But the two herpes families that were found to be associated with AD were HHV-6a and HHV-7, and little is known about either one of them. Almost all humans are infected, primarily during childhood, but rarely cause disease.

In 2005, Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease. Ulcers were caused by an infectious disease, a startling revelation at that time. Perhaps the Mount Sinai group's findings will point others in a different direction. One is sorely needed. There are now 5 million Americans living with this awful disease and this number is expected to grow to 17 million by 2050.

If researchers turn their attention to the role of infectious pathogens in causing seemingly unrelated diseases perhaps we will see more surprises like Marshall and Warren's discovery.

There are plenty of Nobel Prizes out there. Whoever discovers the root cause of Alzheimer's can expect a nice trip to Stockholm.

NOTES:
(1) HHV-6 belongs to the Roseolovirus subfamily of herpesviruses. HHV-7 belongs to the Betaherpesviridae subfamily.
(2) Derek Lowe over at Science Translational Medicine has frequently written about the failures of drugs that were designed to prevent or modify plaques. His most recent article about Merck's failed attempt can be read here.
(3) Multiple viral infections have been postulated as causes for a host of autoimmune diseases, for example, Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and multiple sclerosis.
(4) It's not just humans. Feline leukemia virus (FeLV), as the name implies, causes leukemia, which is a major cause of death in cats that have not been vaccinated.
(5) Retroviruses are particularly nasty concoctions of nature. Like many other viruses their genetic material is RNA but they also have two specialized enzymes differentiate them from normal viruses. One is reverse transcriptase, which uses the viral RNA as a template to build viral DNA. The other is called integrase, which inserts the newly formed DNA into the DNA of the host cell, which changes its genome. Then you're not you anymore. The cells that are infected are transformed into something you weren't born with.
Original Soure: Readhead et al., 2018, Neuron 99, 1–19 July 11, 2018. "Multiscale Analysis of Independent Alzheimer’s Cohorts Finds Disruption of Molecular, Genetic, and Clinical Networks by Human Herpesvirus" https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2018.05.023

Partisan divide erupts on glyphosate-cancer science as IARC supporters push ‘Monsanto Papers’ narrative

Jon Entine, Cameron English | February 7, 2018

“There appear to be serious problems with the science underlying [the International Agency for Research on Cancer]’s [2015] assessment of glyphosate,” said Committee Chair Lamar Smith at the latest round of congressional hearings that could lead to cut off of United States funding of the World Health Organization cancer research sub-committee.

The glyphosate controversy shifted to a new forum this week: The House Science and Technology Committee. As might be expected, it was a highly political and ideological airing, illustrating the sharp differences among scientists, industry groups, regulators and politicians over the controversial herbicide glyphosate, sold exclusively until 2000 by Monsanto under its patent name Roundup, but now widely available in generic form from many suppliers.

The National Institutes of Health’s grant database shows that it gave IARC more than $1.2 million last year and more than $48 million since its inception.

"There are real repercussions to IARC's unsubstantiated claims, which are not backed by reliable data," Smith, the Texas Republican, said.........To Read More....

My Take - The IARC is another great idea that became infested with junk scientists and ideologues.  It's time to dump it.  Quoting Oliver Cromwell tdismissing the Rump Parliament:

"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.  

Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.  

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes?  

Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?  

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?   Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.  

Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.  

I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"

 You might say that about Congress.

Agitators, regulators and predators on the prowl

Corrupt anti-science, anti-industry agencies have gained disturbing power in recent years. This article recounts the incredible example of an EU agency that exerts major influence over the use of chemicals, especially in Europe, but also in the USA and world. As the article and linked sources demonstrate, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has engaged in unbelievably shoddy and even fraudulent science – and rampant collusion with anti-chemical activist groups – to pave the way for predatory lawyers to sue Monsanto and other companies for billions of dollars over phony cancer risks. The only thing that overshadows that behavior is the conniving of one of IARC’s principal scientists. It’s an unbelievable saga.
Thank you for posting the article, quoting from it, and forwarding it to your friends and colleagues.

Best regards, Paul

They’re going for a knockout and jackpot on a farm chemical, a corporation – and science

Paul Driessen

Legal and scientific ethics seem to have become irrelevant, as anti-chemical agitators, regulators and trial lawyers team up on numerous lawsuits against Monsanto. They’re seeking tens of billions of dollars in jackpot justice, by claiming a chemical in the company’s popular weed killer RoundUp causes cancer.

A key basis for the legal actions is a March 2015 International Agency for Research on Cancer ruling that glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen.” A previously little known agency in the World Health Organization (WHO), IARC has gained infamy in recent years – critics slammed it for manipulating data and altering or deleting scientific conclusions to advance extreme anti-chemical policy agendas.

Although it is funded by US and European taxpayers – and is at the forefront of controversial policy, legal and regulatory actions – IARC insists that its deliberations, emails, draft reports and all other materials are its private property. Therefore, the agency claims, they are exempt from FOIA requests and even US congressional inquiries. IARC stonewalls all inquiries and advises its staff to talk to no one.

Its 2015 ruling became the primary justification for California listing glyphosate as carcinogenic under Proposition 65, a European Parliament vote to ban the chemical, and a European Commission committee proposal to give it only a five-year extension for further use in the EU. These actions, in turn, have given trial lawyers the ammo they need for their lawsuits – and other legal actions they are already preparing.

Glyphosate is an herbicide. It kills weeds. Used in conjunction with genetically modified RoundUp-Ready crops, it enables farmers to practice no-till farming – wherein a couple of soil spray treatments eliminate the need to till cropland to control weeds. That preserves soil structure and organisms, moisture, organic matter and nutrients; improves drainage and soil biodiversity; reduces erosion; and permits the high-yield farming humanity must practice if we are to feed Earth’s growing populations without having to plow under millions more acres of wildlife habitat. It also reduces labor and tractor fuel consumption.

Banning it just in Britain would cost the UK $1.2 billion a year in reduced crop yields and farm incomes.

Moreover, as UK science writer Matt Ridley  points out, coffee is more carcinogenic than glyphosate. So are numerous other foods and beverages that we consume every day, adds cancer expert Bruce Ames.  Of all dietary pesticides that humans ingest, 99.99% are natural, Ames notes; they are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves against fungi, viruses, insects and other predators.

Indeed, every other regulatory agency and reputable scientific body, going back some 40 years, have universally found that this RoundUp chemical does not cause cancer! The European Food Safety Authority, European Chemicals Agency, German Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), US Environmental Protection Agency and even other WHO experts have all studied glyphosate carefully. They have all said it is safe, non-carcinogenic or “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans.”

And yet IARC villainizes glyphosate. In a way, that’s not surprising. Out of 900 chemicals the agency reviewed since it was formed, it found only one was not carcinogenic. Many other chemicals, and even GMO foods, may soon be branded the  same way, especially now that America’s tort industry senses more jackpots from “cooperating closely” with IARC and putting more agency advisors on its payroll.

The latest tactic is to claim the chemical is being detected in some foods and in people’s urine. We can detect parts per trillion! (1 ppt is two teaspoons in 660 million gallons.) But where does actual risk begin?

And how did IARC reach conclusions so completely different from nearly every other expert worldwide, whose studies confirmed glyphosate poses no cancer risk? That’s where this story gets really interesting.

IARC is linked inextricably to Linda Birnbaum’s National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, which gets millions in US taxpayer money. The NIEHS funds and works with Italy’s junk-science factory, the Ramazzini Institute, and is allied with radical elements in US and EU government agencies. One of the most prominent and recurrent names on the list is Dr. Christopher Portier.

According to investigative journalists David Zaruk (Risk-Monger) and Kate Kelland (Reuters), Portier worked for years with Birnbaum at the NIEHS. He has also been a principal US government liaison to IARC, was paid as its only “consulting expert” on the working group that demonized glyphosate as carcinogenic, and did so while also being paid by the US National Institutes for Health – and while simultaneously being paid by the rabidly anti-pesticide group Environmental Defense. Portier has also received over $160,000 as a consultant to law firms that are suing Monsanto and other companies!

Equally outrageous, Portier admitted that, before he was hired as an “expert” on IARC’s glyphosate panel, he “had not looked at” any of the scientific evidence and had no experience with the chemical. He signed his lucrative deal with the lawyers within a week of finishing his work on the panel – but later admitted that he had been working with them for two months: while he was consulting for IARC!

Portier, IARC and the predatory lawyers all worked diligently to keep these arrangements – and major conflicts of interest – a secret. As Ms. Kelland explained in another article, IARC was equally diligent in securing a “guilty verdict” on glyphosate – by ignoring or altering multiple studies and conclusions that exonerated the chemical. That scientific and prosecutorial misconduct was revealed when Kelland compared IARC’s draft and final report, and found numerous indefensible changes and deletions.

In multiple instances, she discovered, the IARC panel simply removed scientists’ conclusions that their studies had found no link between glyphosate and cancer in laboratory animals. In others, the panel inserted a brand new statistical analysis, “effectively reversing” a study’s original finding. Other times, it surreptitiously changed critical language after scientists had agreed to earlier language that made precisely the opposite point from what appeared in the final Monograph 112 report on glyphosate.

One animal pathology report relied on by the US EPA clearly and unequivocally stated that its authors “firmly” and “unanimously” agreed that glyphosate had not caused abnormal growths in mice they had studied. The published IARC monograph simply deleted the sentence.

Overall, Reuters found ten significant changes between the critical draft chapter on animal studies and IARC’s final published monograph. Every one of them either deleted key statements that the Monsanto chemical did not cause tumors, replaced them with assertions that it did cause tumors, or (six times) claimed IARC “was not able to evaluate” a study because of “limited experimental data” included in it.

In addition, IARC panelist Charles Jameson said another study was excluded because “the amount of data in the tables was overwhelming,” and possibly because it may have been submitted an hour late. Dr. Jameson also claimed he didn’t know when, why or by whom any of the changes had been made.

Zaruk’s meticulous and eye-opening analysis of IARC’s swampy, shoddy, deceptive practices, collusion with anti-chemical zealots, blatant conflicts of interest – and six reasons why agency director Christopher Wild should be fired – is must reading for anyone concerned about cancer research and scientific integrity. His discussion of “hazard” versus “risk” assessment is particularly enlightening and valuable.

Many would call this saga blatant corruption, manipulation and fraud. All funded by our tax dollars! It is uncomfortably similar to what we have seen over the years with IPCC and other work on climate change.

The lawyers hope that years of anti-chemical activism, carefully stoked public fears, doctored studies and silencing or marginalizing of contrary voices will bring them a huge jury jackpot – akin to what their brethren recently received in an absurd talcum-powder-causes-cancer case (which was also based on IARC pseudo-science), before the suspect evidence, verdict and award were tossed out on appeal.

It’s likely that the EU and WHO will do little or nothing about this cesspool. Thankfully, the US Congress, particularly Jason Chaffetz  (R-UT) and Lamar Smith  (R-TX), is digging into it. We can only hope that they and their committees will issue and, more importantly, enforce subpoenas. If Portier and other IARC staffers, panelists and hired guns refuse to comply, Chaffetz and Smith (and judges in the Monsanto cases) should arrest and jail them, until they open their mouths, books and deliberations.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)  and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy.

Bruce Ames on Cancer Causing Chemicals

Environmental health: Study linking chemicals and pollution to increased cancers misses mark

Geoffrey Kabat |May 16, 2017 | Genetic Literacy Project
                             

Last week a colleague sent me an article in the New York Daily News titled “Increased cancer rate in US linked to bad environment” and asked my opinion of it.

The opening sentence read, “Improving the worst environments in the US could prevent 39 in every 100,000 cancer deaths.” The Daily News item refers to an article published in the journal Cancer, which is published by the American Cancer Society, and to an accompanying  editorial......To Read More........