Glyphosate and the story of misguided fears about food

People are passionate about food. We love to eat it, talk about it and take pictures of it but at the end of the day there’s one basic question we all want to know the answer to: is the food we are eating safe?

Unfortunately, in some instances consumers are being misled to fear some of the foods they’re eating when there is no need for concern. Last year the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified a commonly used herbicide, glyphosate, as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’. This classification garnered a great deal of attention from media and certain activist groups, and has even led to regulatory action in some countries.

But a look beyond the fear-mongering headlines reveals that IARC’s hazard-based approach to reviewing chemicals runs contrary to the risk-based evaluation done by every credible regulatory body in the world. IARC, which is not a regulatory body itself, came to a conclusion that contradicts that of three other bodies within the World Health Organization (WHO) who all agree glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer.

The three biggest regulators in the world – the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – have all thoroughly studied glyphosate, including recent re-evaluations, and come to the same conclusion: glyphosate will not increase the risk of cancer when used as intended.

In response to IARC’s findings, the WHO formed an expert taskforce of the Joint Meeting on Pesticides Residues to look at why IARC came to a different conclusion than the other bodies within the WHO. It just recently concluded that the weight of scientific evidence clearly demonstrates that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a health risk to humans through dietary exposure.

While activists have tried to paint the story of glyphosate as a danger to consumers, the reality is this: glyphosate is one of the safest and most effective herbicides ever created. It has been used and studied for the last 40 years. It is a tool that helped revolutionize farming, allowing farmers to control weeds more effectively and grow more on existing land without having to turn new land into agricultural production.

Using fear and misinformation to alarm people about glyphosate does a serious disservice to Canadians who are unnecessarily calling into question the safety of the food they’re eating and being distracted from real issues.

For example, every year more than a million Canadians are affected by preventable food-borne illnesses. The bacteria, viruses and parasites that pose legitimate health concerns for consumers should be the focus of Canadians’ attention when it comes to the food they’re eating.

We’re fortunate here in Canada to have rigorous scientific decision-making processes for evaluating the food we eat and the tools used to produce it. It’s here where we get the real answers to whether or not our food is safe. And with one of the safest food supplies in the world, we as Canadian consumers have something to celebrate.

Ted Menzies,
President and CEO, CropLife Canada