[Editor’s note: Robin Mesnage was a coauthor of the retracted study led by anti-GMO activist scientist Gilles-Eric Séralini (GLP profile here) that claimed GMOs and glyphosate cause tumors in rats. Michael Antoniou defended the retracted paper, calling glyphosate and GMOs “toxic products,” and has claimed that glyphosate can cause “organ damage” at very low doses.]
The safety profile of the herbicide glyphosate and its commercial formulations is controversial.
Reviews have been published by individuals who are consultants and employees of companies commercializing glyphosate-based herbicides in support of glyphosate’s reapproval by regulatory agencies. These authors conclude that glyphosate is safe at levels below regulatory permissible limits.
In contrast, reviews conducted by academic scientists independent of industry report toxic effects below regulatory limits, as well as shortcomings of the current regulatory evaluation of risks associated with glyphosate exposures.
Two authors in particular [Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff] have published a series of commentaries proposing that long-term exposure to glyphosate is responsible for many chronic diseases (including cancers, diabetes, neuropathies, obesity, asthma, infections, osteoporosis, infertility and birth defects).
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We found that these authors inappropriately employ a deductive reasoning approach based on syllogism. We found that their conclusions are not supported by the available scientific evidence. Thus the mechanisms and vast range of conditions proposed to result from glyphosate toxicity presented by Samsel and Seneff in their commentaries are at best unsubstantiated theories, speculations or simply incorrect.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Facts and fallacies in the debate on glyphosate toxicity
