Is Glyphosate Really Hazardous for Human Health?

Abstract

Glyphosate [N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine] is one the world's most widely used agricultural herbicide. It allows farmers to spray a planted field, generally before the crops have sprouted, killing weeds but not the crops that will grow there. GMO critics claim glyphosate is linked to autism, cancer, gluten allergies, 'leaky gut' syndrome and other disorders. Concerns about glyphosate's possible health impacts increased in 2015 after the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a research arm of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic". The ecological risk assessment indicates that there is potential for effects on birds, mammals, and terrestrial and aquatic animals. A joint panel from the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations issued an summary evaluation of glyphosate in May 2016, concluding it poses no cancer risks as encountered in food and does not impact our genes. Although the European Food Safety Authority declared the evidence on glyphosate's carcinogenicity for humans to be "very limited", there is still some doubt as to whether all the studies have been made "lege artis" or whether they have not even been falsified.