Sometimes facts beat hype. This week was one of those times. The EPA, after years of compiling and evaluating data, declared that it would not approve labels for the herbicide glyphosate that contained a cancer warning. This puts the U.S. agency in direct opposition to California's absurd Proposition 65, which would require a cancer warning label on the chemical -- even though it would be incorrect. The U.S. now joins a dozen other countries that have already determined glyphosate is safe as used.
glyphosate
The University of California-San Francisco has become a strange place. While the university certainly hosts faculty doing world-class research, simultaneously it has become the academic home for conspiracy theorists, including anti-vaxxers and anti-biotech activists.
It's been a good month for us at ACSH. Cox Media correctly defined us in a story about glyphosate in cereal. And a media fact-checking group decided that we deserved a 'High' rating for a "clean fact check record." And the month's not even half over.
Pop quiz: What do The New York Times, Jeffrey "the yogic flying instructor" Smith, and the National Resources Defense Council have in common? Answer: They all shamelessly lie about glyphosate to make money. (And you get extra credit if you answered "They are all bad sources of science information.")
Does glyphosate — the world’s most heavily-used herbicide — pose serious harm to humans? Is it carcinogenic? Those issues are of both legal and scientific debate. Learn the facts here.
Not that any of this matters to the people who get paid to lie about biotechnology. But to those activists, the scientific consensus on glyphosate is simply evidence of a gigantic Monsanto-led conspiracy. That would somehow involve the U.S. EPA, the European Food Safety Authority, the World Health Organization -- and now Brazil's national health agency, all of which agree that glyphosate doesn't cause cancer.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is one of the foremost pro-science organizations in the world. Not only does it advocate for good science and science policy, it publishes Science, the prestigious journal read globally by millions. Unfortunately, AAAS has gotten a bit weird in recent months.
Glyphosate, presently the world's most hated chemical, has been blamed for just about every ailment in humans and animals. Now a group in Hawaii is claiming that the herbicide is harming bees by altering their gut biome. Is there anything to it?
Jurors in California awarded $289 million to a man who claimed that his cancer was due to Monsanto’s herbicide glyphosate – even though that's biologically impossible. Even the judge acknowledged that there was no evidence of harm. Yet trial lawyers manipulated a jury’s emotions and the public’s misunderstanding of science to score another jackpot verdict.
This law firm shows no concern for the truth. It fits comfortably and profitably into our postmodern world, in which truth and lies are no longer distinguishable. Unscrupulous people can make a lot of money by exploiting the public's confusion over vaccines, chemicals and pharmaceutical products.
Normally a reliable source of information, Live Science published an article that is a dream for anti-pesticide and anti-chemical fearmongers.
Though widely touted, there's no such thing as "free speech" in academia. Instead, there are two sets of standards: One for a largely far-left-wing, postmodernist type who reject science and basic decency; and a second for everybody else.