Public health and evidence-informed policy-making: The case of a commonly used herbicide

摘要

For almost half a century, the International Agency forResearch on Cancer (IARC) has run a Monographsprogramme, which has been the premier global resourcefor the identification of agents that cause cancer ( 2 ).The Monographs apply rigorous procedures for thescientific review and evaluation of carcinogenic hazardsby independent experts, free from conflict of interest.Since publishing Monograph conclusions on some pes-ticides ( 3 ), the IARC has been subject to intense effortsto undermine its evaluation and the whole organiza-tion. The conclusion in March 2015 that glyphosate is"probably carcinogenic to humans" in addition to beinggenotoxic and carcinogenic in animals led to unprec-edented lobbying by the herbicide producer Monsanto,and resulted in high profile court cases in the USA ( 4 ).