Expert Review Under Attack: Glyphosate, Talc, and Cancer

Our plain-English summary of Expert Review Under Attack: Glyphosate, Talc, and Cancer, by J.M. Samet (American Journal of Public Health, 2019).

The study

• Author: J.M. Samet
• Journal: American Journal of Public Health
• Published: 2019;109(7):976-978
• Type of article: Comment
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

In plain English

This is an editorial, not a research study, and it reports no new data. The author wrote about large US lawsuits over whether talcum powder causes ovarian cancer and whether the herbicide glyphosate (sold as Roundup) causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The author noted verdicts as large as $4 billion in the talc and ovarian cancer litigation. Describing a commentary by Rosner et al. in the same journal issue, the editorial said manufacturers labeled talcum powder as having "nondetected" amounts of asbestos, which left open the possibility that asbestos fibers were present. The author noted that IARC Monograph 93 classified talc applied to the perineum as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" (Group 2B), and that Monograph 100C concluded asbestos causes cancer of the ovary. The editorial focused mainly on glyphosate. It described aggressive actions by Monsanto around IARC's 2015 classification, and publications that did not reveal ties to Monsanto. The author concluded that the widening attack on scientific review processes and reviewers needs to be called out. The author disclosed having participated in and chaired IARC Working Groups for more than three decades.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Editorial (opinion piece); no original research
• Who was studied: Not applicable; the editorial does not study a group of people
• Exposure: Discussed, not measured: talcum powder (including talc possibly contaminated with asbestos) in relation to ovarian cancer, and the herbicide glyphosate in relation to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
• Main results:
  • The author reported that US court verdicts have reached hundreds of millions of dollars, as much as $4 billion in the talc and ovarian cancer litigation
  • Describing a commentary by Rosner et al. in the same issue, the editorial said manufacturers labeled talcum powder as having "nondetected" asbestos, leaving the possibility that asbestos fibers were present
  • The author noted that IARC Monograph 93 classified talc applied to the perineum as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" (Group 2B), and that IARC Monograph 100C concluded asbestos causes cancer of the ovary
  • The author described aggressive actions by Monsanto around IARC's 2015 classification of glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans"
  • The author described publications that did not reveal potential conflicts of interest related to Monsanto, including ghost-written papers
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the widening of attacks to scientific review processes and the reviewers themselves needs to be called out
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author stated potential biases and conflicts of interest: more than three decades of participating in and chairing IARC Working Groups

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Talc and vermiculite.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Talc.

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