The Nation — October 30, 2017

36 The Nation. October 30, 2017

THE

FUTURE

OF

FOOD

McCall remembers her reaction when a doctor said the rash on Jack’s

neck was cancer: “I just laughed and thought, ‘How could that be true?’”

Jack was 65 at the time, working on the farm full-time and surfing on the

weekends. The doctor diagnosed the condition as primary cutaneous B-cell

lymphoma, usually benign and confined to the skin. But the rash persisted.

Four years later, Jack felt swelling in his lymph nodes. That time, the diag-

nosis was grim: non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, Jack grew thin and weak. On

Christmas Eve, Teri found Jack with his eyes rolled back and his mouth

twisted up; he’d had a stroke. Teri and the children spent the night by Jack’s

bedside in the hospital, and the next morning—six months after the diagno-

sis—she decided to have him taken off life support. “It was the worst mo-

ment of my life,” Teri said.

Jack preferred not to use chemicals, but he believed Roundup was safe

and used it regularly for more than 30 years. According to Teri, it was the

pected and known carcinogens since the 1970s, classifies

materials into categories, from carcinogenic to humans

(Group 1) to “probably not carcinogenic” (Group 4).

The agency’s evaluation of glyphosate was conducted

by a group of 17 experts from 11 countries and led by

Aaron Blair, an epidemiologist with the National Cancer

Institute. In the months prior to and then during a week-

long meeting in Lyon, France, the committee pored over

the publicly available scientific literature—hundreds of

pages of published journal articles and reports.

The IARC concluded that glyphosate should be cat-

egorized in Group 2A, meaning “probably carcinogenic

to humans,” alongside DDT, the insecticide malathion,

and strains of human papillomavirus. The IARC experts

considered studies of disease patterns in human popula-

tions and experiments on human tissues and cells as well

as on lab animals. They reported convincing evidence

that glyphosate causes cancer in animal models. They

also concluded that studies clearly show DNA and chro-

mosomal damage in human cells—damage that can lead

to the emergence of cancer.

They did not, however, go so far as to report that

the chemical definitely causes cancer in humans. “There

wasn’t enough evidence to say that we know this stuff

causes cancer as we say with smoking, alcohol, and ben-

zene—for those, there’s no quibbling,” Blair explained.

“ ‘Probable’ means there’s quite a lot of evidence that it

does cause cancer, but there’s still some doubt.”

Monsanto immediately released a statement de-

nouncing the IARC verdict: “Regulatory agencies have

reviewed all the key studies examined by IARC—and

many more—and arrived at the overwhelming consen-

sus that glyphosate poses no unreasonable risks to hu-

mans or the environment when used according to label

instructions.”

But the company couldn’t contain the firestorm ig-

nited by the IARC ruling, which had immediate regula-

tory and legal implications. Within months, nearly 600

scientists in 72 countries signed a manifesto calling for

a ban on the spraying of glyphosate- based herbicides.

(Even before the release of the IARC report, some coun-

tries—El Salvador, Colombia, Brazil, Bermuda, Ger-

many, France, the Netherlands, and Sri Lanka—had al-

ready instituted a ban or were considering some form of

one.) California uses IARC classifications as the basis for

registering chemicals under Proposition 65, which man-

dates the labeling of all chemicals known to cause cancer,

birth defects, or other reproductive harm; Roundup sold

in the state must soon be labeled. Then there are the

lawsuits: By the fall of 2015, Monsanto faced the first

of what would become a cascade of suits connecting

Roundup to cancer.

M

onsanto had long been preparing

to challenge the IARC report, according

to a six-page confidential strategy docu-

ment unearthed in the federal suit. In

its defense of glyphosate, the company

claims that the IARC overlooked important research

and selectively interpreted data to arrive at its “probable

carcinogen” classification. Monsanto also frequently COURTESY OF TERI MCCLAIN

Since 1970,

Americans

have

sprayed

1.8 million

tons of

glyphosate

on crops,

lawns, and

gardens.

only herbicide he ever used. As the

family sat around Jack’s bed on his last

days, his son read on the Internet about

potential links between Roundup and

non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After Jack’s

death, Teri could barely get out of bed,

but eventually she began reading the re-

ports herself. She now believes Round-

up was responsible for his death—and

maybe their dog’s, too. Duke, a black

Lab, spent every minute with Jack until

the day he died of lymphoma in 2009.

In early 2016, McCall joined other

farmers, gardeners, migrant workers, and landscapers,

represented by multiple law firms, to sue Monsanto in

federal court. One plaintiff, John Barton, 68, has lived and

worked on California farms for most of his life. “We’ve

used Roundup since it came out for weed control on our

reservoirs and the ditches of cotton fields,” he said. Bar-

ton’s cancer has spread to both sides of his body; he’s re-

tired from farming and no longer uses Roundup. But he’s

continually exposed to the chemical because he lives in the

heart of the San Joaquin Valley, one of the most produc-

tive agricultural regions in the world. “Right across the

road from me is GMO alfalfa; the dairies do GMO corn,”

he said, speaking of the fields planted with crops that have

been modified to resist repeated dousing with Roundup.

McCall and Barton’s case hinges on a determination

made by the World Health Organization’s International

Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in March 2015.

The IARC, which has been developing reports on ex-

Jack McCall died
from non-Hodgkin’s
lymphoma in 2015.

Teri and Jack McCall.