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 In a Tuesday letter seen by Reuters, U.S. Representative Trey Gowdy,
who chairs the House Committee on Government and Oversight Reform (OGR),
said he "is concerned about the new revelations" and is "seeking
more information" about why the exculpatory results were not
published by the NCI.
Glyphosate is a key ingredient in Monsanto's top-selling weedkiller
Roundup.
Gowdy's letter to NIH Director Francis Collins follows a June report
by Reuters which found that a senior scientist from the NCI knew
that fresh data from a large research project known as the
Agricultural Health Study (AHS) showed no links between glyphosate
and cancer.
Draft scientific papers dating from 2013 containing the data were
never published. Consequently, the information was not able to be
taken into account during the March 2015 review of the pesticide by
the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on
Cancer (IARC).
An NIH spokeswoman told Reuters the NIH had received Gowdy's letter
"and will be responding directly to the committee."
Aaron Blair, the senior scientist at the NCI who knew about the data
and also chaired the IARC review, previously told Reuters the data
was not published in time because there was too much to fit into one
scientific paper. Blair is now retired from the NCI.
An NCI spokeswoman told Reuters in June the institute was drafting a
manuscript on this topic. It would "explore the effects of
glyphosate exposure in greater depth", she said, and would be
submitted to a peer-reviewed journal "in the coming months."
Gowdy's letter asked for "a briefing on these issues as soon as
possible". It also asked for information and any documents relating
to the unpublished AHS data on glyphosate.
No one at IARC, which is based in Lyon, France, was immediately
available for comment late on Tuesday.
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IARC concluded in 2015 that glyphosate, is a "probable human
carcinogen." It based its finding on "limited evidence" of
carcinogenicity in humans and "sufficient evidence" in experimental
animals.
The agency's assessment is at odds with other international
regulators who have said the weedkiller is not a carcinogenic risk
to humans.
The OGR has been looking into U.S. taxpayer funding of IARC. It
began investigating IARC's operations in 2016 after several
lawmakers raised questions about why U.S. taxpayers were funding an
agency that often faces criticism for its work.
A letter by Jason Chaffetz, then chairman of the OGR, in September
2016, also addressed to the NIH director, described IARC as having
"a record of controversy, retractions, and inconsistencies" and
asked why the NIH continued to fund it.
In previous responses to questions about its assessments of
glyphosate and many other substances, IARC has defended them as
scientifically sound.
The agency says its "monographs" - the name it gives its
classifications of carcinogens - are "widely respected for their
scientific rigor, standardized and transparent process and ...
freedom from conflicts of interest".
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Nick
Tattersall)
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