Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on glyphosate: what the evidence says · JRE #1999

What the evidence says 01 / RECORD

The scientific record on glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is mixed, not settled as "caused by," as Kennedy asserts. In 2015, IARC classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans" (Group 2A), citing "limited" evidence in humans (based largely on elevated NHL rates among farmers and pesticide applicators), "sufficient" evidence in animals, and strong evidence of genotoxicity. The U.S. EPA reached the opposite conclusion, stating glyphosate "is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans" based on a larger set of animal studies than IARC reviewed, a position shared by regulators in Canada, Australia, the EU, Japan, and New Zealand. The largest prospective U.S. cohort, the NIH-funded Agricultural Health Study (Andreotti et al., 2018, following 54,251 pesticide applicators, 82.8% of whom used glyphosate), found "no association apparent between glyphosate and any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies overall, including NHL and its subtypes," though it flagged a non-significant trend toward acute myeloid leukemia in the highest-exposure group. Despite this regulatory and scientific split, U.S. juries have repeatedly sided with plaintiffs, and Bayer (which acquired Monsanto) agreed in 2020 to pay more than $10 billion to resolve roughly 125,000 Roundup claims alleging the herbicide caused cancer. Kennedy was the plaintiffs' attorney who won an early landmark Roundup verdict against Monsanto, giving him a direct financial and professional stake in promoting the causation claim.