Cancer agency left in the dark over glyphosate evidence - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE]Does a common herbicide cause cancer? Over the past several years, that question has stirred up no shortage of controversy, with international health agencies offering conflicting information. The weedkiller, a chemical called glyphosate, is commonly sold by the agribiz giant Monsanto under the brand name RoundUp. Introduced in 1996, it’s now the world’s most widely used pesticide, with some 250 million pounds sprayed on US crops annually. RoundUp has long been considered a benign alternative to harsher weedkillers. After extensive reviews, most regulatory agencies—the US Environmental Protection Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, and those of many other nations—have come to the conclusion that it does not cause cancer. So when the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the UN’s World Health Organization, declared RoundUp a probable carcinogen in 2015, there was an international outcry. Shortly after, 184 plaintiffs in California filed a legal case against Monsanto, saying that the company failed to warn them about the risks of its product. Since then, in a separate suit, hundreds more plaintiffs have claimed that RoundUp caused their cancers, citing the IARC’s findings as evidence. About that evidence: According to a new Reuters investigation, Aaron Blair, the scientist who led the IARC’s review panel on glyphosate, had access to data from a large study that strongly suggested that Roundup did not cause cancer after all—but he withheld that data from the RoundUp review panel. Weirder still: Blair himself was a senior researcher on that study. From the Reuters report:[/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/06/monsanto-roundup-glyphosate-cancer-who/"]http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/06/monsanto-roundup-glyphosate-cancer-who/[/URL] [url]http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/special-report-cancer-agency-left-in-the-dark-over-glyphosate/article_9484f1c6-b1f3-59df-877f-2b97cfbe3046.html[/url]

After reading the article, it seems that this might not be quite a career ending event for the leading scientist (you really do not want to skew, lie about, or misconstrue findings, that's a big no no and I expect his reputation to diminish as a result), it does place the IARC's judgement into question. It seems that they knew about the other study, but because it wasn't published in a journal yet, they didn't take it into account (one of the IARC's rules, but others consider that rule silly), even if they knew the results. Prior to making a big statement that could have huge implications, it would be prudent to gather the results of all of the commissioned studies on the matter, or at least the new ones (like the study in question) to ensure your statement is correct (to the best of your knowledge). This more or less reeks of trying to cherry pick data to fit an assumption.

Uhh [img]https://mediabiasfactcheck.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/left7.png[/img] I knew something was wrong when I read "Mother Jones." They have made intentionally misleading articles before, and while their factual rating is "high," MFB does mention this intentional and almost malicious bias. [editline]16th June 2017[/editline] Some of the things in the article reallly show this. The thing they're reporting on is true, but please pick a different source than MJ.

[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;52368147]Uhh [img]https://mediabiasfactcheck.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/left7.png[/img] I knew something was wrong when I read "Mother Jones." They have made intentionally misleading articles before, and while their factual rating is "high," MFB does mention this intentional and almost malicious bias. [editline]16th June 2017[/editline] Some of the things in the article reallly show this. The thing they're reporting on is true, but please pick a different source than MJ.[/QUOTE] Can you cite the bias and skew in the article? Because from what I've read, it doesn't have a bias in either direction. It just states that the IARC has dumb rules and it implicated Monsanto directly because of it's dumb rules.

I would like to but selecting text on an iPhone is like pulling teeth or flat out impossible. It was hard enough posting that image and manually typing the img tags. If someone else could that would be appreciated.

[url]http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/special-report-cancer-agency-left-in-the-dark-over-glyphosate/article_9484f1c6-b1f3-59df-877f-2b97cfbe3046.html[/url] heres another source that has more details and has a less than "center left" rating with high factual reporting [url]https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/st-louis-post-dispatch/[/url]

This seems like a weird article to be coming from Mother Jones, doesn't it? Left-leaning media usually tends to harp on anti-capitalist stories, seeing something like this supporting RoundUp seems a little sketchy. Wonder if they're getting any kickbacks here?

I'm confused about the automatic distrust of Mother Jones, especially in regards to, as El Periodista said, the article being a bit outside their political wheelhouse. It's important to note MBFC's assessment of the company (particularly the last lines), not just its political alignment. [QUOTE]We cannot find any evidence of Mother Jones making false claims and when in error they correct appropriately. This is a factual source that is always well sourced.[/QUOTE] [URL="https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/mother-jones/"]https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/mother-jones/[/URL] Additionally, accusing Mother Jones (once again, a company with heavy-left bias) of taking kickbacks from Monsanto is a bit silly, especially when they're getting their information from Reuters. This article had very little analysis and served more to provide information they deemed important to their particular audience than anything else. If anything, this article suggests that the Editors at Mother Jones take their jobs seriously, trying to present a noteworthy happenstance as accurately as possible. Are they always this good? Fuck no, but they did alright in this particular instance. Should they be used as a regular source? Probably not, but their information is reliable in this instance and (from personal experience at least) their leftwards bias is much less pervasive than a site like Jacobin or the Daily Beast.