Rammazini Institute and International Agency for Research on Cancer criticized for conflict of interest on glysophate research.
Parties in toxic tort litigation are no doubt familiar with the plaintiffs' bar using the "alphabet soup" of various administrative, quasi-governmental, and research agencies' positions on the toxicity and/or carcinogenicity of substances in order to advance their general and specific causation arguments at trial. This tactic has been highly effective for the plaintiffs' bar over the years given jurors' natural inclination to defer to such authority sources as above reproach and without conflicts of interest. Recently, the Collegium Ramazzini and IARC have received criticism on this front by way of a letter published in the journal Medicina Del Lavoro by five members of the University of Turin's School of Occupational Medicine. The letter reveals that a member of the Ramazzini Institute who worked on the IARC monograph concerning glysophate (the chemical at issue in the many Roundup/cancer cases filed across the country, some of which have resulted in eight-figure plaintiffs' verdicts) did so while receiving compensation from a private law firm for work on glysophate litigation, which was a violation of the monograph program's rules. IARC's monograph on glysophate classified it as "probably carcinogenic" to humans. The US EPA has since issued a decision stating that glysophate is not carcinogenic to humans. A copy of the letter can be found below.
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