Carey Gilliam writes:

“Trying to keep up with the slew of new scientific papers published recently involving chemicals and chemical regulation is a challenge. But here is one you should not miss:

The study, published last week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, measured glyphosate levels in the urine of farmers and other study participants and determined that the presence of high levels of glyphosate were associated with signs of a reaction in the body called oxidative stress, a condition that causes damage to DNA. Oxidative stress is considered by health experts as a key characteristic of carcinogens.

The authors of the paper – 10 scientists with the National Institutes of Health and two from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – concluded that their study ‘contributes to the weight of evidence supporting an association between glyphosate exposure and oxidative stress in humans.’ They also noted that ‘accumulating evidence supports the role of oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of hematologic cancers,’ such as lymphoma, myeloma and leukemia.

‘Oxidative stress is not something you want to have,’ said Linda Birnbaum, a toxicologist and former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. ‘This study increases our understanding that glyphosate has the potential to cause cancer.’ “

Learn more: This science could spell trouble for Bayer