Panel to review WHO finding on lethal weed killer causing cancer

Monsanto Co, whose Roundup product is one of the world’s most widely used herbicides, said last week it has arranged for an outside scientific review of a World Health Organisation finding that the weed killer’s key ingredient probably causes cancer.

The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said in March that it had concluded that the ingredient, glyphosate, was probably carcinogenic after reviewing a range of scientific literature. Monsanto reacted to the finding by demanding a retraction, labeling the findings by a team of international cancer scientists as “junk science.”