WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2016 - When the Scientific Advisory
Panel begins four days of meetings next week to examine the carcinogenic
potential of glyphosate, Christopher Portier won’t be there.
But his brother Kenneth, whom EPA picked to serve as one of
the scientists reviewing the world’s most widely used herbicide, will be in
attendance.
And that has the crop-protection industry concerned.
Christopher Portier, former director of the U.S. National
Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, served as an “invited specialist” on the International Agency for
Research on Cancer panel that determined glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic
to humans.”
He has been a lightning rod for criticism since the IARC
assessment came out in March 2015 and sparked a worldwide pushback from
principal manufacturer Monsanto and the ag chemical industry in general to
prove that it is not.
The European Food Safety Authority released its own
analysis, which concluded glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic, after
which Portier led a group of 95 scientists who wrote a letter to EFSA
and published
a study disputing that characterization and taking issue with EFSA’s
methodology.
Christopher’s brother, Kenneth Portier, is also a scientist:
He’s vice president of the Statistics & Evaluation Center at the American
Cancer Society, and has served on more than 60 Scientific Advisory Panels for
EPA.
Despite those qualifications, his family ties have CropLife
America raising questions about the SAP.
“It's hard to know if it’s a fair panel,” said Janet
Collins, CLA’s senior vice president of science and regulatory affairs, when
asked about the SAP members last week. (Technically, the appointed scientists
are members of the Science Review Board. The SAP is a permanent body that
contributes a few of its members to panels that examine issues arising under
the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.)
When questioned specifically about Kenneth Portier, Collins
noted that Christopher Portier has been “leading the charge” in defending
IARC’s monograph and speculated that the brothers have “probably talked about”
this area of common interest.
“I’m not intending to call this particular gentleman out,”
she said, referring to Kenneth Portier. “I'm not in any way disparaging him or
his credentials.” But she added, “There appears to be a conflict of interest.”
“Somebody who wanted to could argue that he shouldn’t be on
the panel,” she said.
Agri-Pulse could not reach Kenneth Portier for
comment, but Christopher defended his brother’s credentials. In a phone
interview, he said that Kenneth is “perfectly well qualified” to be on the
glyphosate SAP.
“I don’t believe anybody in their right mind would say he’s
not perfectly qualified. If they’re trying to say he’s biased, good luck,
how are you going to prove it?”
“My brother chaired EPA’s SAP for seven years,” he
continued. “Nobody has ever questioned his integrity or his scientific acumen –
in fact, his statistical acumen. They’re welcome to question it now, but
they’re just going to get a lot of negative feedback on it because he’s done an
excellent job for EPA over the years.”
Portier also said that he and his brother don’t always see
eye to eye. “He doesn’t agree with everything I believe,” Christopher said.
Asked whether he had spoken with his brother about
glyphosate, Christopher Portier said, “In broad terms. I told him it’s a battle
between hazard and risk, and that he does understand.”
“It’s always an interesting tactic, I find, to change the
message,” Christopher said. “The message is not what I’m saying is wrong, the
message becomes, ‘But his brother’s on the panel.’ I’d prefer if they’d come
straight at me and come after my message.”
Portier also addressed the criticism that because he works
part time for the Environmental Defense Fund – and did at the time of the IARC
review – that his involvement with the IARC monograph is somehow tainted.
“I work for them two days a week, mostly on air pollution
and air pollution modeling, and on climate change and climate change modeling.”
The work, he said, has “nothing to do with pesticides.”
“Nobody has paid me a cent to do what I’m doing with
glyphosate,” he said. “I have no conflict of interest whatsoever.”
Christopher Portier has submitted comments
to EPA in advance of the SAP meeting, at which the scientists will consider the
studies and methods used by EPA to
conclude in a recent paper that glyphosate is not likely carcinogenic.
In his comments, Portier said EPA incorrectly downplayed the
significance of rat and mouse studies because of the size of the doses, even
though the doses did not exceed 5 percent of the animals’ body weight.
The data he examined, he said, “demonstrate an association
in humans to (non-Hodgkin lymphoma), evidence in rats for thyroid tumors, and
very strong evidence in mice for renal tumors, hemangiosarcomas and malignant
lymphomas. EPA’s exclusion of doses above 1,000 mg/kg/day is unscientific and their argument of a lack of
significance above this dose is unsupported.”
Also
commenting were some of the scientists who recently prepared a paper that
found glyphosate is not likely be carcinogenic. Intertek Scientific and
Regulatory Consultancy Services put together the panel for that paper on
commission from Monsanto.
That paper said that “even without data IARC did not
include, there is no support for IARC’s conclusion that glyphosate is ‘probably
carcinogenic to humans.’”
In their comments, five of the 15 scientists on the Intertek
panel praised EPA for “an excellent and thorough review of glyphosate.”
“We agree with the agency that it is important to give more
weight to studies evaluating endpoints that measured gene mutations and
chromosomal aberrations (i.e. permanent DNA damage) than to endpoints reflecting
DNA events that may be transient or reversible such as primary DNA damage
(e.g., comet assays),” they said.
The SAP meeting will be held Oct. 18-21 in Arlington,
Virginia. The online docket for the meeting is here.
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