Cancer Risks Of Eating GMO Corn With Glyphosate Vs. Smoking Cigarettes, According To Science
This question originally appeared on Quora. Answer by Matan Shelomi.
First of all, let’s be clear: cigarette smoking is one of the worst things you can legally be doing to your body. Cancer, emphesema, and a whole suite of lung, heart, blood, brain, mouth, and throat diseases are linked to it, plus teratogenic effects. The evidence for this is immense. Please don’t take up smoking, and do try to quit for you and your family’s sake.
As for glyphosate, you can find it on non-GMO foods as well, but since the edible part of corn is not exposed and may not even be developed during the time this weedkiller is sprayed, there may not be any of it on the corn at all. That low dose does not compare to inhaling a cigarette-worth of smoke directly into the lungs, even if glyphosate was just as dangerous. Plus most such corn is used for corn syrup, not corn-on-the-cob, so the potential dose is even lower. Corn syrup is not exactly healthy, but that has nothing to do with the glyphosate.
Then there’s the fact that pure glyphosate is listed by the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) as being as carcinogenic as grapefruit juice, yerba mate tea, or sitting by an open fire, at most. Official tests on Glyphosate by the US Environmental Protection Agency and others found it to be uncarcinogenic in any animal at all, with low oral toxicity even at high doses, in part because your body can’t digest it well and mostly poops it all out. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health organisation have all declared glyphosate to be uncarcinogenic, both as the pesticide and on food.
The only real risk for glyphosate is getting it in your eyes (it hurts), and the surfactants mixed with it in the pesticide formulation, but this again applies to drinking the stuff straight out of the bottle, not on food. The compounds in cigarettes are ranked as much more carcinogenic. Forget the corn: smoking one cigarette is more carcinogenic and toxic than drinking a spoonful of glyphosate-containing pesticide! (Though you really shouldn't do either). Finally, there are zero human cases of any disease or condition or symptom linked to GMO consumption per se, while the biostatistics on smoking alone being dangerous is quite clear.
Ignore the “organic” or “GMO-free” label, it’s just a marketing ploy. Do not ignore those warning labels on cigarettes: they are not kidding.
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