Monsanto Lobbyist Says Roundup Safe To Drink, Runs Away When Asked To

(RTTNews) - Dr. Patrick Moore, a lobbyist for Monsanto Company (MOS), during an interview claimed that the chemical used in the company's weed killer "Roundup" was safe for humans to drink. However, Moore refused to drink it when the interviewer offered some.

During an interview with French cable channel Canal+, Moore said "Do not believe that glyphosate in Argentina is causing increases in cancer. You can drink a whole quart of it and it won't hurt you."

However, when the reporter asked him whether he wanted to drink some of it, Moore first responded by saying "I will be happy to actually," but quickly backtracked by saying "but not really though."

When the interviewer tried to establish that Roundup was unsafe for humans by pointing his abstinence to drink it, Moore insisted that it was not dangerous as people who try to commit suicide by drinking Roundup "fail regularly." But when further urged to drink one glass of Roundup, he gave a curt no and said "I am not an idiot," and walked off the interview.

Last Friday, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, said it found that the herbicide glyphosate used in Monsanto's Roundup to be "probably carcinogenic to humans." IARC said there was limited evidence that glyphosate was carcinogenic in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Monsanto quickly refuted the claims of the study and said the data did not support the conclusions. Philip Miller, Vice President Global Regulatory Affairs, said "We don't know how IARC could reach a conclusion that is such a dramatic departure from the conclusion reached by all regulatory agencies around the globe."

"We have issued an urgent request for appropriate personnel of the WHO to sit down with the global glyphosate taskforces and other regulatory agencies to account for the scientific studies used in their analysis and, equally as important, to account for those scientific studies that were disregarded," he added.