THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2016
VOL. 94 | NO. 13 | $4.25
OLD IS NEW AGAIN | P 19
SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923
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ACADEMIC’S VIEWPOINT
SASKATCHEWAN CAMPAIGN
Is glyphosate really dangerous?
Agriculture gets little mention in Sask. election
John Giesy is not a household name, but if you want to learn about glyphosate, he’s the go-to expert BY ROBERT ARNASON BRANDON BUREAU
SEE GLYPHOSATE, PAGE 4
NDP vows to improve grain transportation, crop insurance and water management BY KAREN BRIERE REGINA BUREAU
A raucous televised debate beween Saskatchewan Party leader Brad Wall and NDP leader Cam Broten last week touched on several key campaign issues but agriculture was not one of them. The two shouted over each other on topics ranging from the film tax credit, which the Sask. Party government cut after the 2011 election, to education to health care. Agriculture has been largely unmentioned by the two main parties during this campaign, although Wall has called it the backbone of the economy, particularly during the slump in oil prices. SEE AG GETS LITTLE MENTION, PAGE 5
u|xhHEEJBy00001pzYv":. MARCH 31, 2016 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Stn. Main, Saskatoon, SK. S7K 2C4
John Giesy uses an orbitrap ultra high resolution liquid chromatograph/mass spectrometer to identify and quantify organic chemicals in his lab at the school of biological sciences at the University of Saskatchewan March 24. The machine has a resolution between 1/100,000 and one million atomic mass units. | WILLIAM DEKAY PHOTO
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John Giesy doesn’t speak frequently with the media and most people have probably never heard of him, despite an ongoing controversy in a field for which he is best known. The World Health Organization recently reclassified glyphosate into a more hazardous substance category, which sparked consumer alarm and prompted governments worldwide to rethink their positions. Last week, the worldwide expert in toxicology agreed to speak on the record. “You might be able to show that (glyphosate causes cancer) in an in-vitro test…. But in an animal model, at a reasonable dose, would that occur? My reading of the literature is that it won’t.” Giesy is a professor and Canada research chair in environmental toxicology at the University of Saskatchewan. He is also a professor or honourary professor at six other universities, an Einstein Professor with the Chinese Academy of Science and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Globally, he is the most cited author in the combined fields of ecology and environmental sciences. Google Scholar, which rates academics according to citations, ranks Giesy in the top 0.001 percent of all scientists in the world. So if a government agency needs an expert on how chemical compounds affect humans or wildlife, Giesy is a good place to start. Just more than a year ago, the WHO changed the conversation about glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, and the most popular herbicide in the world. Members of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a WHO agency, announced that glyphosate “probably causes cancer.”