Glyphosate is a widely used herbicide. In 2015, The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) changed the category of glyphosate’s carcinogenic potential from ‘possible carcinogen’ to ‘probable carcinogen’. Occupationally exposed workers in the agricultural industry may be at a higher risk of developing cancer due to glyphosate exposure, particularly if workers do not adhere closely to personal protection guidelines. The IARC based the glyphosate reclassification largely on experimental animal models, but additional human studies are needed to determine association and potential causation between glyphosate exposure and increased cancer risk. The challenges posed by human studies include the long follow-up and rarity of cancer in prospective studies and the difficulty of getting accurate exposure measures in retrospective case-control studies. The following literature review and R03 establishes rationale for the need for this research will examine the association between glyphosate exposure in orchard herbicide sprayers and DNA adducts post-exposure, a proxy for future cancer risk. The goal of this small-scale study is to test logistics and generate data that would inform methods for a larger study of glyphosate exposure and DNA adducts among orchard workers.
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