Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) was held at WHO Headquarters, Geneva (Switzerland), from 9 to 13 May 2016. In response to the assessment of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that diazinon, glyphosate and malathion were classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans”, the JMPR meeting re-evaluate these compounds given the number of new studies that had become available since their last full assessments in 2011.

The meeting mainly evaluated data for acceptable daily intake (ADI) and acute reference dose (ARfD) for humans. Though, there are several epidemiological studies on cancer outcomes following occupational exposure to diazinon, glyphosate and malathion. But when it comes to the occurrence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), there was no convincing evidence of a positive association between the NHL and exposure to above three pesticides. An important aspect of the evaluation was whether the genotoxic effect would be likely to occur in humans exposed to low levels of the pesticide present as residues in food. Finally, following an evaluation and weighting of the studies, taking the criteria described above and the quality of the studies into account, the meeting concluded that diazinon, glyphosate and malathion are unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure via the diet.