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Clutching at Straws? — Myths and Misinformation about Glyphosate and Celiac Disease

There have been a couple of recent Listserv posts claiming that the herbicide Glyphosate causes CD, quoting a blog on home economist website http://www.donotlink.com/chdf. The claims in this blog are preposterous!

For a science-based debunking of this topic, check out: http://ultimateglutenfree.com/2014/02/does-glyphosate-cause-celiac-disease-actually-no/

I don’t mean to sound harsh, but if you are truly interested in understanding a complex area of science, consulting a home economist may not be the best place to start! It would take a lot of space to debunk all claims made by Sarah X (no, she doesn’t give her name). However, a simple red flag is her widespread use of non-science websites for her links. The Internet is a minefield of misinformation, especially in the health and nutrition areas, and sadly there many people out there trying to scare you. (Fear sells).

Sarah shows a dramatic chart, claiming that there is a strong correlation between CD and glyphosate use. However, when I researched this, I found some big surprises. The problem is that the data plotted are for a completely DIFFERENT MEDICAL CONDITION, not celiac disease!  Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of medical coding would have caught this. Actually, the prevalence of celiac disease in the U.S. had already peaked much earlier than suggested by this chart. In any case, since CD takes years to develop, whatever triggered the increased prevalence must have happened many years ago. I also searched the USDA crop database, and a number of the data points claimed for glyphosate use don’t appear to exist. (Requests for clarification from the original authors have not been responded to).

Sarah also claims that glyphosate “harms the body by decimating beneficial microbes”. This is a complete fabrication! I don’t know where Sarah gets her ideas, but it’s definitely not from the scientific literature.

I think that the underlying problem here is that many people on the Internet simply repeat inflammatory ideas that they have come across elsewhere on the Internet, or even embellish them. But they don’t do the required homework to see if they are actually true. The danger is that if these ideas get repeated often enough, it’s very hard for the general public to know what’s true. (Vladimir Lenin is reputed to have said, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth”).

I share the frustration of many people in the celiac community—that we still don’t know why some people cannot tolerate gluten, or why the prevalence of celiac disease has increased in recent years. What’s important, though, is to avoid clutching at straws, especially straws offered by people with little knowledge of the current science, or with questionable motives.



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