Cynthia Curl, an associate professor in the School of Public and Population Health, was recently featured in a New York Times article titled, “Is This Common Herbicide Harming Your Health?” Curl speaks to the wide use of glyphosate — a chemical herbicide used to destroy weeds and unwanted vegetation in a broad variety of crops.
“There’s been this explosion of use, so there’s several areas where research needs to catch up,” Curl said in the article.
Glyphosate exposure generally occurs through directly using the herbicide, touching plants that have recently been sprayed or ingesting the chemical residue on food from the grocery store. With relatively few studies looking at glyphosate exposure, researchers and scientists like Curl are still trying to assess what level of glyphosate exposure can be problematic.
Curl’s latest research has focused heavily on exposure for both farmworkers and those that simply live near farms using this pesticide.
“There’s pretty compelling evidence that people are getting exposed just by living near these fields, and it’s only happening at the times of year when people are spraying glyphosate,” said Curl, whose research has found glyphosate exposure in pregnant women’s urine increased the closer they lived to sprayed fields.
While there are pressing concerns about the health risks to people living or working on or near farms, there are still a number of unanswered questions about what’s driving those risks, Curl said.
“We need more research to be sure before we start telling people what they can do,” she said.
Curl is also the director of Boise State’s Agricultural Health Lab. Visit their website to learn more about her research on glyphosate exposure and similar topics.