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Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Irradiated cannabis might still harbour toxic fungi and residues, McGill study finds

Researchers raise concerns about possible health risks for vulnerable users, point to a need for better methods and safeguards

McGill University

Gamma irradiation, an industry-standard sterilization method for medicinal and recreational cannabis, does not fully eliminate toxic fungi or their chemical residues, a McGill University study has found. Current testing practices may also miss contamination, raising concerns about health risks for vulnerable users, particularly those with weakened immune systems.

The researchers said this is especially significant given that 70 per cent of cannabis is consumed by smoking or vaping, which may deliver toxins directly into the lungs and exacerbate smoking-related injury to lung tissues.

These findings point to a need for stricter testing and better safeguards, they said.

Major health hazards

Gamma irradiation works by damaging the DNA and RNA of microbes and degrading mycotoxins – harmful compounds produced by certain fungi. While this process significantly reduces microbial loads, researchers found viable spores of mycotoxigenic fungi, DNA fragments and traces of toxins remained after irradiation.

These remnants pose major health hazards, with heightened risk for such populations as cancer patients, transplant recipients and individuals with HIV/AIDS. However, the study also cites multiple case reports of fungal lung infections and other opportunistic infections in healthy people exposed to contaminated cannabis products.

Combined methods can improve testing

Researchers analyzed dried cannabis buds from a licensed producer and ready-to-use products from a licensed producer that were legally on the market. They used three complementary approaches:

Culture-based methods to grow and identify living fungi and bacteria.

Molecular tests (PCR and qPCR) to detect fungal DNA and toxin-producing genes.

Antibody-based ELISA assays to measure mycotoxins such as aflatoxins and ochratoxins.

The team found that ELISA, the current industry standard, is not sensitive enough on its own to detect trace amounts of mycotoxins left after irradiation, nor is mass spectrometry when used in isolation. Adding molecular and culture-based methods allows testers to track smaller fragments that ELISA or mass spectrometry alone might miss.

“A single spore can cause disease, so we had to go beyond the ELISA limit to see. To the general population, this may not have much significance, but immunocompromised people will be at much higher risk,” said Saji George, study co-author and Professor at the Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry.

Industry collaboration and next steps

The researchers stressed that once contamination occurs, it is extremely difficult to remove, so prevention is key. They are working with industry partners on such solutions as beneficial bacteria that prevent harmful fungi from establishing on the crop.

“Cannabis buds have sticky resins, so they are really susceptible to contamination. These fungi are everywhere, so we need to be more careful at every stage, from growing and harvesting to processing and storage,” said Mamta Rani, study co-author and Research Associate at the Laboratory for Sustainable Agricultural Food and Environmental Applications of Nanotechnology (SAFE-Nano lab) at McGill.

“It is possible to produce clean cannabis. Some companies we work with have achieved this through strict hygiene practices and controlled environments,” she said.

Added George: “We are not trying to tarnish the industry, but to help make it more sustainable and provide guidelines for safer products. We need stricter safety standards, especially for medicinal cannabis.”

About this study

“Detection of Mycotoxigenic Fungi and Residual Mycotoxins in Cannabis Buds Following Gamma Irradiation,” by Mamta Rani, Mohammad Jamil Kaddoura, Jamil Samsatly, Guy Chamberland, Suha Jabaj and Saji George, was published in Toxins.

The research was funded by Tetra Biopharma Inc. (G253375).

Journal

Toxins

DOI

10.3390/toxins17110528

Method of Research

Experimental study

Article Title

Detection of Mycotoxigenic Fungi and Residual Mycotoxins in Cannabis Buds Following Gamma Irradiation

Article Publication Date

19-Jan-2026

COI Statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Jamil Samsatly (Vice President, Biopesticides) and Guy Chamberland (Chief Scientist, Registration and Licensing) are employed by BioSun Solutions Inc. Guy Chamberland, during his tenure at Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc., contributed to the conceptualization of the study objectives and provided research funding. Jamil Samsatly assisted in obtaining the positive control fungal samples, assisted in manuscript writing and provided software support for data analysis.

Monday, December 22, 2025

INDIA

No Debate on Air Pollution in Parliament This Session, Minister Makes Untrue Claim on AQI and Disease Link

Aathira Perinchery
20/Dec/2025

THE WIRE

Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju blamed members of the opposition for ‘stalling’ the debate on air pollution.

Union Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh, centre, interacts with Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda, back right, and others during the Winter session of Parliament, in New Delhi, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. Photo: PTI.

Bengaluru: Delhi has been witnessing very high levels of air pollution for consecutive days now but the parliament did not discuss the issue for the entirety of the Winter Session, from December 1 to 19.

Meanwhile, the union government has claimed in parliament that there is no proof for any direct link between air pollution and ill health – this time, lung diseases.

In a written reply on Thursday, December 18, the minister of state of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Kirti Vardhan Singh said that there is “no conclusive data” to establish a “direct correlation between higher AQI levels and lung diseases”.

No debate in parliament

The Air Quality Index (AQI, a measure of air pollution that takes into account major pollutants in the atmosphere such as fine particulate matter) in Delhi at 4 pm on December 19 was 374, according to the daily bulletin by the Central Pollution Control Board.

This marks the ninth consecutive day that air quality in the national capital has been in the “Very Poor” or “Severe” category this month. The AQI in the city on December 18 according to the CPCB was 373. This is the worst air quality that Delhi has witnessed in December since 2018, Hindustan Times had reported.

The parliament was supposed to discuss the issue of air pollution in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. However, this did not happen and was pushed to the next day. It was not discussed on this day — the final day of the Parliament’s Winter Session, December 19 — either.

Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju blamed members of the opposition for ‘stalling’ the debate on air pollution, claiming that the Union government had been ready to discuss it.

“…[T]he opposition’s behaviour during the debate in Lok Sabha on Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill was unacceptable. Some of the opposition members even stood atop the desks of the table office and (Lok Sabha) Secretary General. Some Congress members also conveyed that there was no need for a debate on pollution. That is why the issue could not be taken up for discussion,” PTI quoted him as saying on Friday, December 19.

No ‘conclusive data’

A day before, on December 18, junior environment minister Kirti Vardhan Singh had said that said that there is “no conclusive data” to establish a “direct correlation between higher AQI levels and lung diseases”.
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Singh was responding to questions posed by Laxmikant Bajpayee, a Member of Parliament from the same party that Singh belongs to — the Bharatiya Janata Party. Bajpayee, an Ayurveda physician by training, had asked if the government “is aware that studies and medical tests have confirmed that due to prolonged hazardous AQI levels in Delhi/NCR, masses are developing lung fibrosis, an irreversible reduction in lung capacity”.

He also asked whether the lung elasticity (the ability of lungs to expand while breathing) of citizens in the Delhi-NCR has drastically reduced to almost 50% as compared to lung elasticity of citizens living in cities having good AQI levels, and if the government proposes any solution to save the millions of the city’s residents from deadly diseases like pulmonary fibrosis, COPD, reduced lung function and continuously declining lung elasticity due to air pollution.

Singh replied that while air pollution is one of the “triggering factors” for respiratory ailments and associated diseases, there is “no conclusive data which establishes a direct correlation between higher AQI levels and lung diseases”.

Singh is wrong.

Numerous scientific studies show a clear link between air pollution and lung diseases. And higher AQI levels reflect higher levels of pollution — a concept that the union environment ministry too relies on to issue advisories when pollution levels worsen. On December 13, for instance, an order of the Commission for Air Quality Management had advised children, the elderly and people with respiratory, cardiovascular, cerebrovascular or other chronic diseases to avoid outdoor activities and stay indoors “as much as possible”, and to wear masks if required to move outdoors — because Delhi’s AQI had reached 448 that evening, and was in the “Severe” category.

Why Singh is wrong

A 2025 study published in the journal Environmental Pollution analysed air quality data from two monitoring stations in Tamil Nadu across four years and screened 3,549 patients for respiratory illnesses. The researchers (from institutes including the National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis under the Indian Council of Medical Research — the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research) found a “strong correlation between pollution levels and respiratory diseases”.

Another study published in Scientific Reports in 2023 found a “significant positive correlation” between high AQI levels in India and a higher rate of lung cancer (though it also found that factors such as smoking habits and occupational exposures may “obscure” this relationship).

A study published this year analysed the relationship between respiratory diseases and air pollution across 27 countries including India over a four-year period (2018–2021). It found that overall, higher pollutant levels correlated with an increased number of COPD cases.

“This aligns with known biological mechanisms where these pollutants exacerbate airway inflammation and chronic respiratory damage,” the study noted.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD is a lung disease that causes restricted airflow and breathing problems. According to the World Health Organisation, smoking and air pollution are the most common causes of COPD, which is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. It is incurable.

Indian researchers are even trying to develop methods to predict lung disease severity based on the AQI. A study by Indian scientists that was presented at last year’s Asian Conference on Intelligent Technologies developed a way to predict air quality using image data and then assess lung disease severity based on AQI. Their models had very high testing accuracies (around 87% for AQI and 97% for lung disease severity), the preprint of their study shows.

‘CAQM is working on this’

Singh in his response in Parliament on Thursday also said that the government has established the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) under the Commission for Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Areas Act, 2021 “for better coordination, research, identification and resolution of problems of air pollution” in the Delhi- NCR and adjoining areas.

He added that the CAQM has been provided powers under the Act to take measures and issue directions to various agencies in the NCR and has been addressing the issue of air pollution in a “collective, collaborative and participative” way, involving all major stakeholders, Singh said.

Currently, the CAQM has imposed Stage 4 of the Graded Action Response Plan, which are a series of progressively restrictive measures that the Delhi-NCR region has to implement with worsening AQI levels to curb dust, fumes and other sources of air pollution.

Under Stage 4, measures include barring the entry of non-BS VI vehicles into Delhi, halting construction activity, and no fuel for vehicles without a PUC certificate.

However, allegations of rampant, ongoing construction have surfaced during this time. On December 16, AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj had posted a video on social media to show that construction is still progressing unrestrained even within Delhi limits.

GRAP 4 is bullshit !!

Under the patronage of BJP’s high profile Minister, right under GRAP 4, construction going on throughout the night at Delhi

Totally illegal construction in 2.5 acre farmhouse !!

H-14 Pushpanjali farms, Delhi

Guess the name of the Minister ?@MCD_Delhi pic.twitter.com/s6IIqq3ws1

— Saurabh Bharadwaj (@Saurabh_MLAgk) December 16, 2025

Government Says it Has No Data to Link Deaths, Diseases With Air Pollution

The Wire Staff
10/Dec/2025

In its answer to a question by Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien, junior health minister Prataprao Jadhav admitted that “air pollution is one of the triggering factors for respiratory ailments and associated diseases”.

A woman crosses a road while covering her face to shield herself from pollution as air quality continues to worsen across northern India, in Gurugram, Haryana, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. Photo: PTI.

New Delhi: The Union government has said in parliament that there is “no conclusive national data to establish a direct correlation between deaths or diseases occurring exclusively due to air pollution” at a time when the pollution in several Indian cities and most visibly, the national capital, has been a major source of concern and ill health.

The level of pollutants in Delhi’s air has sparked protests from residents, and their heavy-handed quelling by law enforcement.

In its answer to a question by Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien, junior health minister Prataprao Jadhav said that “air pollution is one of the triggering factors for respiratory ailments and associated diseases”.

O’Brien had asked:

Will the Minister of Health and Family Welfare be pleased to state:-

(a) whether it is a fact that over 1.7 million deaths in 2022 were attributable to PM2.5 in the country;
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(b) whether it is also a fact that outdoor air pollution caused losses of about 9.5 per cent of GDP;

(c) Government’s official estimate of deaths from air pollution in the last five years State/UT-wise;

(d) whether Government has assessed the economic loss due to air pollution, if so, the details thereof; and

(e) whether any plan has been formulated to reduce PM2.5 exposure with time-bound targets, if so, the details thereof?

In reply, Jadhav said, “There is no conclusive data available in the country to establish direct correlation of death/ disease exclusively due to air pollution. Air pollution is one of the triggering factors for respiratory ailments and associated diseases.”

He then appeared to attribute the impact of air pollution on the human body to a multitude of factors, saying, “Health effects of air pollution are synergistic manifestation of factors which include food habits, occupational habits, socioeconomic status, medical history, immunity, heredity, etc. of the individuals.”

In an annexure, Jadhav listed the “several steps” taken by the Union government to “address air pollution issues.”

It cited the implementation of National Programme for Climate Change and Human Health (NPCCHH) under which it has developed a “Health Adaptation Plan” on health issues due to Air Pollution and a “State Action Plan” on climate change and human health for all 36 State/UTs.

“This State specific Action Plan contains dedicated chapter on air pollution which suggests interventions to reduce the impact,” the government said.

The Union government also cited health ministry public health advisories to states and Union territories “suggesting ways to reduce the impact of air pollution” and nationwide public awareness campaigns on World Environment Day (5th June), International Day of
Clean Air for blue skies (7th September) and National Pollution Control Day (2nd December) as ways in which it has tried to beat the effects of air pollution on health.

The government claimed it has developed “dedicated training modules” for programme managers, medical officers and nurses, nodal officers, women and children, traffic police, frontline workers like ASHA, and so on.

It also cited communication material on air pollution-related illnesses, capacity building workshops for state-level trainers, early warning systems, the Swachh Bharat Mission and the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana “which aims to safeguard the health of women and children by providing them with a clean cooking fuel”.

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has launched National Clean Air programme in 2019 as a national-level strategy to reduce air pollution levels across the country, the government said in its reply.

Thursday, December 18, 2025

Accelerated cancer drug approvals deliver limited survival gains at high cost

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute

Early access to new cancer drugs, granted accelerated approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has provided mixed benefits for patients while costing Medicare billions of dollars, reveals new research published in the journal BMJ Medicine.

Researchers found that between 2012 and 2020, 178,000 Medicare beneficiaries received early access to cancer drugs through the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway. While the pathway aims to give patients faster access to promising treatments, fewer than half of these drugs were later shown to help people live longer.

Key Findings:

Limited Survival Gains: Only 45% of Medicare beneficiaries who received accelerated approval drugs were treated with drugs that ultimately improved survival.
Life-Years Added: Early access to accelerated approval drugs delivered an estimated 76,000 extra years of life for Medicare beneficiaries.
Concentrated Benefits: Just three drugs—for melanoma and lung cancer—accounted for over two-thirds of all extra life-years gained.
High Cost: Medicare spent over $20 billion more on early access to cancer drugs than on alternative treatments, averaging $263,000 per additional year of life. Costs ranged from $26,000 per life-year for melanoma drugs to $4.5 million per life-year for some breast cancer drugs.

Huseyin Naci, Associate Professor of Health Policy at the London School of Economics, and lead author of the study, said: "Early access to new cancer drugs through FDA’s accelerated approval pathway can save lives, but our findings show that most offered little or no survival benefit while costing Medicare substantial sums. This raises important questions about how to balance rapid access to novel treatments with solid evidence of effectiveness."

FDA’s accelerated pathway allows new drugs to enter the market based on interim measures rather than waiting for long-term results like overall survival. Pharmaceutical companies are required to run follow-up studies after initial approval to confirm the benefits, but these studies are not always completed. From 1992 to 2020, nearly half of the drugs approved through this pathway were still missing these follow-up studies.

Joseph Ross, Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Yale University and co-author of the study, said: “Treatments which have been approved for use must be followed up with trials measuring overall survival and then appropriate regulatory actions put in place. This will help direct Medicare funds towards treatments with proven clinical benefits.”

Anita Wagner, Associate Professor of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and senior author of the study, added “Importantly, FDA should also clearly communicate the degree of uncertainty about drugs which have had accelerated approvals. This will help clinicians and patients be more informed as they make important health decisions.”