RESEARCHERS SLAM EU SAFETY REVIEW OF GLYPHOSATE


Frida Qi
November 29, 2021

Researchers have slammed a preliminary EU settlement on Friday (26 November) which determined that the controversial and widely-used weedkiller glyphosate is protected.

The EU’s authorisation of glyphosate expires in December 2022 however is about to be renewed subsequent yr, and has now acquired an preliminary optimistic safety review.

In accordance with an impartial review by most cancers researchers, the EU determination relies on a defective evaluation carried out by the German pharmaceutical and chemical large Bayer – one of the most important producers of glyphosate-based merchandise on the earth.

Researchers related to Global2000, an impartial Austrian environmental organisation, discovered that 33 out of 35 research Bayer primarily based its advice on have been incomplete.

Global200 discovered solely two research have been dependable. One other 15 have been “partly reliable”, and 18 weren’t dependable.

“None of the most important knowledge gaps were addressed,” lead creator Siegfried Knasmüller mentioned in a press release.

The producer has omitted well-known research utilizing fashionable strategies that present glyphosate damages DNA within the liver and different inside organs.

Check techniques used within the analysis Bayer primarily based its conclusions on are greater than 30 years previous. “The models used in these studies detect only five to six out of 10 carcinogens,” in accordance with Knasmüller.

In 2015, the World Well being Group’s Worldwide Company for Analysis on Most cancers (IARC) additionally concluded there’s “strong evidence” publicity to glyphosate may cause DNA injury.

However the officers within the Evaluation Group on Glyphosate (AGG) – consisting of EU member states France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden – rejected these research and concluded that glyphosate is protected and may very well be re-licensed.

“Now it appears that the EU is repeating the same mistake,” Knasmüller mentioned.

In 2019, a US courtroom discovered that Roundup – a Bayer-produced glyphosate-based herbicide – in all probability causes most cancers and Bayer had acted maliciously in hiding this reality.
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The corporate has since been focused by greater than 125,000 lawsuits from plaintiffs who declare the use of glyphosate contributed to their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The corporate has already paid out nearly €9bn in settlements final yr.

“Worryingly, these industry-sponsored studies are now at the heart of the current EU market approval process of Glyphosate,” Angeliki Lyssimachou, a science coverage officer on the Brussels primarily based NGO Well being and Atmosphere Alliance (HEAL) mentioned.

EU officers have previously refused to share particulars of the producer’s literature research, however a March 2019 ruling by the European Court docket of Justice (ECJ) discovered this was unlawful.

This allowed impartial researchers to review the supplies for the primary time.

In a separate growth this week, the incoming German coalition authorities agreed to chop the use of the weedkiller and take away glyphosate from the market by the top of 2023.

“The writing is on the wall for glyphosate,” Global2000 researcher Helmut Burtscher Schaden mentioned in a press release. “Yet here we see EU officials deliberately baking in another relicensing. That is bad.”

A last determination on glyphosate will probably be taken by EU member states subsequent yr.



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