Chemical security

Big Biotech in aggressive push to memory hole science of glyphosate toxicity and re-approve the cancer-causing herbicide in Europe

We, Members of the European Parliament from different political groups, are very concerned by the ongoing re-approval process of glyphosate, the active substance in the most widely used herbicide.

We currently witness a major scientific controversy between the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organisation (IARC) with regard to the carcinogenicity of glyphosate.

While IARC had concluded in March 2015 that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen (category 2A), the EFSA peer review, based on the renewal assessment report by the rapporteur Member State (BfR), concluded in November 2015 thatglyphosate is "unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential". Proper classification is crucial as it entails important regulatory consequences.