EPA panel begins evaluation of carcinogenicity of glyphosate

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is holding four days of meetings, beginning December 13, aimed at examining the evidence that does or does not tie the world’s most widely used herbicide — glyphosate — to cancer.

Scientists, activists and agricultural industry leaders are all expected to show up to either defend or attack the chemical that is currently at the center of international controversy. …[T]he agency is girding for more than 10 hours of personally delivered public comments before a specially appointed scientific advisory panel gets down to work.

The panel assignment: To offer advice on how the EPA should evaluate and interpret relevant data and how it all should translate into a EPA “carcinogen risk” classification for glyphosate.

Editor’s note: The EPA issued a report in September 2016 after a two year review concluding that glyphosate is ‘unlikely to cause cancer.’ The independent panel also found no links between glyphosate and a myriad of other disorders that critics claim are caused by exposure to the herbicide.

  • Here is a link to an NPR story on the EPA study
  • Here is a link to the EPA study
  • Here is a link to the GLP FAQ on glyphosate safety

The exercise is academic by design, but powerful economic forces are hard at work hoping to influence the outcome. Glyphosate is … the chief ingredient in Monsanto Co.’s branded Roundup herbicide as well as in hundreds of other herbicides sold around the world. It’s also the lynchpin to Monsanto’s top-selling, glyphosate-tolerant, genetically engineered crops.

[Editor’s note: Carey Gillam is a former journalist for Reuters, who currently directs research for U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit group funded by the organic industry, focused on food policy and advocating for GMO labeling. Here is a GLP Profile of USRTK.]

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Serious scrutiny needed as EPA seeks input on cancer ties to Monsanto herbicide

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