The European Commission will task the EU's chemicals agency (ECHA) and food safety watchdog (EFSA) with reviewing the new study linking the weedkiller glyphosate to increased tumour rates in rats, even at doses currently considered safe under EU rules. Glyphosate’s EU approval has been renewed for 10 years, until 15 December 2033. Euractiv

 

 

Leading toxicologist Alberto Mantovani, a member of the ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) Risk Assessment Committee, commended the study on his LinkedIn page as a “new and robust multi-centre study” which “uses a protocol encompassing pre- and post-natal development and fulfils the need for sound experimental evidence. The results highlight the tumorigenic potential of glyphosate and glyphosate-based products at dose levels considered as ‘safe’. This new evidence has to be carefully considered by the regulatory authorities globally.” His positive review has attracted a few desperate attempts to discredit the study by various defenders of glyphosate in the comments thread, but it’s clear they are floundering. GMWatch comment on Alberto Mantovani's post on LinkedIn

 

 

Co-author of the glyphosate study Prof Michael Antoniou of King’s College London commented on the mechanisms by which glyphosate herbicides cause cancer: “Previous work in laboratory rats conducted by my own group in collaboration with the Ramazzini Institute has shown that exposure to glyphosate herbicides results in DNA damage, which appears to be caused by oxidative stress. Given that DNA damage is a major risk factor in cancer formation, I am not surprised with the finding in the Global Glyphosate Study that long-term exposure to glyphosate and commercial glyphosate herbicide formulations, even at low levels that government regulators stipulate as perfectly safe, results in a wide range of different cancers, including leukaemia. When one considers that glyphosate herbicide exposure has also been found to be associated with oxidative stress and leukaemia in human populations, the findings of the Global Glyphosate Study take on even greater significance. These observations suggest that if glyphosate is not banned outright, the permitted daily exposure level needs to be lowered, in my view by at least 100-fold.” (No link in header)

 

 

Bayer responded to the new glyphosate study by attacking it. It claimed the study exhibits “significant methodological deficiencies”. But according to the German newspaper Taz, when it asked Bayer to be more specific about the study’s failings, “the company did not provide any justification for this accusation”. However, Taz says, “probably in an attempt to undermine the credibility of the study’s authors, the Leverkusen-based company criticised the Ramazzini Institute for having ‘made misleading claims about the safety of various products’ in the past”. Bayer said that some studies the institute had conducted on other substances had not been accepted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But Daniele Mandrioli, director of the institute's cancer research centre, told Taz that “the substances identified as carcinogenic in our laboratories sooner or later (sometimes decades later) turned out to be carcinogenic to humans, for example vinyl chloride, benzene, formaldehyde, and asbestos”. He said in the institute’s 50-year history, its studies on more than 200 chemical compounds had been “routinely used worldwide for hazard and risk assessment”. Taz

 

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