EPA Used Monsanto’s Research to Give Roundup a Pass

Sharon Lerner

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY concluded
in June that there was “no convincing evidence” that glyphosate, the
most widely used herbicide in the U.S. and the world, is an endocrine
disruptor.

On the face of it, this was great news, given that some 300 million pounds
of the chemical were used on U.S. crops in 2012, the most recent year
measured, and endocrine disruption has been linked to a range of serious
health effects, including cancer, infertility, and diabetes. Monsanto,
which sells glyphosate under the name Roundup, certainly felt good about
it. “I was happy to see that the safety profile of one of our products
was upheld by an independent regulatory agency,” wrote Steve Levine on Monsanto’s blog.

But the EPA’s exoneration — which means that the agency will not
require additional tests of the chemical’s effects on the hormonal
system — is undercut by the fact that the decision was based almost
entirely on pesticide industry studies. Only five independently funded
studies were considered in the review of whether glyphosate interferes
with the endocrine system. Twenty-seven out of 32 studies that looked at
glyphosate’s effect on hormones and were cited in the June review —
most of which are not publicly available and were obtained by The Intercept
through a Freedom of Information Act request — were either conducted or
funded by industry. Most of the studies were sponsored by Monsanto or
an industry group called the Joint Glyphosate Task Force. One study was
by Syngenta, which sells its own glyphosate-containing herbicide,
Touchdown.