Huge splash in the Guardian and many other outlets this morning on glyphosate.
The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) final assessment report, which the European
Commission uses to justify its proposal to reautorise glyphosate for 10
years in the EU, has largely been copy-pasted from an industry report.
Copy-pasted!
The original lines stem from an industry report which the pesticide
lobby group Glyphosate Task Force submitted to the agency as part of the
normal procedure – but the EU agency hardly changed a word!
One
of the most scandalous features: EFSA adopted the pesticide industry’s
analysis of the available independent scientific literature, which
dismissed the significance of all the results finding harm. Having
assessed the very same independent studies, the World Health
Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer came to the
exact opposite conclusion: they considered glyphosate a likely
carcinogen.
The urgent need to reform the EU’s pesticides
assessment system could hardly be made clearer than by the
ever-expanding glyphosate scandal. Not relying on industry’s studies and
interpretations of independent data would be a good first step,
wouldn’t it?
Glyphosate is the core ingredient in Monsanto’s $4.75bn a year RoundUp weedkiller brand.
Photograph: Rene van den Berg/Alamy Stock Photo
