European Food Safety Authority Promises to Release Data on Glyphosate
After facing heavy criticism, Europe’s top food safety organization has promised to release data from their scientific review which found that glyphosate does not pose a cancer risk to humans.
On Thursday, the European Union’s European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) stated that they will soon release raw data from the studies they reviewed upon concluding that glyphosate does not cause cancer. Glyphosate is not only the most widely used herbicide, it is a key ingredient in biotech giant Monsanto’s popular Roundup products. The EFSA stated that releasing the data “will further increase the transparency of the glyphosate evaluation.”
In March 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) found that glyphosate “probably” contributes to non-Hodgkin lymphoma in humans and classified it as a ‘Group 2A’ carcinogen. Aaron Blair, a scientist emeritus at the National Cancer Institute and lead author of the study, told Reuters,
There was sufficient evidence in animals, limited evidence in humans and strong supporting evidence showing DNA mutations and damaged chromosomes.
The researchers also found “convincing evidence that glyphosate can also cause cancer in laboratory animals.” The report points out that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) had originally classified glyphosate as possibly carcinogenic to humans in 1985. The IARC Working Group evaluated the original EPA findings and more recent reports before concluding “there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals.”
This conclusion was disputed by the EFSA. In November 2015, Bernhard Url, Executive Director of the EFSA, stated “glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential.” Url’s position did not sit well with environmental activists who agreed with the IARC’s findings.
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