UN panel intensifies glyphosate debate

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and numerous generic formulations, “is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet,” a United Nations expert panel concluded May 13 after a weeklong meeting on pesticide residues.

The assessment, which considers both hazard and exposure, comes to a different conclusion than the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. Last year, IARC sparked a heated debate about the safety of glyphosate when it declared that the herbicide is “probably carcinogenic.”

UN officials are defending the assessment, saying it is complementary to the IARC report, which considered only hazard. IARC did not estimate the cancer risks of glyphosate “from specific exposure routes or levels of exposure,” they say in a fact sheet accompanying the meeting report. In contrast, the new risk assessment considers dietary exposure to glyphosate and finds that exposure levels are too low to be of concern.

That conclusion, from a panel arranged by the Food & Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, is being attacked by environmental groups that claim it was led by scientists who receive funding from Monsanto and the pesticide industry. Such groups are also accusing the UN panel of trying to influence European Union policy, pointing out that the assessment was released just days before a committee was set to vote on renewing the approval of glyphosate in the EU.

That vote was postponed on May 19 because of opposition from some EU countries, particularly France and Germany.

Meanwhile, U.S. congressional lawmakers are investigating why EPA released a report on April 29 declaring glyphosate is safe and then removed the report and all supporting documents from its website on May 2. EPA claims that it posted the report online in error before it was complete.