2 May 2019
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reaffirmed the safety of glyphosate, finding it is not a carcinogen. The EPA this week released its Glyphosate Proposed Interim Decision, which continues to find there are no risks to public health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label.
Matthew Cossey, Chief Executive Officer of CropLife Australia said, “We welcome the finding, which is consistent with the world’s most most sophisticated and globally leading independent regulatory agencies, that glyphosate is safe to use.”
Australia’s own Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, the European Food Safety Authority and regulatory authorities in Canada, Japan, Korea, Brazil, and many other nations have consistently reaffirmed that glyphosate-based products are safe and not carcinogenic.
More than 800 scientific studies and independent regulatory safety assessments support the fact that glyphosate does not cause harm to humans or the environment.
“In its report the EPA is clear that their cancer evaluation is more robust than that done by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The EPA used 15 carcinogenicity studies in its evaluation, almost double the number of studies considered by IARC.
“The EPA’s process is also significantly more transparent than IARC. The draft evaluation was presented for external peer review. The recommendations and revisions of the assessment were transparent and provided to the American public,” Mr Cossey said.
“It’s crucial that decisions on agricultural chemicals, and pesticides specifically, continue to be made by technically competent and independent regulators. It’s also important that governments, here in Australia and around the world, properly inform the community about why they can have confidence in science based regulatory processes so that consumers seek to make decisions on facts, not misunderstanding or warped activist campaigns or misled by narrow and extreme political agendas.
“No pesticide regulatory authority in the world currently considers glyphosate to be a cancer risk to humans. Australians can have confidence in our internationally recognised, world-leading, independent, scientific and evidence-based regulatory system for agricultural chemicals, which has also found glyphosate is safe to use,” Mr Cossey concluded.
The EPA’s press release is available here.