Advocates demand US suspend weed-killing chemical that may cause cancer | Herbicides

Citing new scientific research, a coalition of farmworker, public health and environmental advocates filed a legal petition with US regulators on Wednesday demanding they immediately suspend authorization for the controversial weedkiller chemical called glyphosate.

The petition, filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), claims that the chemical does not meet the required safety standard set by federal law and the EPA has “no valid assessment to the contrary”.

If the EPA fails to address the petition, the groups said they will take the agency back to court, where the groups successfully won a judicial finding last year that the EPA’s most recent assessment of glyphosate was deeply flawed.

The legal petition comes less than 10 days after the publication of a new scientific study fueling critics who say glyphosate herbicide products can cause cancer.

In a newspaper published December 6, National Institutes of Health cancer scientists said they found markers of genotoxicity in male farmers with high uses of glyphosate. The authors said their work suggested that glyphosate may confer “genotoxic” effects, and amounted to “new evidence regarding the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate”. The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The magazine also has a supplement opinion article from environmental and occupational health researchers who called the new study “important new evidence” that should be considered in evaluating glyphosate safety. The study was the largest of its kind and provides “mechanistic support for genotoxicity of glyphosate,” the researchers wrote.

“There’s really compelling new science out there,” says Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety, the group that legal petition. “It is becoming increasingly untenable for the agency to deny the cancer risk.”

Glyphosate is the most commonly applied herbicide in history, both in the US and worldwide. One of the best known glyphosate-based products is Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. Roundup has been used by farmers and consumers alike for over 40 years. Officials with Monsanto and its German owner, Bayer AG, have always assured the public and regulators that exposure to the herbicide does not pose a threat to human health.

The EPA also said glyphosate is safe when used as directed, but last year a three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals determine that the EPA ignored important studies and applied “inconsistent reasoning” to find that the chemical did not pose “any reasonable risk to humans or the environment.”

The court vacated the human health portion of the EPAs glyphosate assessment and said the agency should apply “further consideration” to evidence. The Ninth Circuit also said the agency violated the Endangered Species Act in its assessment.

After the court decision, the EPA said it was withdraw all remaining portions of its interim registration review decision for glyphosate and will “revise” its evaluation of glyphosate. However, the agency still maintained that there are no human health safety concerns with glyphosate when used as directed.

The agency had no immediate comment on the filing of the petition.

The groups state in their petition that the court ruling effectively makes continued use of glyphosate illegal in terms of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (Fifra).

The petition groups include the Center for Food Safety, Organización en California de Líderes Campesinas, Beyond Pesticides, Rural Coalition, the Farmworker Association of Florida, and Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, Inc.

“Wives of farm workers and their families have experienced the harmful health effects of pesticides for too long,” said Mily Treviño-Sauceda, executive director of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, in a statement. “EPA must protect the nation’s farm workers and our environment by immediately suspending and canceling all glyphosate registrations.”

People are exposed to glyphosate by using products made with the chemical and also by eating food and drinking water contaminated with the pesticide. Scientists have glyphosate residues in a variety of popular foods and in waterways across the US.

Bayer remain mired in litigation brought by tens of thousands of cancer patients who claim exposure to Roundup caused them to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The company has lost the last few trials and has been ordered by US juries to pay billions in damages to plaintiffs since the litigation began. Bayer also paid out more than $11 billion to settle thousands of claims outside of trials.

This story is shared with the New Membersa journalistic project of the Environmental Working Group