EPA Backs Industry on Cancer Risks of World’s Most Widely Used Herbicide

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency today, in a new review of the world’s most widely used herbicide, maintained its deceitful position that glyphosate is not a carcinogen.

The following is a statement by Dr. Jennifer Sass, senior scientist with the Healthy People and Thriving Communities Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council:

“EPA’s Pesticide office is out on a limb here—with Monsanto and Bayer and virtually nobody else. 

“Health agencies and credible non-industry experts who’ve reviewed this question have all found a link between glyphosate and cancer.  EPA should take the advice of its own science advisors—who have rejected the agency’s no-cancer-risk classification.”

BACKGROUND:

In announcing the finding, EPA asserted that “the agency’s scientific findings on human health risk are consistent with the conclusions of science reviews by many other countries and federal agencies.”

The EPA Pesticide Office is charged with protecting public health—including farmworkers and those who apply pesticides—and yet EPA continues to disregard risks from routine occupational exposure.

For more on the risks of glyphosate, here is a recent blog by NRDC’s Jen Sass. 

For more on EPA’s decision, click here and here.

# # #

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC