Brussels Considers Changing Stance on Glyphosate and Cancer

Summary

The European Commission may instruct research agen­cies to review the sci­en­tific research into glyphosate, a com­monly used her­bi­cide in agri­cul­ture, to poten­tially change the cur­rent stance on its safety. Recent research has shown an increase in tumors and leukemia in rats exposed to glyphosate, con­tra­dict­ing pre­vi­ous con­clu­sions on its safety by reg­u­la­tory bod­ies.

The European Commission may instruct research agen­cies to review the sci­en­tific research into glyphosate, one of the most com­monly used her­bi­cides in agri­cul­ture.

“We are wait­ing to shortly con­firm a man­date from the European Commission for the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to assess the study,” a com­mis­sion spokesper­son told Olive Oil Times.

“Once we receive all the raw data and infor­ma­tion needed to assess the study prop­erly, we will eval­u­ate whether the find­ings reported in the study would impact the con­clu­sions that we and the European Chemicals Agency reached in our lat­est assess­ments of the safety of glyphosate in 2023,” the com­mis­sion explained.

Following the review, the cur­rent EFSA stance on glyphosate may change, a deci­sion that will inform the EU’s reg­u­la­tory activ­ity regard­ing the pop­u­lar her­bi­cide.

A new inves­ti­ga­tion into the poten­tial health risks asso­ci­ated with glyphosate has emerged from a recent paper on long-term expo­sure, pub­lished by Environmental Health.

The paper, authored by a team of inter­na­tional researchers and sev­eral sci­en­tists from the Italian Ramazzini Institute, pro­vides new evi­dence of the car­cino­genic poten­tial of glyphosate and glyphosate-based her­bi­cides, such as Roundup Bioflow and RangerPro.

Herbicides are often used in olive farm­ing to con­trol weeds grow­ing under the trees, thereby reduc­ing com­pe­ti­tion for water and nutri­ents.

Many olive grow­ers appre­ci­ate how its use can sim­plify field man­age­ment, lower labor costs and avoid mechan­i­cal weed­ing.

The recent research is part of the Global Glyphosate Study, a multi-insti­tu­tional project designed to thor­oughly assess the tox­i­c­ity of the com­pound, from pre­na­tal life through old age.

According to the research, sci­en­tists admin­is­tered glyphosate and two com­mer­cial her­bi­cides to Sprague – Dawley rats for two years, start­ing on the sixth day of ges­ta­tion.

Commonly used in bio­med­ical research, Sprague – Dawley rats are known for their calm tem­pera­ment and genetic diver­sity. Due to these traits, they are widely used in long-term tox­i­col­ogy and can­cer stud­ies.

Their pre­dictable growth and health pro­files make them a trusted model for eval­u­at­ing poten­tial health risks in humans.

The research tested doses includ­ing the European Union’s accept­able daily intake.

The results show a sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant increase in both benign and malig­nant tumors in mul­ti­ple organs, includ­ing skin, liver, thy­roid, ner­vous sys­tem, kid­neys, spleen and pan­creas.

The research also high­lighted the increase in leukemia cases, many of which led to early deaths (less than one year of age), a find­ing con­sid­ered extremely rare in this species.

According to the researchers, their find­ings strengthen those announced in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which clas­si­fied glyphosate as ​“prob­a­bly car­cino­genic to humans.”

The researchers also noted that their results are con­sis­tent with epi­demi­o­log­i­cal evi­dence on the health effects of glyphosate-based her­bi­cides.

The European Commission spokesper­son recalled that dur­ing the peer review of glyphosate’s safety in 2023, all infor­ma­tion made avail­able by the lat­est sci­en­tific research was taken into con­sid­er­a­tion.

The spokesper­son also explained that EFSA and ECHA would need to review the raw data to reach a cor­rect assess­ment.

“It’s impor­tant we apply the same stan­dard of sci­en­tific scrutiny to stud­ies car­ried out by researchers as we would to stud­ies we receive from indus­try,” the spokesper­son said.

The com­mis­sion also con­firmed that it has already requested raw data about the ongo­ing research from the Ramazzini Institute in the past few years.

“Unfortunately, we did not receive them,” the spokesper­son said. ​“The raw data are impor­tant to allow us to ver­ify the method­ol­ogy used, the com­po­si­tion of test mate­r­ial and the results of a study.”

“In this case, review­ing the raw data would be espe­cially rel­e­vant as the find­ings appear to con­tra­dict the main body of evi­dence and the con­clu­sions reached by EFSA, ECHA and many other reg­u­la­tory bod­ies around the world on the safety of glyphosate,” the spokesper­son added. 

For years, glyphosate has been at the cen­ter of a heated global debate about its safety.

Specific forms of the sub­stance were blocked by courts in France in 2019.

In other cases, envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions have protested against the lack of gov­ern­ment action on glyphosate, includ­ing in Spain when a high con­cen­tra­tion of the her­bi­cide was found in the waters of Mar Menor, a coastal lagoon in the south­east­ern autonomous com­mu­nity of Murcia.

Several stud­ies also sparked pub­lic con­cern, one of which pro­vided evi­dence that fol­low­ing a non-organic Mediterranean diet can expose con­sumers to pes­ti­cides and her­bi­cides, namely glyphosate.

Olive Oil Times con­tacted the authors involved in the Environmental Health study, but they were unavail­able for com­ment.