A coalition of farm workers and public health and environmental groups has filed a legal petition with US regulators calling for the immediate suspension of authorisation for the weedkilling chemical glyphosate, The Guardian reported.
Filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on 13 December and citing new scientific research, the petition alleged that the chemical did not meet the required safety standard set by federal law and the EPA had “no valid assessment demonstrating otherwise”, the report on the same date said.
If the EPA failed to address the petition, the groups said they would take the agency back to court, The Guardian wrote.
The legal petition came less than 10 days after the publication of a new scientific study into the safety of glyphosate.
In a paper published in the Environmental Health Perspectives journal on 6 December, National Institutes of Health cancer scientists said they had found markers of genotoxicity in male farmers with high uses of glyphosate. The authors were quoted as saying their work suggested glyphosate “could confer genotoxic” effects and amounted to “novel evidence regarding the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate”.
The journal had also published an accompanying opinion piece by environmental and occupational health researchers who called the new study “important new evidence” that should be considered in evaluating glyphosate safety, the report said.
The study was the largest of its kind and provided “mechanistic support for genotoxicity of glyphosate”, the researchers wrote.
“There is really compelling new science out there,” Bill Freese, science director with the Center for Food Safety - the group leading the leading petition - was quoted as saying.
“It’s becoming increasingly untenable for the agency to deny the cancer hazard.”
The most widely-applied herbicide, both in the USA and globally, glyphosate has been used by farmers and consumers for 40 years.
One of the best known glyphosate-based products is Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Officials with Monsanto and its German owner, Bayer, have always assured the public and regulators that exposure to the weedkiller does not pose a threat to human health.
Since buying US agrochemicals company Monsanto – which owned Roundup – for US$63bn in 2018, Bayer has faced a series of court cases brought by plaintiffs claiming their cancer had been caused by glyphosate.
The EPA had also said glyphosate was safe when used as directed, but a three-judge panel of the ninth US circuit court of appeals last year determined that the EPA had ignored important studies and applied “inconsistent reasoning” in finding that the chemical did not pose “any reasonable risk to man or the environment”, The Guardian wrote.
Following the court decision, the EPA said it was withdrawing all remaining portions of its interim registration review decision for glyphosate and would “revisit” its evaluation of glyphosate.
However, the agency continued to maintain that there was no human health safety concern with glyphosate when used as directed.
The agency had no immediate comment on the filing of the petition, The Guardian wrote.
The petitioning groups included 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, the report said.
