European Commission must put citizens' health first

On a Greens/EFA initiative, a cross-party group of MEPs has today written to the European Commission, expressing concern about the studies being used in the assessment of the safety of the controversial herbicide, glyphosate. The letter comes after a series of documents, released as part of a trial in the United States against Monsanto, suggest that Monsanto had ghost-written research that was later attributed to academics. One of the studies used by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in their assessment of the herbicide's safety was co-authored by two scientists whose names appear in Monsanto's internal emails and who concluded that glyphosate was not genotoxic. The EU approval of glyphosate is due to expire at the end of this year at the latest.

The letter is available here: http://extranet.greens-efa.eu/public/media/file/1/5083

Commenting on the decision to write to the European Commission, Greens/EFA food safety spokesperson Bart Staes said:

“There needs to be absolute transparency on the studies that have been used to assess glyphosate’s safety. We call on the European Commission to make recommendations to both EFSA and ECHA that they investigate thoroughly the impartiality of the studies used in their assessment. For as long as such worrying questions remain unanswered on the impartiality of the evidence, we call on the Commission to exercise absolute caution and not propose any further approval of glyphosate in the EU. The health of our citizens is too important to be gambled on.”

Notes

Glyphosate is currently subject to a technical extension of its EU approval (see: https://www.greens-efa.eu/en/article/glyphosate-approval/). A group of Greens/EFA MEPs has made an access to documents request to EFSA, calling for access to the full studies used in their determination of the safety of glyphosate. https://www.greens-efa.eu/en/article/glyphosate-6945/