Articles

Public must know about risk to their health - ENSSER demands transparent glyphosate assessment – away with double standard favouring producers

A new British scientific study confirms that the glyphosate herbicide Roundup, an essential integral component of the majority of GM crops, causes liver and kidney damage below levels allowed in EU drinking water. At the same time, the European Commission has denied independent experts access to an important glyphosate risk assessment report, while Monsanto and other producers of glyphosate do appear to have had access to it. The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) calls this an anti-scientific double standard, and demands consistency and immediate full transparency in glyphosate risk assessment, since important public health issues are involved.

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ENSSER further draws attention to the mounting evidence suggesting that glyphosate causes birth defects (e.g. Argentine research on frogs and chickens[5] and people's reports of affected children in Argentina[6]). Moreover, the research group lead by Gilles-Eric Séralini has recently published the first independent review of glyphosate herbicides toxic effects below regulatory limits. Around 30 studies showing toxic effects below the regulatory no-observable adverse effect levels have been neglected in the establishment of safety tresholds[7]. This publicly available evidence has, however, so far been ignored by EU regulators in their re-evaluation of glyphosate, quoting unpublished industry studies claiming that glyphosate is safe instead. ENSSER takes the stance that public health policy like this should be based on independent sound scientific data, publicly verifiable and published in peer-reviewed science journals. We hope that the European Commission, in the face of the accumulating evidence of adverse effects and risks of glyphosate-based herbicides, will severely restrict or, best for public health, ban its use.