Health scientists — in a review of the published data on glyphosate — see a “desperate need” for federal regulators around the world to revisit the herbicide's health impact

EXCERPT: Benbrook said a modern test, conducted by independent scientists, is long overdue.
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Experts call on feds to re-evaluate the world’s most heavily used herbicide

By Brian Bienkowski
Environmental Health News, February 17, 2016
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2016/feb/glyphosate-roundup-monsanto-cancer-endocrine-disruptor-science?platform=hootsuite

* Health scientists — in a review of the published data on glyphosate — see a “desperate need” for federal regulators around the world to revisit the herbicide's health impact.

U.S. and European health officials need to take a fresh look at assumptions about the safety and health impacts of glyphosate herbicides, according to a group of health scientists worried about the chemicals’ explosive worldwide growth.

A scientific review released Tuesday warns that use of glyphosate has skyrocketed, growing 15-fold in the 20 years since "Roundup Ready" genetically engineered crops were introduced. Government health agencies, they said, have failed to adequately monitor how much of the herbicide is getting into food and people and what impacts it might be having on our health.

U.S. and European health officials need to take a fresh look at assumptions about the safety and health impacts of glyphosate herbicides, according to a group of health scientists worried about the chemicals’ explosive worldwide growth.

A scientific review released Tuesday warns that use of glyphosate has skyrocketed, growing 15-fold in the 20 years since "Roundup Ready" genetically engineered crops were introduced. Government health agencies, they said, have failed to adequately monitor how much of the herbicide is getting into food and people and what impacts it might be having on our health.

Standard federal testing is mostly done by dosing lab animals with high amounts of a chemical, and then looking for obvious impacts such as changes to organ weights and other malformations, said vom Saal. “Very little is done in the way of looking at developmental issues.”

The studies done in the 1970s when glyphosate was approved were “very unsophisticated,” Benbrook said. “The problem with dose ranges that are very high is [that] research on developmental problems and endocrine disruption has shown repeatedly chemicals can have subtle effects at much lower levels,” he said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded in a report last June that there was “no convincing evidence” that glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor.

EPA spokesman Robert Daguillard said the agency will review the new report and added that they are finishing up preliminary human health and ecological risk assessments, which are expected to be published for public comment in 2016.

The health concerns coincide with more and more use and pervasive exposure. Over the past decade glyphosate has been bundled up in the debate over genetically modified food, because many seeds from companies such as Monsanto—manufacturer of the most popular glyphosate herbicide, Roundup—are genetically engineered to withstand the herbicide.

When crops such as corn and soybeans have such immunity, farmers can spray entire fields. This has spurred a vicious cycle where weeds are increasingly evolving resistance to the herbicides, leading to more and more spraying.

“The geographic scope and severity of the weed control challenges posed, worldwide, by the emergence and spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds is unprecedented,” the authors wrote.

Glyphosate herbicides have proved controversial and have been under the gun lately. Last week 35 House Democrats wrote a letter to the EPA urging the agency to reassess the risks of Dow Chemical Co.’s glyphosate herbicide Enlist Duo given the WHO’s cancer findings.

“EPA registered Enlist Duo without considering this cancer finding, and without looking at any studies on glyphosate’s cancer risk that have been published in the last twenty years,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio.

Dow Chemical Co. did not respond to a request for comment on the new review. Monsanto spokesperson Charla Marie Lord said in an emailed response that the report's concerns were not in line with what regulatory agencies have found.

"No regulatory agency in the world considers glyphosate to be a carcinogen," she said. "Regulatory agencies have not had any health concerns that would necessitate testing of the sort proposed by the authors of this essay."

The company in January filed a lawsuit against California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment designed to prevent glyphosate from being added to the state’s list of known carcinogens.

It’s not clear what kind of impact a statement from a group of scientists can have on federal policy. But vom Saal said that even if the EPA does not alter testing, it could spur more progressive states such as California to take action.

Benbrook said a modern test, conducted by independent scientists, is long overdue.

“I hope they don’t show anything and we can move on,” Benbrook said. “But if there’s even a small chance of health impacts, when you’re talking about everyone on the planet, that should cause us to use some caution.”