Finding by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) that glyphosate is not a carcinogen “greeted with grave concern and disappointment in the health and environment community”

1. EU chemicals agency sweeps glyphosate cancer evidence under the carpet
2. ECHA’s opinion on glyphosate greeted with concern
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1. EU chemicals agency sweeps glyphosate cancer evidence under the carpet

Greenpeace, March 15, 2017
http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/News/2017/EU-chemicals-agency-sweeps-glyphosate-cancer-evidence-under-the-carpet/

Following in the footsteps of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has dismissed scientific evidence showing that the controversial weedkiller glyphosate could cause cancer.

The ECHA assessment could pave the way for a new 15-year EU licence for the world’s most heavily used weedkiller, which the World Health Organisation’s cancer research agency (IARC) has classified as a “probable” cause of cancer.

To reach its conclusion, ECHA rejected glaring scientific evidence of cancers in laboratory animals, ignored warnings by more than 90 independent scientists, and relied on unpublished studies commissioned by glyphosate producers, warned Greenpeace.

Greenpeace EU food policy director Franziska Achterberg said, “ECHA has gone to great lengths to sweep all evidence that glyphosate can cause cancer under the carpet. The data vastly exceeds what’s legally necessary for the EU to ban glyphosate, but ECHA has looked the other way. For the EU to make decisions based on science, it can’t distort the facts. If the EU doesn’t get this right, people and the environment will continue to be the lab rats of the chemical industry.”

Like the EFSA assessment, the ECHA opinion was based on an initial dossier prepared by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). BfR’s glyphosate assessment has been heavily criticised by NGOs and independent scientists, who said it contradicted the scientific evidence.

ECHA is responsible for the EU’s classification and labelling of hazardous chemical substances. Under EU criteria, a substance must be classified as a “presumed” carcinogen if it is shown to increase cancer rates in at least two separate studies conducted on the same species. IARC found evidence of increased rates in two mouse studies, supported by further evidence. However, ECHA dismissed the increased cancer rates observed in these studies, as well as in three additional mouse studies that were not available to IARC. ECHA also dismissed the “limited” evidence of carcinogenicity in humans, and evidence of two characteristics associated with carcinogens, all documented by IARC.

Under EU pesticides law, substances classified as “presumed” carcinogens cannot be allowed for use, unless the exposure of people is “negligible”.

Health and environmental organisations have also raised concerns about conflicts of interest in the ECHA committee responsible for assessing glyphosate, and criticised ECHA’s reliance on unpublished industry studies.

In February 2017, a coalition of civil society organisations launched a European Citizens’ Initiative calling on the European Commission to ban glyphosate, reform the EU pesticide approval process, and set mandatory targets to reduce pesticide use in the EU. Almost 500,000 people have already signed the petition.
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2. ECHA’s opinion on glyphosate greeted with concern

HEAL, 15 March 2017
http://www.env-health.org/resources/press-releases/article/echa-s-opinion-on-glyphosate
[links to references at the URL above]

Today’s finding by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) that glyphosate is not a carcinogen has been greeted with grave concern and disappointment in the health and environment community, says the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL).[1]

The opinion from ECHA’s Committee for Risk Assessment contradicts that of the world’s most authoritative cancer research agency - the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which classified glyphosate as a ‘probable carcinogen’ in 2015.

Génon K. Jensen, Executive Director, HEAL says today’s decision is a setback for cancer prevention.

“We expect that in the future, IARC will be recognised as having been right. But meanwhile, Europe is set to give glyphosate the green light and therefore public health will lose out on an important opportunity for cancer prevention. Cancer rates can be brought down by taking hazardous chemicals off the market,” she said.

HEAL has worked for many years to gain greater attention for the health impacts of exposure to glyphosate and other chemicals. Calls for removing glyphosate from the market have been part of a strategy in cancer prevention supported by the Association of European Cancer Leagues[2] as well as with HEAL members working on cancer prevention.

The ECHA opinion is not easy to comprehend. Ms Jensen continues:

“IARC is the gold standard of cancer evaluation. It is hard to see that the EU’s own institutions come to such a starkly different result: ECHA’s committee did not even give glyphosate the ranking of a ‘possible carcinogen’. This is the sort of contradiction that feeds public suspicion about the reliability of EU scientific agencies’ opinions”.

A paper published this month was critical of the opinion of EFSA and BfR. In “The Carcinogenic Hazard of Glyphosate”, toxicologist Peter Clausing provides the scientific arguments for why EFSA and BfR are wrong to reject the findings of these studies.[3]. The ECHA evaluation, while acknowledging the increases in tumour incidence in a limited way, seems to suffer from the same analytical problems as EFSA and BfR in reaching its finding that they do not constitute sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity.

Growing unease exists about the lack of transparency in the classification process of the European agencies. A joint letter to the Commission by Greenpeace, HEAL and many other groups[4] pointed out that the ECHA committee was using “unpublished scientific evidence provided by industry in formulating its opinions”, in addition to studies published in peer-reviewed journals.

The letter also expressed concerns about the conflicts of interest of some of the members of the ECHA expert committee. “We respectfully ask you to enforce and improve ECHA’s policies to safeguard its independence from industry and transparency of its work,” the letter says.

In February 2017, European Commissioner for health and food safety, Vytinis Andriukeitas also expressed concerns, and suggested that reform might be needed. According to minutes of a European Commission meeting[5], he said that: “He felt that the main problem was the public’s lack of confidence in science and the feeling that Europe was not sufficiently protecting them from the effects of certain chemical substances.” The minutes continued that Andriukeitas felt that this implied, “a reform of the EU agencies responsible for providing the scientific basis for these decisions and of their procedures, to make them more transparent”.

Evidence of the harm to health from glyphosate continues to grow. Very recently, a study on rats showed low-dose, long term exposure caused non-alcoholic liver disease, which has been linked to liver cancer.[6]