In a letter to EPA head Gina McCarthy, the House Science Committee says it has “concerns about the integrity” of a WHO-agency review that rated the weedkiller glyphosate as probably carcinogenic in humans. And it wants to know what influence is being exercised on the EPA’s review of the chemical by the U.S. scientists who took part in the international review.
The EPA says it aims to complete a routine assessment, conducted every 15 years, of glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world, by the end of this year. At present, it regards the chemical as safe to use.
The Science Committee dove into the glyphosate debate a month ago, after the EPA accidentally posted on the internet a report from its cancer-assessment committee saying the herbicide was not likely a carcinogen. The document was removed three days later, and the EPA said its review was not final. At that point, Science chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, launched an investigation to see if the agency was giving glyphosate a fair shake and asked for all documents involved in the review of the chemical which began in January 2015.
In the new letter, Smith pointed the finger of suspicion at both the EPA and WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.
The EPA’s cancer-assessment committee “appears to dispute the findings of the IARC report and raises questions about IARC’s analysis,” Smith wrote. The disagreement between the U.S. and UN agencies is reason for doubt about the IARC process, he said, but it also raises questions about “the role played by agency officials in the IARC study and the influence that EPA officials involved in the IARC process have on the agency’s analysis of glyphosate.”
An EPA spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the letter and its request to interview four agency officials by next Tuesday.
The IARC report, issued in March 2015, added fuel to the controversy over glyphosate and GE crops. Monsanto, which uses glyphosate in its widely sold Roundup herbicide, says the weedkiller is rated as safe by governments around the world and points to a joint WHO-FAO report in May that concluded glyphosate is unlikely to pose a cancer risk to people through their diet.
The European Union is at an impasse over future use of glyphosate. The EU license for the chemical expires on June 30. On Monday, Germany, France and Italy, with 40 percent of the EU population, abstained on a proposal for a short-term extension of the license while additional safety studies are performed. The abstentions effectively killed the proposal; EU rules require approval by countries with two-thirds of the population of the bloc.
Sales of glyphosate, a broad-spectrum weedkiller, soared after Monsanto genetically engineered corn, soybean and cotton crops to tolerate the herbicide.
The EPA homepage for glyphosate is available here.