In a win for Monsanto, U.S. district judge William Shubb temporarily blocked a state agency in California from requiring warning labels on packages of the weedkiller glyphosate saying it posed a risk of cancer, reported Reuters. The state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment added glyphosate to its list of cancer-causing chemicals last July and planned to require warning labels beginning this July.
The agency acted following the 2015 decision by the UN International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify glyphosate as probably carcinongenic in humans. Monsanto, which genetically modified an array of crops to withstand doses of the herbicide, has fought worldwide against the IARC decision. Other scientific reviews have deemed the chemical safe.
Reuters quoted Shubb as saying, “Given the heavy weight of evidence in the record that glyphosate is not in fact known to cause cancer, the required warning is factually inaccurate and controversial.” State agency officials were not immediately available for comment, said Reuters.
Glyphosate is the most widely used weedkiller in the world.