After reviewing a study suggesting that glyphosate causes cancer even at levels below those considered “safe” by EU regulatory agencies, the European Chemicals Agency stood by its 2022 hazard assessment decision that the herbicide does not warrant a classification for carcinogenicity.
The ruling in the case Monsanto v. Durnell shields pesticide manufacturers like Bayer–Monsanto, the maker of glyphosate-based Roundup, in failure-to-warn lawsuits. A legal expert explained to Food Safety Magazine how this decision potentially weakens state right-to-know chemical health warning laws like California's Proposition 65.
Arguing that states’ authority to require pesticide health warnings is critical to filling gaps in EPA oversight and risk communication, a coalition has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Monsanto v. Durnell, in which Monsanto (now Bayer), the maker of glyphosate-based Roundup, seeks to strike down that authority.
A presidential Executive Order invoked the Defense Production Act of 1950, asserting that glyphosate-based herbicides are critical to “national security.” MAHA supporters are pushing back on the order.
Like the Healthy Florida First initiative’s previous reports on toxic heavy metals in candy and infant formula, details that would help contextualize the findings have not been disclosed, such as the sampling and testing methodology or relevant safety thresholds
A paper from the year 2000 suggesting the safety of glyphosate (the active ingredient in herbicide Roundup), which has been cited for decades in regulatory decisions and pesticide approvals, has been retracted after litigation revealed undisclosed conflicts of interest undermining the study’s integrity.
Senator Cory Booker’s Safe School Meals Act proposes widespread reforms that would reduce the presence of toxic heavy metals, pesticides, artificial food dyes, and chemicals in school lunches, and would mandate research to progress remediation methods for environmental contaminants polluting farms.
A proposed strategy from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) aims to improve the agency’s screening process for the harmful effects that pesticides and agricultural chemicals may have on the human endocrine system, starting with immediately requiring additional data to be submitted by the manufacturers of certain high-priority chemicals.
Although the use of glyphosate on crops poses a food safety risk and its use should be curbed, completely banning the substance too early may lead to farmers using chemical alternatives that are just as harmful to human and environmental health, according to experts from Wageniningen University and Research (WUR).
