EU regulators ‘dismissed evidence’ linking glyphosate to rodent tumours

theguardian.com:

EU regulators dismissed key scientific evidence linking glyphosate to rodent tumours in a positive assessment they gave for continued sales of the substance last week, according to a new report by environmental campaigners.

Glyphosate is the world’s most widely used weedkiller and its EU relicensing has become a touchstone in a wider battle between environmentalists and agribusiness over the future of farming.

A separate study last week found that glyphosate was seriously damaging the ability of wild bumblebees to regulate colony temperatures.

Meanwhile the report by the NGOs says that the assessment by the European Chemical Agency (Echa) contains “serious scientific shortcomings that question its scientific objectivity”, because of an alleged rejection of findings from 10 out of 11 studies which link the herbicide ingredient to tumour formations.

Dr Peter Clausing, the report’s co-author, said: “Animals exposed to glyphosate developed tumours with significantly higher incidences compared to their unexposed control group – an effect considered as evidence of carcinogenicity by both international and European guidelines.

“Yet, the EU risk assessors have dismissed all the tumour findings from their analysis, concluding that they all occurred by chance and that none of them was actually related to glyphosate exposure.”

Seven of the animal studies are backed by historical control data, and five of them show that mice and rats developed more than one type of tumour, the report says. In four of the rodent studies, the number of tumours rose as the glyphosate dose increased, it adds.

Malignant lymphomas, kidney and liver tumours and skin keratoacanthomas were all found in the studies, said Prof Christopher Portier, an expert whose