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Monsanto argued that California's decision to identify glyphosate as a cause of cancer under the state's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act may be illegal.

Monsanto Company is fighting back against California's recent decision to list glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's popular herbicide RoundUp, as a cancer-causing chemical.

In late September, California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) issued a notice stating that glyphosate would be added to the state's list of cancer-causing chemicals under the state's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, also known as Proposition 65.

The decision was made after the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the research agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), published a report in March that classified glyphosate "as probably carcinogenic to humans." State officials said this decision is a requirement following the IARC's findings.

In response to the IARC report in March, Monsanto announced its plans to hire Intertek Scientific & Regulatory Consultancy to provide a third-party review of IARC's claims. The Guardian later reported that a separate assessment performed by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessments (BfR) "has drawn contrary conclusions from the IARC's data. The BfR paper also relied heavily on unpublished papers provided by the Glyphosate Task Force, an industry body dedicated to the herbicide's relicensing. Its website is run by Monsanto UK."

Monsanto filed formal comments on Tuesday stating that California's plan may be illegal, and claimed that the state was insufficient in seeking valid scientific studies before moving forward with adding glyphosate to its Proposition 65 list. The IARC said that before making its classification, the agency had examined several scientific studies including two from Sweden, one from Canada and at least three from the United States.

Monsanto stated in its filing that California's decision "has the potential to deny farmers and public agencies the use of this highly effective herbicide." Monsanto further claimed that "global regulatory authorities... agree that glyphosate is not carcinogenic."


Comment: A 'highly effective herbicide' ... when it comes to making people sick!

March 20, 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) produced a monograph, Evaluation of five organophosphate insecticides and herbicides, wherein as a result of IARC's research, the herbicide glyphosate [the major component in Monsanto's Roundup] has been "classified as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group A)."

According to IARC's monograph,
For the herbicide glyphosate, there was limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The evidence in humans is from studies of exposures, mostly agricultural, in the USA, Canada, and Sweden published since 2001. In addition, there is convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals. On the basis of tumours in mice, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) originally classified glyphosate as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group C) in 1985. After a re- evaluation of that mouse study, the US EPA changed its classification to evidence of non- carcinogenicity in humans (Group E) in 1991. The US EPA Scientific Advisory Panel noted that the re-evaluated glyphosate results were still significant using two statistical tests recommended in the IARC Preamble. The IARC Working Group that conducted the evaluation considered the significant findings from the US EPA report and several more recent positive results in concluding that there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. Glyphosate also caused DNA and chromosomal damage in human cells, although it gave negative results in tests using bacteria. One study in community residents reported increases in blood markers of chromosomal damage (micronuclei) after glyphosate formulations were sprayed nearby. [pg. 1]
Monsanto's ongoing attempts to deny, obscure and belittle the carcinogenicity of Glyphosate is maddening! Industry and government agencies studiously ignore news that Monsanto's glyphosate is carcinogenic and continue to claim their product is safe!
Following the release of the report, the country of Sri Lanka decided to ban glyphosate completely, and other countries are considering a similar move. Is this information just too much to swallow for more immediate action to follow, or have governments been infiltrated so completely by biotech that the announcement that most of our food is covered in poison will simply be ignored?

The National Pesticide Information Center has done nothing to update its website to inform citizens that the IARC has declared that this herbicide is carcinogenic.

In fact, they instead post the following, word for word:
"Is glyphosate likely to contribute to the development of cancer?

Animal studies have not shown evidence that glyphosate exposure is linked to cancer. Studies with people have also shown little evidence that exposure to glyphosate products is linked with cancer."

This is an outrageous lie that should be removed immediately
- but it won't be because we are dealing with an industry which regulates itself. Unless people around the world take massive, grass-roots action, instead of waiting on their governments to respond, Monsanto and the biotech industry will continue to sell known cancer-causing agents.

The WHO's classification of glyphosate as a probable cause of cancer has led to several lawsuits filed against Monsanto. A number of the lawsuits claim that the glyphosate in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide caused cancer in individuals exposed to the ingredient. Monsanto responded that those claims are "without merit," according to Reuters.