Glyphosate evaluation: Anvisa's new management restarts process‏

According to the new executive-director of the Brazilian Association of Generic Agrochemicals (Aenda), Tulio de Oliveira, the new directors that assumes the country's National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) are having to restart the process of reevaluation of several agrochemicals "from zero" - among them the glyphosate. "The current managers of Anvisa inherited problems coming from the insensitive previous managers, which brought a fundamentalist idea of being against agrochemicals," he laments.

According to him, "A line of 2,500 procedures was inherited and a reevaluation of 14 active ingredients started in 2008. How can an institution that complains on the lack of personnel and does not see the line think that could make the work of evaluating 14 active ingredients? Easy, 'it won't be by us, we will hire Fiocruz.'" Fiocruz stands for Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and was outsourced to reevaluate the active ingredients. The organization, headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, responds to the country's Health Ministry.

Tulio de Oliveira reveals that the "initial advice of Fiocruz (which is against the use of agrochemicals) were stamped and several products were banned. The new management, when looking to Fiocruz opinions on the six agrochemicals left, understood that there was not science at the documents, just grudge".

"The end of this story was not draw yet. The judge denied this week the request for an extension of the deadline to reevaluate these active ingredients, within the Public Action moved by the Federal Public Ministry to finish the reevaluations. The reevaluation is a complex process of revising the dossier of substance in the light of new scientific information. It should be done with a lot of responsibility and accuracy, and should not aim a ban, but necessary adjustments, related to the care towards health and environment," concludes Oliveira.