Sri Lanka rejects glyphosate hypothesis
Date:07-07-2014
In spite of the pressure to ban glyphosate from Sri Lanka, the Government firmly rejected it at the recommendation of the Pesticide Technical Advisory Committee. There is an assumption that this broad-spectrum herbicide glyphosate may cause chronic kidney disease of uncertain aetiology (CKDue/uo).
However, this consideration was promoted on a hypothesis written in an article, which lacks any evidence for such claims. There are major criticisms of both, supporters and opponents of glyphosate story, being non-scientific and biased.
It has been known for several years that glyphosate forms heavy metal-complexes, making it insoluble. Similarly, the measurement of free glyphosate and its complexes in water has been performed in several countries for many years. The maximum permissible levels of glyphosate in water within the European Union and United States are 0.2 and 0.7 ppm, respectively.
The article in question hypothesizes that glyphosate forms chemical bonds with heavy metals, forming compounds that persist in drinking water until they are broken down in the kidneys and that the glyphosate metal complexes” in the water are the cause of CKDue. However, authors have not provided any evidence or data to support it. There is, hitherto, no published analytical data on the levels of glyphosate in water anywhere in Sri Lanka. Therefore, until at least such data is available and some evidence that it is linked to renal failure in humans, this hypothesis must remain rejected.
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