EC official urges Glyphosate Task Force to publish full studies

In a letter wrote to Glyphosate Task Force, the EU Health and Consumer Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis suggested Glyphosate Task Force to publish proactively the full studies provided to EFSA for the sake of facilitating the decision making process and reinforcing trust in the EU on-going procedure.

 

Vytenis pointed out that a significant part of civil society is worried about the different outcome reached by EFSA and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) on the carcinogenicity of glyphosate. It would be most helpful to clarify whether one of the reasons explaining such divergence is indeed that some studies were available to EFSA and not to IARC.

 

The glyphosate authorisation process has drawn an extraordinary degree of public attention and concerns, particularly in the European Parliament, about the transparency of the European assessment process. “This is a particularly sensitive and complex case and there is consequently a strong public request for full transparency on the studies used by EFSA for the assessment of the carcinogenicity of the substance.” said Vytenis in the letter.

 

Vytenis believes that the proactive publication by the Glyphosate Task Force of the full studies including the underlying raw data would be beneficiai for the society as a whole and would facilitate the ongoing discussions and the decision-making process.