Comment Submissions - Notice of Modification to Proposed Regulation on Safe Harbor Warnings for Glyphosate and Addition of Documents to Rulemaking File

Monsanto, which is owned by Bayer AG, has fought in the courts and lobbied heavily to thwart OEHHA’s inclusion of glyphosate on its list of risky chemicals. The IARC classification triggered the filing of tens of thousands of lawsuits against Monsanto by people alleging exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup, caused them to develop cancer. In defending against the litigation, Monsanto has pushed EPA officials to back the safety of the chemical, and has found solid support from the agency. The agency states on its website that its scientists found “No evidence that glyphosate causes cancer in humans.” But internal EPA communications show that agency scientists did indeed find such evidence and they disagreed with the official EPA position. One series of emails shows that scientists within the EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) advised in December of 2015 that the agency’s conclusion that glyphosate was “not likely” to cause cancer was “inappropriate” given the scientific research. The ORD scientists agreed with IARC in part, finding that there is “limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans,” that “rules out” the ability of EPA to say that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic, according to internal communications. This is a disappointing but typical bending of regulators to industry demands at the expense of human and environmental health.