EPA scientists disagree if glyphosate (Roundup) has cancer-causing ingredients

Members of the Environmental Protection Agency's Scientific Advisory Panel disagree on whether glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, causes cancer, Stephen Davies reports for Agri-Pulse. Some members agreed with EPA's assessment that the world's most widely used herbicide is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans," while others said that "the evidence was 'suggestive' of carcinogenic potential for the chemical."

"Panel members who supported EPA said the evidence from the epidemiological and animal studies was simply not strong enough to support anything else," Davies writes. "But there was uncertainty all around the table as members wrestled with EPA's review of the data in its September 2016 'white paper.'"

"The controversy over the chemical primarily stems not from any regulatory finding, but from a conclusion by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer in March 2015 that glyphosate probably causes cancer in humans," Davies writes. "Representatives of both the European Food Safety Authority and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment offered testimony disagreeing with the IARC conclusion." The European Union in June threatened to stop selling U.S. weed killers.