EU Commission Declares Report on Glyphosate Risk Assessment A Secret

Posted on Aug 18 2015 - 6:40pm by Sustainable Pulse

The EU Commission is refusing to let independent experts have access to the report prepared by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) on the risk assessment of glyphosate.

Source: https://www.testbiotech.org/en/node/1326

In a letter to Testbiotech dated 10 August 2015, the Commission says that the documents made available to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) by the German government “are protected in their entirety” as confidential. The EU Commission can see “no overriding public interest” that would justify access. There is, however, clearly public interest in the matter since the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World health Organisation (WHO) has already declared that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans. However, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), is claiming there would be no risk to human health.

As stated in the letter from the EU Commission, “disclosure of these documents at this stage of the process will be premature and would seriously undermine EFSA’s on-going decision-making process”. Nevertheless, it appears that Monsanto and other producers of glyphosate have already had access since they reviewed an advanced draft of the report, dated January 2015. Soon afterwards, industry quickly published a scientific paper claiming that glyphosate would not be carcinogenic. This was then promptly picked up by the German authority for the final version of its report.

“According to the Commission, giving industry access to the report does not undermine the process of risk assessment of glyphosate, whilst giving independent experts access to the data apparently does,” says Christoph Then for Testbiotech “Glyphosate is present in many food products, it is the most widely used herbicide in the world. If it is carcinogenic it could impact consumers’ health substantially. Therefore, from the perspective of public interest, there is no doubt that transparency in risk assessment must be given a high priority.”

Despite a court ruling made by the European Court of Justice in 2013 (Case T‑545/11), which said that data relevant for the risk assessment of herbicides have to be made public, there is still no sign that the EU Commission and EU Member States are complying with this process to create more transparency.

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6 Comments so far. Feel free to join this conversation.

  1. A. Tygard August 18, 2015 at 21:52 - Reply

    I’m dumbfounded! How can this be? What’s the big secret? Who’s running this group? Monsanto? There’s an elephant in the room and it’s the question of why any information about a chemical used in or on foodwould be a secret for any reason? Time to tell all WITHOUT Monsanto’s permission being needed. Is it so bad that populations will riot? Seems so.

    • Jenn Peters September 4, 2015 at 20:23 - Reply

      It’s a secret because original studies show the dangers, and it puts regulating bodies right between the sheets with the corporations. When the Court of Justice takes a back seat to what the corporations say it’s time to be very afraid.

  2. hiwalei August 19, 2015 at 01:12 - Reply

    This is why Monsanto and companies like Monsanto can not be trusted, they are secretive and don’t want people to know what we are eating. WHY is That.?

    America wants Labels!

    Give the people what we want. If our communities do not want GMO crops then we don’t want GMO crops.

    If our STATES WANT LABELS Give Us LABELS!

    No more secrets! Release Information from Studies on Glyphosate and GMO’s and all other chemicals.

  3. Bradley Scott Roon August 20, 2015 at 02:31 - Reply

    Well this is TOTALLY logical. When you realize HOW INCREDIBLY SAFE Glyphosate really is (just feels like i need an exclamation point here to show my wondrous enthusiasm for ROUNDUP, yee hah) then you know why they did this!

    Roundup is SO SAFE that people reading the raw study WOULD DEVELOP CONTACT HEALING EXPERIENCES and the entire health industry would fall apart in days! (shudder)

    No sarcasm was hurt in the typing of this message.

  4. Nancy Swanson August 20, 2015 at 03:45 - Reply
  5. Diana Clyne August 21, 2015 at 02:03 - Reply

    ATTENTION JOURNALISTS: The German Freedom of Information Act (Informationsfreiheitsgesetz) entered into force on 1 January 2006, created a legal right of access to official information held by Federal authorities. PLEASE GO FOR IT.

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