Federal environmental inspectors are dropping a contentious 2020 risk assessment on the link between Roundup and cancer, which featured the weedkiller's active key component, glyphosate.
The previous judgement by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed that there was no proof that glyphosate caused cancer, which sparked an outcry in the scientific community and among consumer advocacy groups. As a result, the EPA was sued in March 2020, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the agency had failed to follow its own criteria in producing the previous glyphosate assessment, ordering the agency to again review the risk by October 1.
The EPA informed the court last week that it will no longer pursue the lawsuit and is withdrawing the assessment because it cannot meet the court-imposed deadline, leaving glyphosate without a cancer risk assessment until it is reviewed again in 2026.
EPA officials emphasized that the agency's scientific conclusions have not changed, and that the removal of the assessment does not imply that regulators now think glyphosate causes cancer.
Glyphosate is the active component in Roundup and other weed killers that are extensively sold to consumers in the United States. The last EPA glyphosate safety evaluation was heavily criticized because it appeared to disregard warnings made by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2015, which opted to designate glyphosate as a likely carcinogen.
Following that warning, Bayer and its Monsanto subsidiary faced thousands of Roundup lawsuits filed by former Roundup users who developed non-lymphoma, Hodgkin's and internal documents were discovered that revealed the companies provided false and misleading information to consumers and regulators for years, implying glyphosate does not cause cancer.
Due to the complexities of the problems involved, the EPA now claims it will not be able to complete the evaluation until 2026. The agency has stated that it would not meet the October 1 court-ordered deadline, which left only 106 days to conduct the evaluation. Instead, the agency claims it will take four years to finish the review.
Depending on the severity of the findings, an EPA evaluation that finds glyphosate to be a cancer-causing chemical and a concern to the environment might result in additional limits or even Roundup recalls.
