Exit glyphosate in Austria. The Austrians are the first in the European Union to totally ban glyphosate on their territory. The Austrian Parliament voted for this ban on the basis of the “precautionary principle”. If the Austrian deputies voted in majority for this amendment proposed by the social democratic party SPÖ, the opponents of this ban consider it contrary to the European regulations. In 2017, the EU member states voted for the five-year extension of the authorization of this herbicide, marketed under several brands such as Monsanto’s Round Up.
For years, glyphosate, herbicidethe most used in the world, unleashes passions around its dangerousness. Since 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization has classified the product as “probable carcinogenic” to humans. A qualification far from unanimous among experts, voices rising regularly to claim the lack of scientific evidence around the association between exposure to weedkiller and the appearance of cancer. “No scientific study formally proves its carcinogenicity neither in France, neither in Europe nor in the world “, affirmed to La Dépêche du midi, not without causing controversy, Pierre Médevielle, UDI senator of Haute-Garonne. This one contributed to a parliamentary report which relativizes the toxicity of the glyphosate, released Thursday, May 16.
Glyphosate prohibited for individuals in France
In France, glyphosate should be banned “for all uses” within five years, the government has promised. Since the start of the year, individuals cannot no longer obtain this weedkiller or use it. And since 2017, the use of glyphosate has been banned in public places such as green spaces.
Across the Atlantic, the controversial link between exposure to Round Up and cancer cases is at the heart of a harsh court battlewhich has already resulted in several defeats for Monsanto (which now belongs to Bayer). Last May, an American jury ordered the company to pay two billion dollars to a couple in their seventies, believing that regular exposure to the herbicide was responsible for their cancer.
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