While the European Commission must decide on the re-authorization of glyphosate, the Minister of Health has confirmed that the pesticide would be banned in France.
For the World Health Organization, exposure to food residues of glyphosate is ultimately no longer that toxic? Very good. This will not prevent France from banning the herbicide. In any case, this is what the Minister of Health reaffirmed, when asked about France Info just hours from a decisive vote on this pesticide.
The European Commission must indeed decide by Thursday on the renewal of the authorization of glyphosate, a herbicide famous because it makes up, among other things, the Round Up. In 2015, the IARC, an independent offshoot of the WHO, had classified it among the “probable carcinogens” in humans.
Endocrine disruptor
For lack of a majority, the Commission’s vote was postponed. On the eve of this crucial meeting for the health of Europeans, Marisol Touraine therefore reiterated the position of France, which will vote against the renewal of the authorization of glyphosate. In addition, she recalled that apart from any more or less scientific calculation on thresholds, doses or modes of exposure, the substance was part of the class of endocrine disruptors and as such, it does not will no longer have citizenship in France.
“The President of the Republic said very clearly during the last environmental conference that glyphosate would not be authorized in France,” insisted the minister. Independently of the debates on the carcinogenic character or not of the glyphosate, we consider, and the studies we have available show it, that it is an endocrine disruptor ”.
According to her, “other studies are expected for 2017 but in the meantime, we are not renewing the authorization of glyphosate,” she added. Authorization for the pesticide expires at the end of June. To date, it is still used for the development of some 750 products marketed in around twenty countries.
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