Glyphosate: Monsanto had been concerned about its toxicity since 1999

Is glyphosate dangerous for your health? By its manufacturer Monsanto’s own admission, this weedkiller, better known as Roundup, is toxic. It is in all that reveal documents declassified within the framework of a legal action carried out in the United States, indicates The world. Coincidentally, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) said on March 15 that it did not consider glyphosate to be carcinogenic or mutagenic.

These documents, already nicknamed the “Monsanto papers”, were made public thanks to a group action carried out by a hundred American farmers suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In view of the conclusions issued in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency dependent on the World Health Organization, they believe that their cancer is linked to the use of weedkiller on their land. At the time, Monsanto had qualified this work as “rotten science”, recalls the daily.

However, the reports and exchanges of emails made public this week show that fears have already shaken the Saint Louis firm in 1999. These 250 pages clearly indicate that Monsanto executives have tried to call on scientists to defend their flagship product to the public. European regulators. The objective: to prove that glyphosate is not a genotoxic, that is to say a substance capable of altering genes and causing cancer.

“Let’s take a step back and see what we really want to do,” wrote a company executive to his colleagues. We want to find someone who is familiar with the genotoxic profile of glyphosate / Roundup and who can influence regulators, or lead science communication work to the public, when the issue of genotoxicity is [du glyphosate] will be raised. “

Lobbying

The Missouri company then contacted Prof. James Parry. The British is one of the greatest specialists in the field. After studying glyphosate, the scientist is not playing Monsanto’s game. In his report submitted to the company he writes that Roundup is “clastogenic”, ie capable of breaking DNA strands and generating chromosomal aberrations. He explains that this property of glyphosate is linked to its ability to induce oxidative stress. Exactly the mechanism highlighted by IARC in 2015.

Obviously, Professor Parry’s report will never be published. Monsanto executives bury him and specify in their email exchanges that they will “simply not conduct the studies he suggests.”

In addition, declassified reports from 2001 indicate that surfactants, products added to glyphosate to boost its effectiveness, “are able to increase the absorption of glyphosate through the skin.” A mechanism rightly denounced by farmers.

“Something rotten” in Europe

In a press release, the American firm Monsanto defends itself and assures us that “glyphosate is not carcinogenic”. And she adds, “The claim that glyphosate can cause cancer in humans contradicts decades of studies by regulatory authorities around the world. The complainants put forward documents taken out of context. “

In Europe, these revelations go badly. For socialist MEPs, they are further proof that certain European agencies “are in the hands of lobbies”. “It is now clear that there is something rotten in the kingdom of certain European agencies: conflicts of interest, total lack of independence and transparency. This is not acceptable, ”they write, calling for a dismantling and reconstruction from“ A to Z of the European Chemicals Agency ”. They are also calling for the ban of this product, and more broadly of endocrine disruptors. “Decisions can no longer be postponed. It is no longer a question of applying the precautionary principle: the threat is proven, by Monsanto’s own admission, ”insist the MEPs.