European Food Safety Authority and German risk assessment institute BfR are in contempt of the law in claiming glyphosate is unlikely to pose a cancer risk, say groups

In an open letter, thirty-one European environmental, health, trade union, consumer protection and medical organisations have called upon EU Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the Ambassadors of the member states to stop any further extension of glyphosate’s authorisation.

Signatories of the open letter include Pesticide Action Network Europe, Breast Cancer UK, Corporate Europe Observatory, the International Union of Food Workers, and GMWatch.

The letter points out that in assessing the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and concluding that it was unlikely to pose a cancer risk, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) ignored relevant OECD guidelines, falsely interpreted animal carcinogenicity studies, and systematically rejected relevant epidemiological studies by wrongly claiming them to be "unreliable”.