In the European Union, under the plant protection products regulation (2009-1107) the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) carries out the risk assessment and the Commission approves the active ingredient.
Recently, EFSA found glyphosate safe as an active ingredient, while International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared glyphosate a “probable human carcinogen”.
EFSA refers to the active ingredient, disregarding the issue of the co-formulants raised in the article 27 of the plant protection products regulation, while IARC refers to the formulation (active ingredient plus co-formulants). Hereby, I do not want to highlight other methodological differences of the two Agencies, e.g. how the studies for assessment were selected, but only the approach: active ingredient or formulation.
In the attachment a document where the issue has been raised some years ago and now someone has ignored the issue.
Based on this case and/or similar cases, the main question is the following:
How is the risk assessment procedure for the plant protection products in your countries/institutes, and what is your opinion?
The methods used by EFSA to assess the active substances are very different to those used by IARC. I personally believe that the risk assessment procedure should be undertaken both with the active substance and with mixture. It's certainly time consuming and costly, but it is the only way to improve food safety for human health. As regards the glyphosate, the situation in EU is very much problematic with some MS willing to renew its usage and others not.
Thanks a lot. I also belive that a full and reliable risk assessment should be done with the formulated product.
Indeed, it would be time consuming and costly, however in-silico and in-vitro methods could help a lot.
For the sake of the discussion, I have added the recent regulation on glyphosate in which is also stated: “Member States shall ensure that plant protection products containing glyphosate do not contain the co-formulant POE-tallowamine (CAS No 61791-26-2)”.
Best regards,
Roberto
- Badges
- Science topic