food agriculture

By Carey Gillam

European researchers have found new evidence linking popular weed killing products to cancer at levels currently considered safe.

The study focused on glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide and other brands, and is the latest of a series of studies examining the safety of the world’s most widely used weed-killing chemical.

Notably, the work comes as the European Union is wrestling over whether or not to keep glyphosate products on the market after the current approval expires in December.

The research has not yet been peer reviewed, but was presented Wednesday at an international scientific conference.

“We felt an urgency to present this data, and provide it to policy makers and the public,” said Daniele Mandrioli, director of the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy, which is overseeing a multi-faceted research program investigating glyphosate impacts called the Global Glyphosate Study.

“This is of extreme concern. We couldn’t sit on this data,” Mandrioli said.

Glyphosate is so widely used that it is ubiquitous in the environment- commonly found in food, water and human urine samples.

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