Three and a half hours of public hearings on the Monsanto Papers revelations did not suffice at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday 11 October to shed light on possible influence from the US agrichemical giant, Monsanto, on regulators on either side of the Atlantic or possible gaps in risk assessment of the glyphosate active substance in the EU.
After the hearing, the two S&D MEPs who had organised it, Belgium’s Tarabella and France’s Éric Andrieu, said that a parliamentary investigative committee must be set up to determine areas of shadow and the liability of each stakeholder.
The hearing, organised by the European Parliament’s agriculture and environment committees, was not attended by representatives of Monsanto or the German risk assessment institute (BfR). Their failure to show up was strongly criticised by the MEPs. Independent scientists like Prof. Portier, a representative from the WHO’s international cancer centre (CIRC/IARC), representatives of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) stuck to their respective positions.
Glyphosate is a likely carcinogen for human beings as far as the independent scientists are concerned, and the European agencies say it is probably a carcinogen. The latter both said loud and clear that their assessments were carried out fully independently in line with their mandate and EU legislation – Regulation 1107/2009 on authorising the sale of phytosanitary products.
All recognised, like Martin Pigeon of NGO Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), that the EFSA lacked finance and resources for carrying out its own risk assessments without making use of those of industry. Moreover, while glyphosate should be banned, alternative solutions would need to be found that are sustainable and farmers would need financial and technical support.
There was such confusion in the highly technical debate that comments by Belgian MEP Frédérique Ries (ADLE) after the hearing summed up the general feeling that it had been a pointless debate because after three hours of discussion, nothing was clear. He said politicians were asked to make a decision but science is unable to reach conclusions. Yet the member states are due to vote on 23 October on renewing authorisation for glyphosate for ten years. This is unacceptable. Prof. Portier said the main problem was the way some studies had been ignored, particularly one in 2001 that found lymphomas in mice. The ECHA recognises the validity of the test, but also ignores it, he explained in dismay.
In the panel on the science behind the assessment of glyphosate, Prof. Christopher J. Portier of Maastricht University in the Netherlands criticised the way the EFSA and ECHA had omitted a study of several of the 34 identified tumours in rats and mice in international scientific literature. He said the current procedures are not scientifically sound and independent experts are needed to assess the raw data in order to avoid bias in the results and to publish all the assessments.
Kate Guyton, professor at the WHO’s CIRC/IARC, said the CIRC/IARC’s assessment was based on hundreds of studies in the public domain and had been revised by experts without any hidden interests. They had concluded that glyphosate was in the 2 A category (a classification reserved for chemicals for which there is almost enough evidence to say they are carcinogens).
In response to Éric Andrieu, Prof. José Tarazona, head of the pesticide unit at EFSA, swept aside the criticisms of the EFSA that it had simply copied and pasted a hundred pages of a 2012 document from Monsanto. He said there had been a lot of talk about copying and pasting of phantom studies by companies but the reporting member state, Germany, verifies that the data is correct and concerns effects on the environment, human health and animal health. He said the modifications to the BfR’s conclusions had been done after the peer group assessment (27 member states plus Norway) and Germany felt it was not necessary to set a reference dose. Tarazona said they had incorporated the effects on pregnant rats and set a acute reference dose of 5 mg/kg. He added that risks had been identified for the environment and farmers and it is for the member states to assess each formula and each mix based on the EU’s risk assessment.
During the panel on transparency and use of scientific studies in assessing the risk of glyphosate in the Unites States, investigative journalist Carey Gillam, author of ‘White Wash,’ a book on Monsanto’s practices, said there had been a decade of deceit and manipulation by the company. She said the Monsanto Papers revelations shows that the American agrichemical giant wrote scientific articles that it got other scientists to sign to back up the claims of glyphosate being safe. She said Montano had convinced regulators to not give any credit to studies demonstrating risks. It intervenes in an underhand way in articles and reports presented by academics to regulators that make no mention of the company’s name. In 2015, she explained that Monsanto had said it did all it could to prevent us having an American CIRC.
Bart Staes (Greens/EFA, Belgium) and Marc Tarabella (S&D, Belgium) shed doubt on the independence of Prof. David Kirkland, a consultant who had come to bear witness who had been paid €18,000 by Monsanto for writing a study for them in 2012. Kirkland replied that he had revised the data available in the public domain and it was because he had been paid that he wasn’t credible.
During the panel on transparency and the use of scenic studies in the EU’s risk assessment, Michael Pigeon, who was behind the Citizen’s Initiative ‘Stop Glyphosate,’ said that if one had a reliable, robust and transparent risk assessment system, one wouldn’t have the Monsanto problem. The EFSA has neither the means nor the budget it needs and cannot pay experts. Millions are found to give to the pharma industry, but not for the EFSA’s budget. He said the problem was that the raw data comes from industry and cannot be published, which explains the copying and pasting. He said that European agencies couldn’t run the risk of being taken to court by Monsanto for failing to publish the entire report.
British MEP Julie Girling (ECR) tried to upset matters, stating that Martin Pigeon had, in vain, questioned the integrity of the sources of the organisations that concluded without citing sources that there was a danger regarding active substances. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)