The Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament on Tuesday, 15 January in Strasbourg published a report detailing the extent of plagiarism by Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), which was the rapporteur Member State for the re-evaluation of the risks of glyphosate in the EU – a plagiarism of pesticide industry studies at over 50%.
This report, commissioned by two Austrian experts – Stefan Weber and Helmut Burtscher-Schaden – was published on the eve of the European Parliament vote on the recommendations of its special PEST committee to improve the transparency, independence and accountability of the European pesticide authorisation procedure (see EUROPE 12170, 12155).
As is well known, the BfR has included about 100 pages of studies from the ‘glyphosate task force’, which included Monsanto and other companies applying for the renewal of glyphosate authorisation in the EU.
“The independence of the public authorities’ assessment of the substances that the chemical industry wants to place on the European market is a prerequisite for legitimate political decisions”, commented Bart Staes (Greens/EFA, Belgium), co-rapporteur of the PEST Committee. “The Authority has flouted the risks to the environment and humans, and the whole EU has based itself on this. Glyphosate needs to be re-evaluated”, added Maria Noichl (S&D, Germany).
Among the recommendations submitted to the Parliament vote on Wednesday is that in the future, it will be up to the Commission to designate the rapporteur Member State and that all scientific studies should be publicly available before EFSA carries out the assessment, taking into account the commercial interests of companies.
According to the study, 72.5% of the evaluation of independent scientific studies (in Volume 3 of the study) on the toxicity of glyphosate is a plagiarism of the dossier provided by the ‘glyphosate task force’; in this copy and paste, 50.1% of the evaluation of independent scientific studies is a plagiarism of the same dossier; only 27.2% is a comment by the BfR itself. As for studies from industry, 81.4% of them are copied and pasted onto the applicant's file.
On Tuesday, the Lyon Administrative Court cancelled in France the marketing authorisation of Bayer/Monsanto’s Round-up Pro 360 – which was welcomed by the chairman of the PEST Special Commission, Eric Andrieu (S&D, France).
To consult the study, in English: https://bit.ly/2VUqkhd. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)