WHO/FAO: glyphosate is safe

Genetically modified products are safe and clean without the use of dangerous chemical pesticides, also supply human health, the environment will be maintained. Safety of biotechnology has been approved repeatedly by the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the European Union food safety (EFSA).

 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) believes that the European Unions opinion on these products for the health and food safety is research-based and very reliable. Also, according to a recent report released by American Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine in 2016 which studied 900 cases and approved that GM crops are healthy.

 A Joint Meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues in Food and the Environment and the World Health Organization (WHO) Core Assessment Group on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) was held at WHO Headquarters, Geneva (Switzerland), from 9 to 13 May 2016. Diazinon, glyphosate and malathion were placed on the agenda by the JMPR Secretariat, based on the recommendation of the last session of JMPR to re-evaluate these compounds given the number of new studies that had become available since their last full assessments.

The statement said that Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide. Several epidemiological studies on cancer outcomes following occupational exposure to glyphosate were available. The evaluation of these studies focused on the occurrence of NHL. Overall, there is some evidence of a positive association between glyphosate exposure and risk of NHL from the case-control studies and the overall meta-analysis. However, it is notable that the only large cohort study of high quality found no evidence of an association at any exposure level. Glyphosate has been extensively tested for genotoxic effects using a variety of tests in a wide range of organisms. The overall weight of evidence indicates that administration of glyphosate and its formulation products at doses as high as 2000 mg/kg body weight by the oral route, the route most relevant to human dietary exposure, was not associated with genotoxic effects in an overwhelming majority of studies conducted in mammals, a model considered to be appropriate for assessing genotoxic risks to humans. The Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to be genotoxic at anticipated dietary exposures. Several carcinogenicity studies in mice and rats are available. The Meeting concluded that glyphosate is not carcinogenic in rats but could not exclude the possibility that it is carcinogenic in mice at very high doses. In view of the absence of carcinogenic potential in rodents at human-relevant doses and the absence of genotoxicity by the oral route in mammals, and considering the epidemiological evidence from occupational exposures, the Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet. The Meeting reaffirmed the group ADI for the sum of glyphosate and its metabolites of 0-1 mg/kg body weight on the basis of effects on the salivary gland. The Meeting concluded that it was not necessary to establish an ARfD for glyphosate or its metabolites in view of its low acute toxicity.