Bayer Responds to New Glyphosate Study: ‘It is clear this study has serious Methodological Flaws’

By Jennifer Martson
Published June 13, 2025 on AgFunderNews

Agrochemicals giant Bayer has responded to a new study from a group of European Union (EU) and U.S. (US) scientists claiming that low doses of the weed killer glyphosate “cause multiple types of cancer in rats.”

The authors of the study, led by the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the Ramazzini Institute, claim it provides “robust evidence supporting the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) conclusion in 2015 that there is ‘sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity of glyphosate in experimental animals’.“

The study exposed Sprague-Dawley rats to three different glyphosate levels in their drinking water. Researchers employed two glyphosate-based formulations: Roundup BioFlow, used in the EU, and Ranger Pro, used in the US. Both products are made by Bayer.

Daniele Mandrioli, one of the study’s authors and a director at the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center, told AgFunderNews that rat bioassays “are the most predictive toxicological assays for human carcinogens.”

He also noted that, “in the present study we observed effects [of glyphosate] at doses equal or lower than the no adverse effect level (NOAEL) in rodents and other animal models.”

A ‘long history of making misleading claims’

Bayer’s Roundup herbicide, which it inherited from Monsanto when it acquired the company, is the best-known example of a glyphosate-based herbicide.

Bayer sent AgFunderNews the following statement: ”While we are still reviewing the report, it is already clear this study has serious methodological flaws, which is consistent with the Ramazzini Institute’s long history of making misleading claims about the safety of various products.

“The US EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] determined past Ramazzini studies did not meet the criteria of scientific quality for consideration in the registration review process.

“In addition, the EPA has retracted risk assessments that relied on Ramazzini Institute data regarding other substances and EFSA has publicly expressed its frustrations with the institute’s lack of transparency after it claimed to find adverse health effects caused by artificial sweeteners.”

In 2010, the EPA put four studies on hold after a report from the National Toxicology Program reviewed results from “some research studies completed by the Ramazzini Institute” and found “differences of opinion between NTP and RI scientists in the diagnosis of certain cancers reported in a study on methanol.”

Studies from the Ramazzini Institute have also come under scrutiny with the European Food Safety Authority, including one examining the impact of sucralose on mice, for which the EFSA concluded that the available data did not support the conclusions of the authors (Soffritti et al., [Soffritti M, 2016]) that sucralose induced haematopoietic neoplasias in male Swiss mice.”

‘Our findings reinforce IARC’s classification of glyphosate’

Ramazzini Institute’s two-year-long glyphosate study involved researchers from multiple institutions, including Boston College, George Mason University, King’s College London, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Scientific Centre of Monaco, University of Bologna, the Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology of the Italian National Research Council, the Italian National Institute of Health, and the National Food Safety Committee of the Italian Ministry of Health.

The study “observed increased incidences of benign and malignant tumors at multiple sites in Sprague-Dawley rats exposed to glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides at doses that are currently considered safe,” says Mandrioli.

Sites with tumors mentioned in the study include haemolymphoreticular tissues (leukemia), skin, liver, thyroid, nervous system, ovary, mammary gland, adrenal glands, kidney, urinary bladder, bone, endocrine pancreas, uterus and spleen (hemangiosarcoma).

Mandrioli notes that “early exposures starting from prenatal life are particularly detrimental: approximately half of the deaths from leukemia seen in the glyphosate and GBHs treatment groups occurred at less than one year of age, comparable to less than 35-40 years of age in humans.”

While Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats have been commonly used in research lab settings for decades, they are also widely known to be prone to spontaneous tumors. Another case involving Roundup, the Séralini study released in 2012, claimed a link between cancerous tumors on mice and glyphosate. The study was retracted in 2014.

Glyphosate under review

Glyphosate has been registered with the EPA since 1974.

The EPA’s 2020 decision re-affirmed earlier decisions concluding that “there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label” and that “glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen.” It did acknowledge the existence of “ecological risks to non-target organisms,” such as plants that get caught in spray drift.

Following a 2020 lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the EPA’s interim registration review decision. The NRDC case (with PANNA) alleged that the EPA decision was “based on a cursory and incomplete cost-benefit analysis of glyphosate,” and “was fundamentally flawed.”

Unable to meet the court’s deadline to finalize a new ecological risk assessment, the EPA decided to withdraw the entire interim decision, and said it would “revisit and better explain” its evaluation of glyphosate’s carcinogenic potential and conduct further analysis on its environmental impact.

As of right now, the agency has committed to a new review of glyphosate registration and risk assessment under the Endangered Species Act and Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

The European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency do not classify glyphosate as carcinogenic, and the European Commission approved it for use for another 10 years in 2023. That said, it remains a hotly contested chemical in the EU, and not all member states agree on it.

‘Glyphosate is not carcinogenic’

Bayer has faced ongoing litigation related to Roundup for years. At last check, the agribusiness giant had 67,000 active Roundup lawsuits pending, despite the fact that it has already settled almost 100,000 to the tune of nearly $11 billion.

While Bayer has won some of the litigation, plaintiffs have also scored around $4 billion in verdicts over time. Most recently, an appellate court in Missouri upheld a $611 million verdict for three individuals alleging that Roundup caused their cancer. Bayer has said it will further appeal that verdict.

Bayer has repeatedly emphasized to the public “the safety of [our] glyphosate products,” which the company says on its website that it stands behind.

“For more than 50 years, leading health regulators around the world have repeatedly concluded that our glyphosate products can be used safely, and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic.”

Read the original article on AgFunderNews »

Water Hardness Check Key to Glyphosate Efficacy

By Richard Allison
Published June 18, 2024 on Farmers Weekly

Farmers could be losing up to 30% efficacy of glyphosate in hard water areas, thereby increasing the risk of grassweed resistance by delivering a sub-optimal kill.

The discovery of glyphosate-resistant Italian ryegrass in Kent earlier this year has put the spotlight on the responsible use of the herbicide.

To help farmer’s achieve this, De Sangosse has produced a new stewardship guide in association with Adas weed expert John Cussans.

Launched at Cereals, the guide delivers clear, practical advice to help growers optimise glyphosate performance this coming autumn, ahead of drilling.

At the heart of the guide is a look at how glyphosate interacts with water in the spray tank.

Stuart Sutherland, technical business manager at De Sangosse says many farmers visiting the stand at Cereals admitted they don’t know how hard their water is, “so we are encouraging them to test their water.”

He explains that farmers could be losing up to 30% efficacy due to the calcium and magnesium in hard water binding with the active. This renders the glyphosate inactive, and this process is irreversible.

However, this can be solved by the use of a water conditioner like the company’s X-Change, which binds with the minerals before adding the herbicide.

He highlighted a trial comparing Italian ryegrass plants treated with glyphosate (equivalent to 3 litres/ha of Round-Up 360) in de-ionised water and in very hard water (650ppm) with and without a water conditioner.

It showed a decline in efficacy with hard water and the conditioner brought control back to the level with the de-ionised water.

Read the original article on Farmers Weekly »

Trump-backed Pesticide Report Led by RFK Jr. Draws Fire from Agrichemical Industry

By Ben Fedler
Published June 22, 2025 on Investigate Midwest

A new report linking pesticide overuse to children’s health issues has ignited a battle within President Donald Trump’s circle of support, pitting powerful agrichemical giants against some organic food advocates.

Last month, the Make America Healthy Again commission, chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., published a report on declining childhood health metrics. One of the leading culprits, according to the report, was the more than 1 billion pounds of pesticides used annually on the nation’s crops.

“This administration has done something that no other administration has ever done, which is to acknowledge the impact of toxic chemicals and products in our environment and in our society that are contributing to our physical and mental and reproductive health crisis,” said Zen Honeycutt, executive director of Moms Across America, a nonprofit that has called for a ban on dozens of pesticides.

The organization and others like it have mobilized around Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again campaign. Referred to by some as “MAHA moms,” the coalition of health advocates has become fierce supporters of Trump.

While the MAHA report stated pesticides are commonly found in the bloodstream of America’s children — “some at alarming levels” — Honeycutt wished the report had gone further. She also believes the report downplayed the amount of scientific research already showing links between pesticides and cancer, reproductive health harm and respiratory damage.

“But what gives me hope is what Trump has said and what Kennedy is saying and what the science shows,” Honeycutt said. “If they continue to honor their word ... and they acknowledge that pesticides are contributing to human health conditions, then the only steps to be taken will be to at least reduce the exposure of these chemicals to human beings.”

Reduced pesticide use will decrease food production

However, Trump is facing opposition to the report from another key constituency — farmers.

“It is deeply troubling for the White House to endorse a report that sows seeds of doubt and fear about our food system and farming practices,” said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Pesticides — used to control weeds and insects — are used by most farmers.

The Farm Bureau and several agrichemical groups said any effort to reduce pesticide use would decrease food production and harm farm income.

“This report will stir unjustified fear and confusion among American consumers, who live in the country with the safest and most abundant food supply,” said Alexandra Dunn, president and CEO of CropLife America, a national organization representing many large agrichemical companies, including Bayer, Corteva Agriscience and Syngenta.

Pesticide companies are in a position to push back on the MAHA report, especially after years of increased spending on federal lobbyists and political donations.

Bayer, the maker of the weedkiller Roundup, has faced an onslaught of lawsuits claiming its glyphosate product is to blame for thousands of cancer cases. In 2020, the company agreed to pay nearly $11 billion to more than 120,000 people who claimed the herbicide caused their cancer.

The company has increased its federal lobbying and political spending in recent years, and has also pushed for state-level laws that would shield it from further lawsuits.

Trump’s campaign and presidency have received millions of dollars in donations from the world’s largest agrichemical companies. The White House did not respond to a question about political contributions and its potential influence.

During Trump’s first term, deregulation was a central theme for both his environmental and agriculture agencies. His EPA overturned an Obama-era ban on chlorpyrifos despite science linking the pesticide to numerous childhood health issues.

In his second term, Trump has cut funding for scientific research at numerous agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Environmental Protection Agency is also considering a proposal to prevent states from requiring warning labels on pesticides, including glyphosate.

However, when the MAHA report was released, Kennedy attempted to portray the president as someone willing to further regulate the pesticide industry.

“(Trump is) blamed for giving money to billionaires, we hear about that all the time, but he is on the side of the middle class, the working class, the poor in this country,” Kennedy said at a May 22 MAHA commission meeting as the president sat smiling to his right.

“I’ve met every president since my uncle was president, and I’ve never seen a president (like Trump), Democrat or Republican, that is willing to stand up to industry when it’s the right thing to do.”

Only a baby step

George Kimbrell, co-executive director of the Center for Food Safety, which has advocated for stronger pesticide regulations, called the MAHA report a “baby step” in the right direction and acknowledged the tone over pesticide regulations could be shifting.

“Going back my entire career, 20-plus years now of doing this work, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, they have been beholden to and done the wishes of the pesticide industry,” Kimbrell told Investigate Midwest. “So, this is a unique moment where ... there’s a chance that there could be some positive change in terms of responsible oversight for these toxins.”

While some pesticide opponents hope the MAHA report encourages congressional action, Kimbrell said there are several steps within Trump’s control.

The Center for Food Safety, along with several other organizations, has asked the EPA to cancel all registrations of glyphosate herbicide, after the agency failed to demonstrate it can meet the required Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act safety standard.

Dicamba herbicides are banned this year from over-the-top applications, but Monsanto and other companies have asked the EPA to approve them for next year.

“That’s a simple thing the administration can do, just don’t reapprove it,” Kimbrell said.

Pesticide opponents want to see policies and more funding devoted to organic farming practices.

However, the Trump administration has moved to limit farmer resources to organic and climate-smart practices, including the removal of climate data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, which organic farmers have relied on. Following a lawsuit by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the USDA agreed to return the data.

Herbicides critical for weed control

While spotlighting the dangers of pesticides, the MAHA report also acknowledged that “American farmers rely on these products” and that the economic impact of removing pesticides must be considered.

Honeycutt, with Moms Across America, wondered why the pesticide section of the report was the only one to highlight economic challenges with imposing new policies.

“It is understood that the farming industry needs to be able to operate profitably, but I find it counter to the intent of this report that this is the only section, out of the dozens of contributing factors to health concerns, in which this type of wording is being used,” Honeycutt wrote.

Pesticide opponents note that organic crop sales have quadrupled since 2001, topping $20 billion in 2021, according to the USDA.

Harriet Behar, a farm services consultant for the Organic Farmers Association, said she disagrees with the notion that farmers need pesticides to be profitable.

“We’ve figured out ways to produce high-quality and abundant food without the use of glyphosate,” Behar said.

For 35 years, Behar worked as an organic farm inspector. As she met new organic farmers, she would always ask why they chose to go organic.

“And the farmer would say, “My uncle died of cancer, my wife was a breast cancer survivor, my child had leukemia,” Behar said. “They see the connection between the pesticide uses and they just didn’t want to continue, so they went organic.”

Read the original column on Investigate Midwest »

Bayer Settles Missouri Roundup Case Mid-trial; Looks to U.S. Supreme Court

By Carey Gillam
Published June 23, 2025 on The New Lede

Bayer this week put a halt to its latest courtroom battle over allegations that its weed killing products cause cancer, settling a Missouri case after four weeks of testimony and just as the trial was coming to a close and just ahead of important US Supreme Court consideration.

The confidential settlement, recorded June 16 in Missouri state court in St. Louis, came after the judge in the case denied Bayer’s motion for a directed verdict in the company’s favor that would have headed off jury deliberations. It is among many similar cases that Bayer has settled since purchasing Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018.

During the latest trial, lawyers for 54-year-old Albert Grantges argued that he developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) because of 20 years of heavy use of “potent” formulations of glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup, made with the active ingredient glyphosate. Grantges used large quantities of the company’s glyphosate-based herbicide products in his work as a landscaper as well as in personal use at his home, lawyer Tobi Millrood told the jury.

During the trial, Grantges’ lawyer presented jurors with evidence that Monsanto long had knowledge of research showing a connection between glyphosate and cancer, but worked to hide the evidence rather than warning its customers. Among the evidence presented in the case were excerpts from internal corporate files that revealed secret Monsanto tactics to downplay connections between its products and cancer, including discussions of ghostwriting scientific papers that asserted glyphosate did not cause cancer.

Bayer maintains that its glyphosate herbicides are not carcinogenic, and showed evidence at trial the company’s lawyers said demonstrate the product’s safety.

Millrood did not respond to a request for comment about the trial or the settlement.

Bayer confirmed the settlement without providing further details. When asked if the company is getting any closer to achieving a global settlement or other resolution to put an end to the wider Roundup litigation that involves tens of thousands of lawsuits brought by people blaming the company’s herbicides for their cancers, a Bayer spokesman said only that it is “confident in its legal strategy and is fully prepared to defend these cases at trial, but will consider resolving cases on appropriate terms when it is strategically advantageous to do so.”

Bayer has been exploring the option of pushing the Monsanto business into bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

Looking to SCOTUS

Bayer said Friday that it is looking to the US Supreme Court next week to take up the company’s request for a high court ruling on a key legal question that could dramatically impact the ongoing Roundup litigation.

Bayer’s petition for a writ of certiorari is scheduled for consideration by the court at its June 26 conference. Bayer hopes the court will agree with its assertion that federal law preempts state laws that allow “failure-to warn” claims, which are at the heart of the Roundup lawsuits. Bayer claims that because the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not require a cancer warning on labels of its glyphosate-based products, the company cannot add such a warning, and thus cannot be sued for failing to warn customers.

The company asked the court to resolve a divide among federal appellate courts in the Roundup litigation.

“Only the US Supreme Court can provide definitive guidance to state and federal courts that have reached different conclusions on this central issue,” Bayer said.

Alongside its efforts to get a favorable court ruling on the issue of preemption, Bayer has been lobbying state lawmakers across the country to pass preemption legislation to protect the company from litigation going forward. Georgia and North Dakota have passed such laws, and North Carolina lawmakers are now battling over the issue.

New study adds fuel to fire

A new study looking at potential health impacts of glyphosate and Bayer’s glyphosate-based herbicides is adding fresh fuel to the firestorm of controversy over Roundup. The study shows “solid and independent scientific evidence of the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides,” according to Daniele Mandrioli, director of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the Ramazzini Institute in Italy and principal investigator for the study.

The European Commission has asked for Ramazzini to share its data, so that European regulators can “formally assess” if the research findings impact the current regulatory risk assessment of glyphosate, according to a report in Euractiv.

Read the original column on The New Lede »

Are We Really Losing Roundup?

Chemical giant Bayer says it might stop making glyphosate. Offrange readers weigh in on what this announcement actually means for U.S. agriculture.
By Lela Nargi
Published June 21, 2025 on Offrange

This past March, German chemical company Bayer announced (warned? threatened?) that it might stop making glyphosate, the herbicide in Roundup that the company acquired when it bought rival chemical company Monsanto back in 2018. After having paid $11 billion to settle 100,000 lawsuits from people claiming exposure to Roundup caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other cancers — and with over 65,000 cases still pending — Bayer is hitching the future of its glyphosate production in the U.S. to the whims of the Supreme Court, from which it seeks protection from further litigation.

A recent MAHA report barely mentioned glyphosate’s potential health risks; nevertheless, the report has troubled (outraged? disturbed?) American row crop groups, which means this controversy probably won’t fizzle out anytime soon.

That got us wondering what Offrange’s readers made of the hullaballoo. More than 40 of you weighed in on the matter, expressing opinions that ranged from the pithy (“get rid of it”) to the significantly more nuanced. So here, using your thoughts and experiences as a springboard, we take a dive into the pros and cons of glyphosate; what the most recent science tells us about its human health impacts; and what Bayer’s announcement may or may not mean for the future of the most popular weed killer in the world.

First, as many of you pointed out, glyphosate is not going anywhere anytime soon. Since its patent expired in 2000 — and with it, Monsanto’s exclusive right to use it in products sold here — off-brand formulations for agricultural use, with names like Buccaneer and Killzall, have been widely available at the local farm supply. They’re often cheaper than Roundup, which is also still ubiquitous. “If you’ve got to buy 1,000 acres of product,” said Steve Haring, an agronomist with a new, small cider orchard in central Virginia, “the generic formulations are pretty good.”

What accounts for Bayer’s announcement, then? We asked Charles Benbrook, a pesticide expert and expert witness in litigation against the company. The liability for glyphosate, he explained, will always be Bayer’s — not the companies that make Buccaneer or Killzall — as the inheritor of the former primary manufacturer. To salvage their tanking stock price and protect their other assets, he expects they’ll sell off their production and formulation plants in Iowa and Louisiana, then place all remaining liability into a spin-off company infused with several billion dollars.

That would be used to settle future lawsuits till the funds are gone; the spin-off might then declare bankruptcy or otherwise make it difficult for plaintiffs to collect awarded payments. As Investigate Midwest reported last June, Bayer’s CEO doesn’t deny this possibility, saying he’ll “explore every reasonable option to protect the company and protect our mission from the litigation industry.” The announcement, then, might be seen as a provocation, meant to drum up support.

Offrange reader Haring considers himself a glyphosate “agnostic,” neither strictly pro nor con. He manages his orchard vegetation with a string mower because “baby trees are easy to kill” with herbicides, and he’s not concerned about weeds competing for water. “If I had an irrigation system, with weeds growing on or around the drip lines,” things might be different.

Brent Searle, an organic raspberry, tomato, garlic, and winter squash farmer in eastern Idaho, expressed a similar strain of “meh.” He uses OMRI-approved herbicides on his crops but glyphosate on his three acres of driveway. Organic chemicals, he said, “hit you with a six-times cost” that is “astronomical” for small-scale growers, “and honestly, they don’t work as well. But I see both sides. I know the benefit for farmers, but I’m not convinced that there isn’t a lingering impact on the environment” — in particular, for his honeybees.

Rick Machado, who breeds seeds for experimental crops like sea beets in Bakersfield, California, once “trashed Roundup and the devil Monsanto”… until he got hit with bindweed. “All of a sudden I found myself in a position of needing” the herbicide, he said. “I used it, I kicked myself, but there was nothing I could do.”

Mihail Kennedy is production manager for B Bar, a regenerative organic ranch in central Montana. Where conventional neighbors “burn down the range” with herbicides to obliterate cattle-toxic larkspur, he sees this as “fighting 20 years of overgrazing and not understanding the system.” Weeds pop up in response to poor soil quality in order to “start the mineral cycle again and make nutrients more available to other plants,” he said. Glyphosate chelates those nutrients, binding with them to ensure they remain unavailable. At B Bar, Kennedy said, “Our whole philosophy is managing for life, not with death. We don’t kill any plants” on the range — with glyphosate or anything else. They deal with rangeland weeds by releasing cattle onto mountain pastures later, when larkspur’s not as palatable, and seeding in more diverse perennials.

Jim Smith, an organic farmer and former landscaper, witnessed a comparable dynamic in North Carolina with Japanese knotweed. When this much-reviled plant emerges to restore degraded soil, he said, people “spray it with Roundup and it comes right back” — helping create herbicide-resistant weeds and further trashing the soil. Globally, 56 species of weed are now resistant to glyphosate, driving up use of other, more toxic herbicides; where once GMO corn and soybean seeds were merely Roundup Ready, they’re now increasingly engineered to resist 2, 4-D, dicamba, and glufosinate, too.

The relevance of glyphosate to no-till was top-of-mind for Jeff Stoltzfus, a farm food safety educator at Penn State’s extension. The conservation plan for his own 45 acres connected to the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which is plagued by sediment issues, requires that he use no-till practices. “It’s been a huge soil saver. It’s a huge cost saver,” he said. And he doesn’t see a way to practice no-till without glyphosate. “There’s a couple of other things we could use” to control weeds — 2, 4-D, Gramoxone — ”but I’m not sure what the gain would be. Those are not safer chemicals by any stretch of the imagination.” He sees the proliferation of Roundup as a big win for safety. “There’s no herbicide I’d rather use,” he said.

Other Offrange readers concurred. On his 17,000-row crop and hog acres in Henry, Tennessee, the use of glyphosate is 100 percent a given for Jimmy Tosh. It’s helped him control Johnson grass; he’s seen no evidence of weed-resistance on his land; and he believes claims that Roundup causes health issues are “ridiculous,” he said. “Most studies show it to be a safe and effective chemical.

In a related vein, Mark Nussbaum used glyphosate when he grew Roundup Ready row crops in Girardeau, Missouri, 20 years ago; he uses it now on his 800 acres of hardwood trees. And he said he’ll continue to do so until “there becomes scientifically based, peer-reviewed evidence that glyphosate is harmful.”

Is it true that science hasn’t proven glyphosate has adverse effects on human health? There are a few relevant threads to pull here. As a number of you noted, the vast majority of legal claims against Bayer come from home users. And several others of you remarked that it was the surfactants in glyphosate-based herbicide (GBH) formulations that were responsible for human health concerns. Surfactants help the product to penetrate the weed; they also penetrate human skin.

As pesticide expert Benbrook explained, homeowners and landscapers tend to spray their yards with a handheld wand, with skin exposed. They feel no sickening effects as the product gets absorbed and enters their bloodstream — as opposed to, say, touching atrazine — leading them to believe it’s innocuous. Farmers, on the other hand, “are driving tractors and sprayers with glass and steel cabs [and] sophisticated air filtration systems ... The only time they’re exposed is when they get out of the machine to refill the tanks.”

Had Bayer labeled bottles intended for consumers with guidance to wear chemical-resistant gloves, that would have reduced exposures to what Benbrook called “this terrific herbicide.” In response to lawsuits, Bayer agreed to remove glyphosate from its lawn and garden products back in 2023 — although a 2024 review conducted by environmental group Friends of the Earth found that it remained in some formulations still available on store shelves.

There are other health concerns surrounding commercial Roundup formulations, however. These, said Benbrook, pertain to spraying glyphosate as a desiccant on wheat, oats, and barley right before they’re harvested — a practice banned in the EU because it leaves residue on food crops intended for human consumption. Ninety percent of Americans pee glyphosate because of its use as a desiccant, said Benbrook.

And peer-reviewed, non-industry-backed science papers have indeed linked glyphosate to preterm delivery, low birth weight, late-term spontaneous abortions, and neurodevelopmental issues when mothers have been exposed to the chemical. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified it as a probable human carcinogen in 2015 — a study that Jimmy Tosh, echoing the sentiments of farming groups and U.S. EPA, called “flawed” — but other peer-reviewed studies have since reached the same conclusion. Benbrook said what (partly) accounts for the difference is that EPA used largely industry-commissioned studies in its analysis; and it looked solely at dietary exposures to pure glyphosate, versus IARC’s additional considerations of dermal exposures and formulations.

Earlier this June, the results of a large, global peer-reviewed study, looking at both pure glyphosate as well as two formulations, were released. “The increased incidence of leukemia, and of skin, liver, thyroid, nervous system tumors were observed across all three treatment groups,” the paper concluded.

“It’s biochemistry and you’re going to get hurt if you’re not careful with it,” said Rick Machado.

Read the original column on Offrange »

Read more from the "In the Weeds" Series »