Monsanto Co. has filed a lawsuit in California to prevent glyphosate from being added to the state’s list of known carcinogens, Reuters says. The news outlet reports that the state’s law requires it to keep a list of cancer-causing chemicals to inform residents of their risk. California said it planned to add glyphosate after the World Health Organization classified it as a probable human carcinogen last year.
According to Reuters:
Monsanto Co. stepped up its defense of a widely used herbicide on Thursday by filing a lawsuit in California seeking to prevent glyphosate, the main ingredient in its Roundup herbicide, from being added to the state's list of known carcinogens.
The seed and agrochemicals company said it filed the suit against the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) and the agency's acting director, Lauren Zeise, in California state court, according to the filing seen by Reuters.
California law requires the state to keep a list of cancer-causing chemicals to inform residents of their risks.
OEHHA said in September that it planned to add glyphosate to the list after the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified it as a probable human carcinogen last March.
Monsanto has disputed assessment, citing decades of studies deeming glyphosate safe, including a 2007 study by OEHHA that concluded the chemical was unlikely to cause cancer.
"The IARC classification of glyphosate is inconsistent with the findings of regulatory bodies in the United States and around the world, and it is not a sound basis for any regulatory action," said Phil Miller, Monsanto's vice president of regulatory affairs.
Monsanto's lawsuit argues that listing glyphosate under Proposition 65, as the state's law is known, based on IARC's classification cedes regulatory authority to an "unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable, and foreign body" that is not subject to oversight by any state or federal entity.
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