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Lawmakers Looking at EPA Glyphosate Review for Bias

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are conducting an investigation into a recent review of glyphosate by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after charges that staff at the agency may have influenced the World Health Organization's (WHO) own review of the chemical.

In a letter from the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, lawmakers made clear they were looking into why the EPA posted and then withdrew an internal report that said glyphosate was not cancer causing.

The WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate, the main chemical in Monsanto's RoundUp herbicide, as cancer causing last year, which put it at odds with the findings of the EPA's cancer assessment review committee (CARC).

"Given the apparent contradictions of the CARC and IARC findings for glyphosate ..., the committee has concerns about the integrity" of the WHO review, the role of EPA officials in that review and their influence on the outcome of the EPA study, the committee's letter to the EPA said.

Lawmakers were also concerned that some EPA staff worked on both reviews.

The EPA said that the release of the internal review was accidental and that it was "currently reviewing our standard operating procedures for the release of documents to avoid the inadvertent release of pre-decisional information in the future." [Source: Reuters]


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