House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) on Tuesday accused Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy of giving misleading testimony on an international study on the safety of the widely used herbicide glyphosate.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer released a report in March 2015 saying glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.” Other international organizations, including the United Nations and World Health Organization, have published reports that conflict with IARC’s findings. In September, the EPA published a paper that said glyphosate is probably not carcinogenic and scheduled a Scientific Advisory Panel meeting for Oct. 18-21. Then, a few days ahead of the meeting, the agency postponed it for later this year.
McCarthy told the committee in June that no EPA employees worked on the IARC report. But the Science Committee released two documents that appear to contradict that claim. One is a series of emails on the glyphosate study that includes one epa.gov employee email address. The other lists several EPA employees as the authors of chapters on glyphosate.
“In light of these contradictions, recent actions taken by EPA to further delay the Science Advisory Panel review for glyphosate do not instill confidence that EPA will fairly assess glyphosate based on sound science,” Smith wrote in the letter to McCarthy.
Glyphosate is a herbicide used in Monsanto’s “Roundup” weed killer.
