Glyphosate, an herbicide and the active ingredient in Monsanto Co’s (MON.N) popular Roundup weed killer, will be added to California’s list of chemicals known to cause cancer effective July 7, the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) said on Monday.
Monsanto vowed to continue its legal fight against the designation, required under a state law known as Proposition 65, and called the decision “unwarranted on the basis of science and the law.”
The listing is the latest legal setback for the seeds and chemicals company, which has faced increasing litigation over glyphosate since the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said that it is “probably carcinogenic” in a controversial ruling in 2015.
Dicamba, a weed killer designed for use with Monsanto’s next generation of biotech crops, is under scrutiny in Arkansas after the state’s plant board voted last week to ban the chemical.
OEHHA said the designation of glyphosate under Proposition 65 will proceed following an unsuccessful attempt by Monsanto to block the listing in […]
You would have a hard time walking into a building in California without passing by a sign warning you of the potential cancer risk associated with building materials used to construct the building. This is only symbolic victory, but the chemical will continue being used as usual. Warning labels aren’t going to keep these chemicals from getting into our drinking water. Don’t be pacified by these symbolic victories, it is only posturing, and accomplishes little more than making law makers look good to their base.