HHS, EPA launch joint review of glyphosate, as Trump pushes domestic production
by Mary McCue Bell · The Washington TimesThe Trump administration is including new research in its glyphosate pesticide review as it pushes to boost domestic production of the herbicide whose maker was recently shielded from cancer-related liability claims.
The Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency agreed Tuesday to form a joint technical working group of federal agencies to examine the chemical’s health risks.
Glyphosate, the active agent in the popular weed-killer Roundup, is used by farmers to remove invasive plants that choke crops. The herbicide’s manufacturer, Bayer, was mired in thousands of lawsuits alleging Roundup causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma until the nation’s highest court shielded the company from warning label liability.
The EPA is reevaluating glyphosate through its pesticide registration-review process and is updating its human health risk assessment of its carcinogenic potential, with completion anticipated in early 2027.
Both the EPA and Bayer have long maintained that glyphosate is not a carcinogen and poses no risk to public health when used according to the label. Still, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic.”
Tuesday’s agreement directs the joint group to focus on areas where “additional research and scientific coordination can strengthen the evidence base available to EPA,” including the toxicology of glyphosate formulations and surfactants, occupational epidemiology, human exposure, and biomonitoring and dietary exposure.
This agreement gives “scientists access to research capacity at HHS that addresses potential gaps in the record,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.
“We will evaluate the relevant evidence, address important scientific questions, and show our work, providing insight into how the science informs our decisions, as we always do, to conduct the most transparent and thorough review possible,” Mr. Zeldin added.
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In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bayer, determining that if the EPA registers a pesticide and does not require a specific warning on the label, a state cannot impose legal liability on a company for omitting that warning.
At the core of the argument was whether the biotechnology company committed a “failure-to-warn” violation by omitting a cancer warning on the product’s packaging.
President Trump signed an executive order in February to encourage the domestic production of glyphosate-based herbicides, dubbing them “central to American economic and national security.”
Days after the Supreme Court ruling, the U.S. Department of Agriculture rolled out a $500 million incentive to fast-track fertilizer production.
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Mary McCue Bell
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