Pesticide Action Network (Pan UK) and 12 UK based organisations have sent a signed letter to MEPs asking them to support an objection to the renewal of EU market approval for the toxic ingredient used in many widley used herbicides, Glyphosate. The vote will be held in Strasburg on the 13th of April.

The organisations object due to the very serious health, environmental and occupational concerns raises by the scientific community about glyphosate.

Glyphosate-based herbicides are widely used in agriculture, forests, public areas and private gardens. The use of this substance is so extensive that it is now detected in food, drinks and in the human body (including babies and young children).

Last year, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen”.

Glyphosate may also disrupt the human hormone system – the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and leading scientists have called for further investigation. Both its cancer causing and hormone disrupting properties would disqualify glyphosate from EU market approval under EU pesticides law. In addition, there are “many environmental, plant health and soil-ecosystem problems associated with heavy and repeated uses of glyphosate-based herbicides” according to the scientists.

The EU should immediately ban all uses of glyphosate that result in worker or public exposure.

To support the call please send a letter or email to your MEP – you can find your local representative here.

Download our letter and background information Glyphosate letter to MEPs

Endorse the call from the Global Food and Farming Union and PAN International for a glyphosate ban here.

 

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Published by wildcardenvironmentalist

Helen Lynn has worked on issues linking women, gender, health and the environment since 1995, initially at the Women’s Environmental Network where she was health co-ordinator for 12 years, then as a freelance consultant. She has worked internationally and at EU level with Women in Europe for a Common Future and is on their International Advisory Board. Her campaign work began with Putting Breast Cancer on the Map, which encouraged women to map local sources of pollution alongside incidence of breast cancer and she was one of the founders of the No More Breast Cancer Campaign. She is on the Soil Associations Health Products Standards Committee which develops and keeps under review standards for organic health and beauty care products. While at WEN she and the health team initiated the Getting Lippy campaign on harmful ingredients in cosmetics, the campaign covered all aspects of the issue including information on toxic ingredients, making your own cosmetics, misleading labelling and advertising of the products and which alternatives are available. Other campaigns Helen worked on included the Ban Lindane (a toxic pesticide used on crops) Campaign, Healthy Flooring, Enviromenstrual, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. She currently facilitates the Alliance for Cancer Prevention which works with occupational and environmental health specialists and activists to challenge the existing emphasis on control and treatment of cancer as the only way forward and to get equal recognition for primary prevention, particularly in relation to environmental and occupational risk factors. In 2014 along with fellow breast cancer activists she began the From Pink to Prevention campaign which aims to move the agenda towards Stopping Breast Cancer before it Starts.