What are the health dangers of glyphosate? Why is it still used?

Brussels wants to authorize the controversial herbicide; ten more years. A vote is organized this Friday, October 13, 2023. The Twenty-Seven will have to make a choice.

The days of glyphosate could no longer be numbered… Indeed, this Friday, October 13, 2023, the Twenty-Seven are called to take action. to express itself on its future, while the European Commission has proposed on September 20 to extend its authorization within the Union for ten years. Initially the authorization had been granted. renewed for five years in 2017 and had expired in December 2022 before finally being renewed for one year, time necessary to obtain new evaluations.

What dangers for health?

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, linked to à World Health Organization (WHO), categorized glyphosate in 2015 as "probably carcinogenic to humans". As relayed by Le Dauphiné, various studies carried out on professionals have highlighted an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In 2021, an Inserm report also denounced the genotoxicity of the drug. herbicide, know the fact that it is likely to cause dysfunction or alteration of the genome by damaging the DNA. Increased risks of multiple myeloma and leukemia were also pointed out, even if the results were less convincing.

A link between malformations and prenatal exposure to recognized weedkiller

À a few days before the vote of the Twenty-Seven, the Grataloup family decided to to come out of the silence. Théo, the son, now aged aged 16, has serious malformations of the larynx, esophagus and respiratory system. Potentially in question? Prenatal exposure to glyphosate. Experts from the Pesticide Victims Compensation Fund (FIVP) thus recognized in March 2022 "the possibility of of the causal link between childhood pathology and exposure to pesticides during the prenatal period due to child activity. professional status of one or both parents.

Recognition which gave him/her compensation. A first in France, relays Le Monde. Before, never had a herbicide been used. recognized as a cause of congenital malformations. "We could no longer be silent. We could not let politicians and journalists continue to do so. “to say that there was no problem with glyphosate”, confided to franceinfo Sabine, Théo's mother, who denounces: "Behind the statistics, there are families, sick people […] We speak out so that decision-makers take into account people who are suffering."

So why continue to do so? use glyphosate?

According to an opinion from the Authority European safety guide According to the Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published in July 2023, glyphosate would not present a “point of major concern”. An opinion on which has also decided to rely on the European Commission to propose the extension of the use of the most widely used herbicide of the world.