Glyphosate Unlikely Carcinogenic to Humans, Says Joint WHO/FAO Committee Report

A summary report was released on May 16, 2016, after the Joint Meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues in Food and the Environment and the World Health Organization (WHO) Core Assessment Group on Pesticide Residues held at the WHO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, from May 9-13, 2016.

The joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet. The report states that glyphosate has been extensively tested for genotoxic effects using a variety of tests in a wide range of organisms. The overall weight of evidence indicates that administration of glyphosate and its formulation products at doses as high as 2000 mg/kg body weight by the oral route, which is the most relevant to human dietary exposure, was not associated with genotoxic effects in an overwhelming majority of studies conducted in mammals, a model considered to be appropriate for assessing genotoxic risks to humans.

Diazinon, glyphosate, and malathion were placed on the agenda by the JMPR Secretariat, based on the recommendation of the last session of JMPR to re-evaluate these compounds given the number of new studies that had become available since their last full assessments.

A copy of the full report is available for download from the WHO website.