The US Environmental Protection Agency has extended by 60 days the public comment period on the literature search that will feed its human health risk assessment of glyphosate, the world's most widely used herbicide, Global Agriculture reports. A Federal Register notice published on 28 September moves the deadline from 24 September to 23 November 2026.

EPA said it granted the extension "to allow for further meaningful input from stakeholders". The document under comment, first released on 25 August, sets out the systematic review strategy, search terms, databases and screening criteria EPA used to gather the science for glyphosate's human health hazard assessment, with a spreadsheet of the studies found. EPA is asking commenters to name peer-reviewed, publicly accessible studies its search may have missed, with full citations.

The review has run for close to two decades: EPA opened the glyphosate docket (EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0361) in July 2009 and issued a proposed interim decision in May 2019. The literature search is meant to bring the human health part of that assessment up to date.

The extension follows a memorandum of understanding signed in September between EPA and the Department of Health and Human Services, which set up a joint technical working group on glyphosate science and moved EPA's target for an updated human health risk assessment from late 2026 to early 2027. According to Global Agriculture, the new deadline confirms that slower pace.

The outcome matters beyond the United States, the report notes, because regulators in several other countries, including some in Asia and Latin America, benchmark their own glyphosate reviews against EPA's record, and India and China are major producers of generic glyphosate for export. The extension itself makes no finding on glyphosate's safety; it only lengthens the time for evidence to be submitted.

Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Source: Global Agriculture