The US Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services have signed a memorandum of understanding to coordinate their scientists on EPA's ongoing registration review of glyphosate under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

A joint technical working group will draw experts from EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs and several HHS bodies — the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Toxicology Program, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health and the Food and Drug Administration. It will focus on the toxicology of glyphosate formulations and surfactants, occupational epidemiology, biomonitoring, and human and dietary exposure, and help EPA identify data gaps, including emerging topics such as the microbiome.

"This agreement with Secretary Kennedy and HHS gives our scientists access to research capacity at HHS that addresses potential gaps in the record," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the department would "ask the hard questions, demand sound science, and follow the evidence wherever it leads."

EPA is revising its human health risk assessment and its review of glyphosate's carcinogenic potential and expects to finish in early 2027; the assessment will cover formulations, dietary exposure including from pre-harvest applications, and occupational exposure. EPA keeps sole authority over registration decisions, and the agencies said the agreement creates no new authority and does not predetermine the outcome.

Glyphosate, the off-patent active ingredient in Roundup, is the world's most-used agricultural chemical. The partnership comes after Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again movement targeted pesticides while President Trump issued an executive order calling access to glyphosate a national-security priority. The Center for Food Safety said the collaboration would take years to yield usable results.

Photo: Benjah-bmm27 / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Source: AGDAILY