Sep 13, 2015

California EPA to warn that Round Up can cause cancer

The California Environmental Protection Agency is planning to label Monsanto's Round Up herbicide as a cancer-causing chemical. This is just the most recent warning that has been leveled against the chemical by environmental and health groups around the world. In the past year, government agencies have finally caught up with activists who have been protesting against Monsanto and their dangerous products for years.

In a statement released earlier this year, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer announced that glyphosate, the main ingredient in RoundUp, is "probably carcinogenic."

This week, the EPA's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in California released a "notice of intent" to label the product as a carcinogen. Meanwhile, the issue is up for discussion for California residents, who have until October 5th to speak their mind on the measure. Due to a law passed in the state in 1986 called Proposition 65, the state is required to publish a list of chemicals that are known to cause cancer birth defects or reproductive problems. Now that glyphosate is now on that list officially worldwide, the state is required to add it to the list.

Nathan Donley, staff scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco said that this is a major victory in the fight against da