Viewpoint: Will France stand up for science in battle over glyphosate safety?

Emmanuel Macron agricultural policy french farmers agricultural fair eu brexit
French President Emmanuel Macron (Image credit: Getty)

In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron held fast with his environmental allies against science and declared they would ban the herbicide glyphosate despite the overwhelming consensus on its safety and necessity.

Farmers were alarmed.

French lawmakers gave Macron an exit from his bizarre political promise, so he can blame it on them that they have walked back his pledge to phase out use of the herbicide by 2021.

Meanwhile, Politico notes, the Belgian government rejected claims by the anti-science activists at Italy’s Ramazzini Institute who insist that glyphosate undermines sexual and reproductive health. There is no plausible biological or toxicological mechanism for that, so activists have instead had to pursue epidemiology – statistical correlation – and then trot out flawed pilot studies like Ramazzini creates using Sprague Dawley rats (naturally) hoping to legitimize the statistics they manufactured. But that has left them and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) alone against the world of science.

“In the end, these recent publications by the Ramazzini Institute provide very little for what we already know, namely that glyphosate can be used safely,” the government in Belgium wrote.

Read full, original post: With Glyphosate, Science Claws Out A Victory In France, While Ramazinni Loses More Credibility In Belgium

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