A scientific publication (1) released today in the Journal of Environmental Health finds that an industry-funded study had drawn biased and unscientific conclusion on the neurodevelopmental toxicity of Chlorpyrifos. The authors of this critique highlight that based on the results obtained from the experiments, the industry should have reported neurodevelopmental toxicity. This was not the case. Neurodevelopmental toxicity is the observed toxicity on the neurological system and brain during early life exposures. Further, methodological shortcomings that reduce the probability from finding neurotoxic effects were identified.
This new evidence of science manipulation sends us back to the glyphosate scandal. A renowned independent scientist(2) had proven that Monsanto did not report carcinogenicity results to the European authorities that decided glyphosate was not carcinogenic.
Martin Dermine, PAN Europe policy officer said: “This is fraud and the story is repeating! PAN Europe has been advocating for years that regulatory studies and their reporting shall not be carried out by pesticide companies themselves. This is one of the demands of our new European coalition called Citizens for Science in Pesticide Regulation (3) in order to demand to the EU and Member States to take action to prevent such fraud to take place”.
Chlorpyrifos is an insecticide belonging to Corteva (formerly Dow Chemical company). This organophosphate was proven to reduce children IQ when exposed in their mothers’ womb or in the early life stage. This substance is currently under revision at EU-level, an opinion from the European Food Safety Authority is awaited in the coming months. In the frame of the revision of its EU approval, a group of NGOs (4) is demanding an EU-ban on this neurotoxic chemical and launched a petition (5).
Contact: PAN Europe, Martin Dermine, +32 486 32 99 92, martin [at] pan-europe.info
(1) Axel Mie, Christina Rudén and Philippe Grandjean (2018). Safety of Safety Evaluation of Pesticides: developmental neurotoxicity of chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl.
(2) Open letter: Review of the Carcinogenicity of Glyphosate by EChA, EFSA and BfR
(3) www.citizens4pesticidereform.eu
(4) Factsheet (2018) EU should ban brain-harming chlorpyrifos to protect health
