On 03/06/16 10:56, Timothy Murphy wrote:
Jeff Layman wrote:

Sorry - I'm a bit confused here. You mentioned in an earlier thread that
glyphosate had been banned in The Netherlands for non-professional use.
According to your comment, unless *all* MS agree to allow it, then it
will be banned throughout the EU. So is this effectively a negative
veto? If one MS doesn't want it, and the rest do, it is banned? And if
one MS wants it, and all the rest don't, it is banned? Looks like
one-sided democracy to me.

If you looked up the article by the Commissioner for Food Safety
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-16-2011_en.htm
you will see that the measure requires _qualified majority_ support.
If you look up "qualified majority"
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/qualified_majority.html
you will see that this means that 16 out of the 28 states in the EU
must support the measure, and that they must represent
at least 65% of the EU population.

Thanks for the link to the explanation.

That seems to me a perfectly rational and democratic way of deciding
on an issue like this.

I am afraid we disagree on what is rational and democratic. Why not 50%,
or 50% plus 1 vote? I don't see where the 55% comes from. and "the
proposal is supported by countries representing at least 65 % of the
total EU population" seems a typical EU fudge of trying to satisfy the
main countries which pay for it. It reminds me of "the meek will inherit
the earth if that's all right with the rest of you".

I thought the Commissioner's statement was slightly misleading
in not stating that there is a difference of opinion
between the EU's ECHA (European Chemicals Agency)
and the UN/WHO's IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer).
The IARC believes that glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic"
while the ECHA believes it is "unlikely to be carcinogenic".

Also the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) seems to support
the WHO position.

My non-expert view, having looked at the documentation on the subject,
is that the WHO's view is more likely to be correct,
as it is based on a number of statistical studies in Canada and the USA,
while the ECHA's view is slightly indirect,
being based on criticism of the statistical arguments in these studies.
The FDA is currently carrying out its own studies.

Well, we've disagreed on this before. The latest report from WHO (Joint
FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues on 9 - 13 May, issued 16 May)
seems to show WHO backing off
(www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf). See section 1.2.

"Overall, there is some evidence of a positive association between
glyphosate exposure and risk of NHL from the case-control studies and
the overall meta-analysis. However, it is notable that the only large
cohort study of high quality found no evidence of an association at any
exposure level."

Reading between the lines, that suggests to me the "other" studies (are
those the ones you are referring to?) are of dubious quality and should
have little if any weight when coming to decisions on the
carcinogenicity of Glyphosate. .

The Australian Regulatory viewpoint is similar
(http://apvma.gov.au/node/13891), and they make reference to the FAO/WHO
report I mentioned above:
"The current assessment by the APVMA is that products containing
glyphosate are safe to use as per the label instructions."

Finally, as I asked in my 15 May post in the thread "Glyphosate again"
(ie before the FAO/WHO report was published), "I wonder why the IARC
monograph is taking so long to appear?"

--

Jeff