Amicus Brief Filed in Support of OEHHA and Prop 65 listing of Glyphosate

  January 27, 2018

01.26.2018, Moms Across America and National Health Federation filed an Amicus Brief, in support for California State Office of Environmental Health Hazards Assessment agency (OEHHA) and their Prop 65 State Toxics List and the addition of glyphosate to the list, after Monsanto and 11 State Attorneys General moved to get rid of Prop 65 and the listing entirely.

In May 2015, the International Agency Research for Cancer (IARC), a World Health Organization (WHO) body, classified glyphosate a probable carcinogen. This classification has had a lot of consequences, in particular an estimated 3.500 U.S. farmers that have been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma have decided to sue Monsanto, because they have used glyphosate based herbicides without having been notified that it could be damaging to their health.

This classification has also led the OEHHA to include glyphosate on the state’s list of products known to cause cancer, as required under a rule known as Proposition 65.

This is obviously a blow for Monsanto, since glyphosate is the declared active chemical ingredient in Roundup and over 700 other glyphosate-based herbicides, the most widely used types of herbicides in the world.

Consequently, the company, with big farm groups, has filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief on November 15, 2017 in order to delist glyphosate from the prop. 65 list.

Since then, it has won support from 11 U.S. states, including Missouri, home to Monsanto’s headquarters, and other farm states such as Iowa and Indiana. They argue that the warnings would be misleading because there is no definite link between glyphosate and cancer.

OEHHA, declined to comment. The office previously said it stands by the decision to include glyphosate on the state’s list of products known to cause cancer.
“Proposition 65 is 30 years old and for every one of those years there have been strenuous attempts to kill it on the ground that it’s different from other states,” said David Roe, the rule’s primary author. “They’ve always failed.”

See Moms Accross America’s release