Plaintiffs seeks animal testing results that supported Roundup approval
BEIJING (Reuters) — Three Chinese citizens are taking China’s Ministry of Agriculture to court in a bid to make public a toxicology report supporting the approval of Monsanto’s popular weedkiller, Roundup, 27 years ago.
The case, a rare example of a lawsuit by private citizens against the Chinese government, comes amid renewed attention on glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, after a controversial report by a World Health Organization group last month found it to be “probably carcinogenic to humans” — a claim denied by Monsanto.
It also underlines the deep-seated fears held by some Chinese over genetically modified food.
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Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court had accepted the case, but a date for a hearing has not yet been set, an official at the court told Reuters.
China imports about 65 percent of the world’s traded soybeans.
Monsanto officials have said glyphosate has been proven safe for decades. The company has de-manded a retraction from the WHO over its recent report.
The plaintiffs Yang Xiaolu, Li Xiangzhen and Tian Xiangping, are demanding in the lawsuit that the agriculture ministry make public the animal test that the ministry cited as evidence to support its approval of Roundup in 1988.
The test report by U.S.-based Younger Laboratories in 1985 was provided by Monsanto to the ministry, according to the plaintiffs, who argue that the ministry should allow the public to know how it determined that Roundup was safe.
The ministry has previously declined to show the plaintiffs the report, arguing that it would infringe on Monsanto’s commercial secrets, said Yang.
