In June 2011, Earth Open Source published a report by a group of international scientists, “Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?”[2] which examined the original approval documents for glyphosate and found that industry’s own studies from as long ago as the 1980s-1990s (including some commissioned by Monsanto) showed that glyphosate causes birth defects in laboratory animals, specifically rabbits and rats.

Birth defects were found in these industry studies not only at high, maternally toxic doses, but also at lower doses. As the industry studies were supposed to be on pure glyphosate, they show that it is not only the toxic added ingredients in Roundup (called adjuvants or co-formulants) that cause problems, but also glyphosate itself. Earth Open Source disagrees with Germany’s interpretation of these industry studies as laid out in its report to the EU Commission in 1998.

In this report, which formed the basis of the EU Commission’s current approval of glyphosate, Germany incorrectly classified malformations as “rather a developmental variation than a malformation” and dismissed findings of malformations at lower doses.[2]

Earth Open Source believes that as a result of such data being ignored, a potentially unsafe “acceptable daily intake” limit for glyphosate was set by Germany and accepted by the Commission in its 2002 approval. Earth Open Source says that the industry study findings are confirmed by Carrasco’s research, which found birth defects from both Roundup and pure glyphosate.