The European Commission has taken unprecedented steps in restricting two weedkillers that have been linked to infertility, cancer and other disruptions in human hormone systems.
Its usage will now be banned from 30 September across Europe, after an EU committee voted unanimously for the first ever ban on endocrine-disrupting herbicides.
A branch of the United Nations and the EU's food safety authority have issued contrasting views on its risk to humans.
Last year, the World Health Organisation ruled that the compound was likely to be ‘carcinogenic’.
Health Commissioner Andriukaitis proposed to ban two of these pesticides, the herbicides Amitrole and Isoproturon, in a meeting of the EU Standing Committee. Amitrole is capable of causing malformations of the offspring and of inducing thyroid cancer; Isoproturon of causing adverse effects to reproduction and of lowering fertility.
A European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) analysis found that Amitrole was an endocrine disruptor that could damage unborn children, and have toxic effects on the thyroid and on reproductive organs.
Pesticide Action Network said it applauds the two proposals but at the same time notes that a large reservoir of harmful classified and endocrine disrupting pesticides is waiting for a decision which is repeatedly postponed by Commission.
"In the meantime these pesticides stay on the market and people and the environment remain unprotected against their harms," PAN said.
