Glyphosate toxicity and carcinogenicity: a review of the scientific basis of the European Union assessment and its differences with IARC.

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide worldwide. It is a broad spectrum herbicide and its agricultural uses increased considerably after the development of glyphosate-resistant genetically modified (GM) varieties. Since glyphosate was introduced in 1974, all regulatory assessments have established that glyphosate has low hazard potential to mammals, however, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded in March 2015 that it is probably carcinogenic.

Application of omics data in regulatory toxicology: report of an international BfR expert workshop.

Advances in omics techniques and molecular toxicology are necessary to provide new perspectives for regulatory toxicology. By the application of modern molecular techniques, more mechanistic information should be gained to support standard toxicity studies and to contribute to a reduction and refinement of animal experiments required for certain regulatory purposes. The relevance and applicability of data obtained by omics methods to regulatory purposes such as grouping of chemicals, mode of action analysis or classification and labelling needs further improvement, defined validation and cautious expert judgment.

Assessment of three approaches for regulatory decision making on pesticides with endocrine disrupting properties.

Recent EU legislation has introduced endocrine disrupting properties as a hazard-based "cut-off" criterion for the approval of active substances as pesticides and biocides. Currently, no specific science-based approach for the assessment of substances with endocrine disrupting properties has been agreed upon, although this new legislation provides interim criteria based on classification and labelling. Different proposals for decision making on potential endocrine disrupting properties in human health risk assessment have been developed by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and other regulatory bodies.