The most comprehensive multigenerational study on glyphosate and Roundup herbicides has found dose-dependent anxiety-like behavior in rats exposed to doses regulators call “safe”. The findings, which will soon be peer-review published, add fuel to multiple smaller studies that have shown glyphosate to have a possible role in autism spectrum disorder.
Glyphosate-based herbicides are sprayed on everything from soybean fields to suburban sidewalks. Regulators in the United States and Europe have long maintained that the doses most people encounter are safe. However, this new comprehensive study, posted this month as a preprint by researchers from the Ramazzini Institute, University of California Santa Cruz, George Mason University and Boston College suggests that assumption deserves a harder look — at least when it comes to the brain.
The study exposed rats to glyphosate or one of two commercial formulations, Roundup Bioflow and Ranger Pro, continuously across three generations — starting in the womb and continuing for a full year of life. The doses spanned the European Union’s Acceptable Daily Intake, the level regulators consider safe for lifelong human exposure, up to the EU’s No Observed Adverse Effect Level, the highest dose at which no harm was supposed to occur.
