We will launch a massive protest jointly against government’s decision to lift the ban imposed on using glyphosate weedicide for tea and rubber plantations, said Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) Secretary Dr. Nalinda Herath.
Expressing his concern on local citizen’s health he told Daily News Online, ‘even though this weedicide may help to gain more crops and hence gain more economic benefits to the said industries, it is very unhealthy’.
In a previous press conference held on April 11, the GMOA stated that they believe glyphosate causes cancer and kidney deceases.
When it was inquired from Plantation Industries Minister Navin Dissanayake as to why a health hazardous chemical was approved to be allowed for the top two commercial crops in Sri Lanka, the Minister said that these statements made by the GMOA are false.
‘Glyphosate is not hazardous’, the Minister said and added, ‘It has been proven by the World Health Organization (WHO) and it is a two way carcinogen’.
Last November the world's largest study on the health effects of glyphosate covering over two decades and involving 90,000 people, found no harmful effects even on applying powerful statistical analysis to scrutinise the data, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) said.
Furthermore the Minister said in response to GMOA who alleged that government politicians are carrying out personal agendas for personal gain, that ‘it is the GMOA who is aligning their claims according to agendas of other anti-government movements’.
However the ban which was imposed on utilizing glyphosate was lifted this afternoon on tea and rubber industries, by the government.