Policy Watch: HHS and EPA move to coordinate on glyphosate review

HHS joins the EPA’s scientific review of glyphosate risks

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the US Environmental Protection Agency have agreed to coordinate scientific research supporting the EPA’s ongoing review of the herbicide glyphosate under the registration review process for pesticides.

“Americans have a right to know what the best science tells us about the chemicals they encounter in their food, workplaces, and environment,” HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says in a Sept. 22 HHS announcement.

Under the new interagency memorandum of understanding (MOU), the agencies will exchange scientific information, identify research gaps, and expand research into potential human health effects, according to the HHS. The EPA’s human health risk assessment will examine exposure to glyphosate-based formulations, such as dietary exposure, including that from preharvest applications, and occupational exposure, and it will evaluate available evidence on cancer, genotoxicity, and reproductive and developmental effects.

The EPA’s registration review process periodically reevaluates registered pesticides. Its 2020 interim decision on glyphosate found no human health risks of concern when the substance is used as directed, and deemed it unlikely to be carcinogenic, but the agency withdrew the decision in 2022 after a federal appeals court found the EPA’s cancer analysis inadequate. The agencies expect the EPA to complete its updated human health risk assessment in early 2027.

The Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit advocacy group, questions whether the collaboration will produce usable results on the EPA’s timeline. “While we would like to believe ‘this time it’ll be different,’ we are skeptical given EPA’s long history of approving toxic pesticides at the behest of the pesticide industry,” says Bill Freese, the center’s science director, in a Sept. 23 statement in response to the HHS announcement.

Bayer, which markets glyphosate-based herbicides, has defended the EPA’s previous assessments of the herbicide. In a June statement following a Supreme Court ruling involving glyphosate-based Roundup, the company said, “The EPA has repeatedly and unequivocally determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic.”

The new agreement comes after the Donald J. Trump administration’s steps both to expand scrutiny of glyphosate’s potential health effects and to support glyphosate industry. In February, Trump signed an executive order aimed at protecting domestic production of glyphosate-based herbicides.

—Joe Beeton, special to C&EN

Democrats introduce bill to restore the EPA’s ‘core mission’

Two Democratic congressmen proposed legislation Sept. 16 that would reinstate some US Environmental Protection Agency environmental regulations and programs that the agency has moved to eliminate or modify during President Donald J. Trump’s second term.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) introduced HR 10425, the Environmental Health Restoration Act of 2026, to revive the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment, they say in a Sept. 22 press release.

“The Trump EPA has fully abandoned its decades-long duty to protect Americans’ health and safety. Its relentless attacks on science have delivered for big political donors while poisoning our air and water and speeding up the climate crisis,” Whitehouse says in the release. “Our bill would jumpstart the process of restoring the science, the scientists, and the original mission guiding the EPA.”

If passed, the bill would reinstate canceled or revised EPA regulations on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for fossil fuel–fired power plants, the mercury and air toxics standards for power plants, the GHG reporting rule, and many other climate-related rules and policies that the agency has rolled back during the second Trump administration. The bill would also reverse the rescindment of the endangerment finding, the scientific and legal underpinning for federal climate regulations; reconstitute the Science Advisory Board; and establish a minimum number of staff at the EPA to be able to enforce the agency’s programs.

The bill is cosponsored in the Senate by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). It was referred to committees in the House and Senate ahead of the House’s early shutdown last week. The full Congress will be back in session after the midterm elections in November.

—Leigh Krietsch Boerner

HHS moves to reduce animal testing and advance human-based research

The US Department of Health and Human Services on Monday announced a series of actions to encourage researchers to move away from animal testing and toward human-based models for evaluating new drugs and therapies.

The US Food and Drug Administration updated its regulations on using alternatives to animal testing in drug development, changing terms such as “animal tests” and “animal studies” to “nonclinical tests” and “nonclinical studies.” This update opens the door to the use of animal alternatives such as computer simulations, human cells, and organs-on-chips—what the agency categorizes as new approach methodologies (NAMs).

Meanwhile, the US National Institutes of Health announced that it is funding new projects and facilities for human-based testing, including the Bio Genesis Autonomous Human Biology Laboratory that will evaluate drugs and treatments in a standardized human biological system. The NIH issued a request for information on developing a reporting system for the number of laboratory animals used in NIH-funded labs. It is also recruiting reviewers to evaluate research models such as organoids, 3D cell clusters that mimic the function of organs.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is using computer simulations to predict drug safety and dosage without using mice and rats, while the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reducing the size of its laboratory animal colonies. “We are applying greater scrutiny to animal research and focusing our resources on science that directly advances our public health mission,” CDC director Erica Schwartz says in a Sept. 21 press release.

The actions this week are part of a continuing push across the Donald J. Trump administration to reduce reliance on laboratory animals. Earlier this summer, the US Environmental Protection Agency opened the door to using NAMs to assess chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act and made it easier to use alternatives to animal studies.

Animal Wellness Action, an animal-welfare activist group, praises the FDA’s moves to “strip out archaic language requiring animal testing” in a Sept. 21 press release.

Lawmakers are also pursuing legislation to further limit animal experiments. On Wednesday, House legislators introduced the Companion Animal Protection Against Cruel Testing (COMPACT) Act, which would prohibit federal money from funding medical research on live dogs and cats.

—Umair Irfan

California passes first US law to address safety of smoke-damaged homes

California governor Gavin Newsom on Sept. 15 signed two bills—AB 1642 and AB 1795—that together task insurance companies with using science-based standards to assess when a smoke-damaged home is safe to occupy after a wildfire. This move comes almost 2 years after the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles County.

“[AB] 1642 is there to set up the science and the health requirements, and 1795 is there to make sure that everything that the insurance has to do is enforced,” California Institute of Technology geochemist François Tissot tells C&EN. He’s glad to see both pass; in 2025, after evacuating his home, he tasked his research group with measuring the heavy metal pollution spread by the urban inferno. He ultimately worked with the office of California State Assembly member John Harabedian and Eaton Fire Residents United in support of AB 1642.

AB 1642 directs California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to establish testing and remediation regulations for lead and asbestos as well as guidance for a suite of other toxic metals and organic pollutants found in urban wildfire smoke. AB 1795 requires that insurance cover these tests.

AB 1642 also instructs the DTSC to establish health thresholds for several of the contaminants, including arsenic and cadmium. Without these safety levels, it has been difficult to know whether cleaning has made a home safe to occupy, Tissot says.

Together these bills will likely provide sorely needed clarity for people dealing with their insurance after a fire, says Joost de Gouw, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Colorado Boulder. He also cautions that “there’s still a lot to be learned about the impact of urban fires on indoor air and indoor environments in general.” It may be challenging to develop testing methods that are both accessible and provide detailed-enough data to make remediation decisions, he notes.

Tissot is well aware; he says AB 1642 was purposefully drafted to require that the DTSC hold a public comment period during which scientists should provide the most up-to-date research to inform the new regulations.

While the safety thresholds are sure to be updated in the future, “we want to make sure that those initially introduced standards are as adequate as possible,” Tissot says.

—Fionna Samuels