The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services are joining forces to deepen the scientific review of glyphosate, with the agencies promising broader research, tighter coordination and greater transparency around one of the world’s most widely used herbicides.

 

The agencies announced a new interagency Memorandum of Understanding aimed at expanding the evidence available to the EPA as it conducts its ongoing registration review of glyphosate under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

 

The agreement will allow EPA and HHS to exchange scientific information, identify research gaps and expand research into potential human health effects. EPA, however, will retain sole authority over glyphosate registration decisions under federal pesticide law.

 

“FIFRA requires us to reexamine registered pesticides on a recurring cycle against the best available science, and that is exactly what we are doing with glyphosate,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. 

 

“This agreement with Secretary Kennedy and HHS gives our scientists access to research capacity at HHS that addresses potential gaps in the record. EPA will weigh what that work produces the way we weigh any other scientific evidence. We will evaluate the relevant evidence, address important scientific questions, and show our work, providing insight into how the science informs our decisions, as we always do, to conduct the most transparent and thorough review possible.”

 

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the partnership will bring additional federal scientific resources to unresolved questions surrounding glyphosate.

 

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

 

“We are bringing the scientific resources of HHS to the table to answer unresolved questions, strengthen the evidence, and give EPA the data it needs to conduct a rigorous review. We will ask the hard questions, demand sound science, and follow the evidence wherever it leads. This partnership advances President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again agenda by putting the health of the American people first.”

 

The agencies will establish a joint technical working group bringing together experts from EPA and multiple HHS agencies, including the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Toxicology Program, National Cancer Institute, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

 

The group will identify priority scientific questions, coordinate research and information-sharing, and align its work with EPA’s glyphosate registration-review schedule.

 

EPA said it will also systematically review relevant peer-reviewed research published since its previous assessment. Studies will be screened using the same criteria EPA applies to other published scientific literature, with relevant and sufficiently robust studies addressed in the registration-review record.

 

The agency's human-health assessment will examine exposure to glyphosate-based formulations, dietary exposure — including preharvest applications — and occupational exposure. It will also assess available evidence on cancer, genotoxicity, reproductive effects and developmental effects.

 

Under FIFRA and the Food Quality Protection Act, EPA must determine that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm from aggregate dietary exposure, with particular attention to infants and children.

 

EPA is already reevaluating glyphosate through its pesticide registration-review process. The agency is updating its human-health risk assessment and assessment of glyphosate’s carcinogenic potential, with completion anticipated in early 2027.

 

The new HHS-EPA agreement does not predetermine the outcome.

 

EPA said it retains final decision-making authority under FIFRA and that the MOU does not constrain its discretion under federal law.

 

The agencies also said they intend, consistent with applicable law, to make appropriate working-group materials available on a rolling basis through EPA’s public docket, EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0361, while protecting confidential business information and other legally protected material.

 

The agreement creates no new legal authority for either agency. Instead, it establishes a formal framework for bringing HHS expertise and data into EPA’s ongoing review as regulators assess the latest available evidence on glyphosate.