Monsanto’s Carcinogenic Glyphosate Is In Large Number Of Children’s Cereals

 

According to a new study  conducted by the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG), a large  number of consumer products, including children’s cereal, contain the  carcinogen Glyphosate. Glyphosate is, of course, the chemical that was recently found to  cause cancer and other health problems. Glyphosate is the main  ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, which has been slowly  getting banned all over the world this year. The study reported that 31 out of 45 of the products that were tested  contained levels of the chemical that are potentially unsafe. 

These  products ranged from snack foods and granola bars to children’s cereal. “We’re very concerned that consumers are eating more glyphosate than they know,” Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs at EWG told CBS News. 

Some of the companies named in the study have responded to the  accusations, claiming that their products may contain Glyphosate, but  not enough to actually cause any harm. General Mills, the company behind many of the cereals tested in the study, issued the following statement in response: 

Our products are safe and without question they meet  regulatory safety levels. The EPA has researched this issue and has set  rules that we follow as do farmers who grow crops including wheat and  oats. We continue to work closely with farmers, our suppliers and  conservation organizations to minimize the use of pesticides on the  crops and ingredients we use in our foods.

Quaker, who was also named in the study, had this to say: 

We proudly stand by the safety and quality of our Quaker  products. Producing healthy, wholesome food is Quaker’s number one  priority, and we’ve been doing that for more than 140 years. Quaker does not add glyphosate during any part of the milling  process. Glyphosate is commonly used by farmers across the industry who  apply it pre-harvest. Once the oats are transported to us, we put them  through our rigorous process that thoroughly cleanses them (de-hulled,  cleaned, roasted and flaked). Any levels of glyphosate that may remain are significantly below any  regulatory limits and well within compliance of the safety standards set  by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Food  Safety Authority (EFSA) as safe for human consumption. Quaker continually evaluates our product portfolio to ensure the  highest quality and safety standards for our consumers. While our  products comply with all safety and regulatory requirements, we are  happy to be part of the discussion and are interested in collaborating  with industry peers, regulators and other interested parties on  glyphosate.

Monsanto even issued a statement of their own, telling CBS that  “glyphosate does not cause cancer” and “has a more than 40-year history  of safe use.” The statement went on to say that, “even at the highest level  reported… an adult would have to eat 118 pounds of the food item every  day for the rest of their life in order to reach the EPA’s limit” for glyphosate residues. 

It may be very true that the researchers who conducted the study were  using a lower threshold than the EPA does to determine the toxicity,  but scientists disagree about what the safe level actually is, with many thinking that the official standard is dangerously high.

 Furthermore, the EPA has been caught tampering with these threshold levels in pesticides before. In 2013, as a fresh wave of studies showing the dangers of the chemical were being released, the EPA actually raised the accepted levels. 

A 2015 report from the Chicago Tribune revealed that the EPA  intentionally obfuscated data and changed their own standards so they  could allow an unsafe chemical made by DOW to get an acceptable rating.  

After the EPA approved the chemical, a number of environmental groups  including the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice quickly sued the  agency, forcing them to retract their approval several months later. When the EPA finally reversed their decision  in 2015, they claimed that “new information” surfaced to make them  change their minds, however, according to the Tribune’s report and the  accusations of many activists, the EPA knew all along and were colluding  with DOW to approve a substance that was proven to be harmful. The chemical in question was a new herbicide that combined 2,4-D and glyphosate. According to the Tribune’s report, 

EPA now says it is safe to allow 41 times more 2,4-D into  the American diet [than previously allowed for decades]. To reach that  conclusion . . . the agency’s scientists changed their analysis of a  pivotal rat study by Dow, tossing aside signs of kidney trouble that Dow  researchers said were caused by 2,4-D.

The report went on to describe how the EPA received test results from  DOW that proved their product was below the EPA’s standards, so they  tampered with the study so it would pass. As The Free Thought Project  reported last week, a landmark case against Monsanto’s Roundup  weedkiller concluded in San Francisco in which a jury awarded $289  million in damages to a former school groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson,  concluding that Roundup gave him terminal cancer.