Glyphosate
Glyphosate: The Cancer-Causing Roundup Chemical Found in Children’s Cereal
Glyphosate is a toxic pesticide widely used on crops. The active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, it is sprayed on oats right before harvest to dry them out, so it ends up in many oat-based products, like cereals and breakfast bars.
Since there is no federal monitoring of glyphosate in oats, we wanted to know how much Roundup could be found in oat-based breakfast foods popular with children. So we commissioned independent labs to conduct three separate rounds of tests.
After an initial set of tests revealed troubling amounts of glyphosate in popular oat-based products marketed to children, we twice expanded our test to include even more products. Once again, almost all of the products had levels of glyphosate above 160 parts per billion, which is our health benchmark for glyphosate in oats.
We know it is possible to grow oats and other grains without spraying weedkiller right before the grain is harvested, which is what leads to these high levels of glyphosate.
We will continue to put pressure on companies to work with suppliers to source oats that aren’t produced with glyphosate. Harmful pesticides don’t belong in kids’ breakfast foods.
EWG’s Tests of Glyphosate in Cereal
Glyphosate in the News
In its latest report on glyphosate residues on common children’s foods, EWG found that, like oats and wheat, chickpeas and other beans and lentils come with a dose of Roundup, a weedkiller formerly manufactured by Monsanto, now Bayer. The report’s authors, Alexis M. Temkin, Ph.D., and Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., recommend that everyone continue eating hummus and chickpeas. And as always, organic products are a much better choice.
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Independent laboratory tests commissioned by the Environmental Working Group found glyphosate, the notorious weedkiller linked to cancer, in more than 80 percent of non-organic hummus and chickpeas samples, and detected at far lower levels in several organic versions.
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The health-food staple hummus and the chickpeas it is made from can be contaminated with high levels of glyphosate, a weedkilling chemical linked to cancer, according to independent laboratory tests commissioned by EWG. The tests also found glyphosate in other kinds of dry and canned beans, dry lentils and garbanzo flour.
Read MoreIn a settlement reached today, Bayer AG agreed to pay $10 billion over claims its signature herbicide Roundup causes cancer in people, according to a report by Reuters.
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A federal judge in California has blocked efforts by the state to require cancer warning labels on Bayer-Monsanto’s signature weedkiller, Roundup.
Read MoreIn a legal brief filed with a federal appeals court this week, EWG staff attorneys argue Monsanto relied heavily on an untrustworthy and dubious government risk assessment to dispute a jury’s findings that the agrochemical company’s Roundup weedkiller caused cancer in a California man.
Read MoreThe Environmental Protection Agency reaffirmed its claims today that the active ingredient in Bayer-Monsanto’s carcinogenic weedkiller Roundup is safe, ignoring a growing body of independent research showing a strong connection between glyphosate and cancer in humans.
Read MoreKellogg's will take steps to phase out the use of the herbicide glyphosate to dry oats and wheat before harvest, eliminating use of the potentially harmful chemical in the main ingredients of many of the company’s breakfast cereals and other foods.
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A Monsanto executive said he wanted to “beat the shit out of’ a mothers’ group that urged the company to stop selling its Roundup weedkiller, according to internal emails obtained by lawyers for victims who say the pesticide caused their cancer.
Read MoreEnvironmental Working Group objects to the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed decision on glyphosate, the most heavily used pesticide in the U.S.
Read MoreTwo University of California, Berkeley alumnae recently succeeded in convincing the entire UC system to suspend its use of the cancer-causing pesticide glyphosate in its landscaping. If they can do that, maybe we all can accomplish something similar in our neighborhood schools, parks and playgrounds.
Read MoreEWG News Roundup (6/14): Here’s some news you can use going into the weekend.
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A toxic weedkiller linked to cancer was detected in every sample of oat-based cereals and snack products in a new round of laboratory tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group.
Read MoreThis week, more than 100,000 Americans officially joined EWG and 20 companies calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to significantly restrict the use of Monsanto’s weedkiller glyphosate on oats as a pre-harvest drying agent.
Read MoreWhen my son was born, we moved to Pullman, a small, rural town in Washington. This region, called the Palouse, is one of the biggest producers of wheat, barley and lentils in the United States.
Read MoreMonsanto paid a shadowy chemical industry front group to help push back against the mounting scientific evidence that the company’s signature Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, court documents reveal.
Read MoreEWG News Roundup (5/17): Here’s some news you can use going into the weekend.
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Plaintiffs awarded more than $2 billion in damages.
Read MoreEWG submits comments on the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s Draft Toxicological Profile for Glyphosate, supporting the agency’s report of a possible link between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. EWG urges ATSDR to establish a more stringent minimal risk level for glyphosate and to incorporate into their assessment findings from recent publications on cancer and reproductive harm due to glyphosate.
Read MoreThe Environmental Protection Agency is formally requesting feedback on a petition submitted by EWG and food companies seeking to significantly limit the use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Bayer/Monsanto’s weedkiller Roundup, on oats that are used to make a wide array of children’s foods, like breakfast bars and cereals.
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