The report, released in 2018, was published by Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., senior science advisor and Alexis Temkin, Ph.D, Toxicologist. They explain,

“Major food companies like General Mills continue to sell popular children’s breakfast cereals and other foods contaminated with troubling levels of glyphosate, the cancer-causing ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. The weedkiller, produced by Bayer-Monsanto, was detected in all 21 oat-based cereal and snack products sampled in a new round of testing commissioned by the Environmental Working Group.”

The tests detected glyphosate in all 28 samples of products made with conventionally grown oats. All but two of the 28 samples had levels of glyphosate above EWG’s health benchmark of 160 parts per billion, or ppb.

According to EWG,

“Products tested by Anresco Laboratories in San Francisco include 10 samples of different types of General Mills’ Cheerios and 18 samples of different Quaker brand products from PepsiCo, including instant oatmeal, breakfast cereal and snack bars. The highest level of glyphosate found by the lab was 2,837 ppb in Quaker Oatmeal Squares breakfast cereal, nearly 18 times higher than EWG’s children’s health benchmark.”

You can view the complete results of the tests and each product tested, here.

In April of 2018, internal emails obtained from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that scientists found glyphosate on a wide range of commonly consumed food, to the point that they were finding it difficult to identify a food without the chemical on it.

Although Quaker and General Mills have said there is no cause for concern given their products meet the legal standards, there is a plethora of literature suggesting no amount of ingested glyphosate is safe.

“It is commonly believed that Roundup is among the safest pesticides…Despite its reputation, Roundup was by far the most toxic among the herbicides and insecticides tested. This inconsistency between scientific fact and industrial claim may be attributed to huge economic interests, which have been found to falsify health risk assessments and delay health policy decisions.”

R Mesnage (et al., Biomedical Research International, 2014, article ID: 179691

These particular findings by EWG came after a landmark decision in a San Francisco court that ordered Monsanto (now Bayer) to pay $289 million in damages to Dewayne Johnson, who at the time was a 46 year old former school groundskeeper. The jury found that the Roundup weedkiller caused Johnson’s cancer and that it had failed to warn him about the health risks of exposure.

In 2020, the New York Times reported the that the company dished out $10 billion to cover approximately 95,000 cases.

This is why the EWG and other health conscious groups advocate for organic foods. Tests have consistently shown a significant reduction in harmful substances, like glyphosate, in organic food. In many cases, no traces of these substances can be found in organic food, but in some cases they are.

In 2019, a study published in the journal Environmental Research found that an organic diet significantly reduced the pesticide levels in children and adults. Their urine was used to measure pesticide levels and in just one week pesticide levels dropped 60 percent. Other studies have found a 90 percent reduction.

The most significant drops occurred in a class of nerve agent pesticides called organophosphates. This class includes chlorpyrifos, a highly toxic pesticide linked to increased rates of autism, learning disabilities and reduced IQ in children. Organophosphates are so harmful to children’s developing brains that scientists have called for a full ban.

A study published in the British Journal of Nutrition outlines a significant difference in nutritional content when it comes to organic food compared to non-organic food.

Many substances we now spray on our food were  initially developed as nerve gases for chemical warfare. They are linked to a wide variety of diseases, from cancer, to alzheimer’s, parkinson’s, liver diseases and several others.

This is why it’s not surprising that a eating organic foods free from pesticides is strongly correlated with a dramatic reduction in the risk of cancer, according to a study published in 2018 in an American Medical Association journal. The observational study led by a team of French government scientists tracked the diets of nearly 69,000 people. Four years later, those who consumed the most organic foods were 25 percent less likely to develop cancer. Of course, there are many limitations to the study and other factors that could play a role as to why the organic group experienced less instances of cancer.

There are so many examples of products approved for mass use that should not have been approved. There are countless examples of corruption and collusion between governments, federal health regulatory agencies and the companies that manufacture these products. Science that has called into question their safety has long been ignored, while industry science that claims these products are completely safe and harmless to human health as well as the environment as been used for their approval.

Over the years employees from health agencies, like the Centres For Disease Control (CDC), have been emphasizing this as well. For example, in 2016 group of more than a dozen senior scientists lodged an ethics complaint alleging the federal agency is being influenced by corporate and political interests. They called themselves SPIDER. Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence and Ethics in Research.

They stated,

“We are a group of scientists at CDC that are very concerned about the current state of ethics at our agency. It appears that our mission is being influenced and shaped by outside parties and rogue interests. It seems that our mission and Congressional intent for our agency is being circumvented by some of our leaders. What concerns us most, is that it is becoming the norm and not the rare exception. Some senior management officials at CDC are clearly aware and even condone these behaviours. Others see it and turn the other way. Some staff are intimated and presse to do things they now are not right.

We have representatives from across the agency that witness this unacceptable behaviour. It occurs at all levels and in all of our respective units. These questionable and unethical practices threaten to undermine our credibility and reputation as a trusted leader in public health.”

It’s good to see that glyphosate is now being banned in multiple countries and cities. For example, as of Jan. 1, 2022, the sale and domestic use of 39 pesticides, for a total of more than 100 separate products, have been illegal in the city of Montreal. This includes products that contain glyphosate.

In 2021, Bayer announced that they will stop selling Roundup for residential use in 2023 in the U.S. Home and Garden Market.

It’s unfortunate that we had to wait decades for these initiatives for something that has been seemingly obvious for a long time. How many other products out there can you think of that are clearly harmful for human and environmental health that have been approved by governments? Billions of pounds of glyphosate have been sprayed across our planet. What type of intelligent species would do such a thing?