This week, Food Democracy Now! and the Detox Project are releasing a a groundbreaking 26-page report that shows conclusive evidence that America’s food supply is contaminated with alarming levels of glyphosate residues. As the main active ingredient in Monsanto’s bestselling weedkiller Roundup, both Roundup and glyphosate have been linked to a host of negative health impacts, including birth defects, reproductive problems, lowered immune response, irritable bowel syndrome, harmful imbalances in gut microflora and cancer.
In this report we detail the latest independent peer reviewed science that conclusively shows that Roundup and glyphosate are significantly more harmful at much lower levels than previously imaged and outline the significant flaws in the U.S. regulatory system that has left the American public exposed to high levels of a toxic chemical, which last year the World Health Organization linked to cancer.
We need your help to demand that the EPA Inspector General’s office launch a non-partisan investigation to glyphosate’s likely negative human health impacts reviewing the latest scientific research; halt the use of Roundup on important food crops and uncover possible misconduct between U.S. regulators and the chemical industry they are supposed to regulate.Tell the EPA to keep Glyphosate off our plates! It’s time to launch a full investigation into the human health effects of Monsanto’s Roundup and glyphosate-based weedkillers to protect the health of the American public and our nation's children.
Every voice counts!
Using an independent FDA-registered laboratory, scientists found alarming levels of glyphosate residues in these popular American food products, including General Mills’ Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Raisin Bran, Special K and Frosted Flakes, and PepsiCo’s Doritos, Ritz Crackers and Stacy’s Simply Naked Pita Chips, as part of a unique testing project designed to reveal pesticide exposure at real world levels.
Even more disturbing is that the highest glyphosate levels were found in General Mills’ Cheerios, one of the first foods that American mothers commonly feed their young children when they begin eating solid foods. Glyphosate residues for Cheerios, measured at 1,125.3 parts per billion (ppb), were simply off the chart and much higher than the 28 other food products tested.
New scientific evidence shows that possible harm from glyphosate can begin at much lower levels, even as low as 0.1 ppb. Credible independent peer reviewed studies published in 2014 and 2015 found that rats exposed to 0.1 ppb of Roundup and 0.05 ppb of glyphosate could cause severe organ damage and alter gene function of over 4,000 genes in the livers and kidneys of rats. These groundbreaking new findings should be a wake-up call for all Americans regarding unacceptable levels of pesticide residues in our nation’s food. Please join us in holding EPA regulators accountable!
Why should you be concerned and why Food Democracy Now! decided to take action:
This report comes after more than a year and a half investigation into the massive U.S. regulatory failures that have left the American public not only in the dark about glyphosate contamination in our food supply, but also regularly exposed to levels of this toxic weedkiller that emerging science is now demonstrating to be more hazardous to human health than previously thought.
New independent research shows that harm from Monsanto’s Roundup and glyphosate-based herbicides can begin at much lower levels than previously imagined and with the modern understanding that endocrine disrupting chemicals can disrupt basic hormone functions at ultra-low levels, U.S. regulations must reflect latest scientific research to protect our health and that of our children. In addition, the fact that glyphosate is also patented as an antimicrobial agent has raised alarm among scientists who believe that low level exposure to glyphosate can negatively disrupt beneficial bacteria in our stomachs like it does in the soil, leading to whole host of human health problems that doctors are just beginning to understand.
U.S. Regulators Asleep at the Wheel Regarding Glyphosate Exposure and Harm to Human Health
For the past 20 plus years, U.S. regulators have refused to test for glyphosate residues even though it’s the most widely used weedkiller in the U.S. and its use has exploded in the past 2 decades due to the widespread adoption of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO crops. Today more than 300 million pounds of glyphosate-based weedkillers are sprayed across U.S. farmland, public parks and lawns and home gardens. Use of Roundup has become so pervasive that 75% of rainwater samples in the Midwest tested positive for glyphosate.
Last year, on March 20, 2015, 17 leading scientific experts from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared glyphosate “probably carcinogenic to humans”, which should have served as a call-to-action for U.S. regulators. Instead, the U.S. EPA issued a final report that not surprisingly agreed with Monsanto’s rebuttal, which called the IARC’s report “junk science.” This is an outrage and this type of regulatory corruption has to end today, which is why Food Democracy Now! is calling for an investigation of possible regulatory misconduct at the EPA by the EPA’s inspector general.
Regulatory Collusion Puts Human Health at Risk
Currently, U.S. regulators allow what is considered a very high level of daily glyphosate residue in America’s food. In the U.S., the EPA set the daily acceptable intake (ADI) limit at 1.75 parts per million (ppm) per kilogram of bodyweight per day in the U.S., versus a more responsible level at 0.3 ppm in the European Union based on their review of the same studies submitted to the EPA. This report uses original documents from the EU and EPA regulatory approvals of glyphosate to expose Monsanto's convenient lie that glyphosate and Roundup is perfectly safe.
Unfortunately, the regulatory agencies in the U.S. have been captured by the industry’s they’re supposed to regulate. The U.S. government’s continued reliance on Monsanto-funded science and their refusal to consider the most current independent peer reviewed scientific research is alarming. Especially considering the fact that the regulators at the FDA are currently reviewing a 15-year re-approval of Monsanto’s Roundup and glyphosate-based herbicides based on woefully out-of-date science.
It’s time to take our government back and end the corporate corruption of our laws that are supposed to protect the American public.
Remember, democracy is like muscle, if you don’t use it you lose it.
Thanks for participating in food democracy,
Dave Murphy
Founder / Executive Director
Food Democracy Now!
P.S. Please SHARE this important Report far and wide with friends and family today! http://action.
What else you’ll find in this report - Glyphosate: Unsafe on Any Plate!
- Levels of Glyphosate Residues found in popular American foods.
- A summary of what the latest independent scientific research says about the safety of Roundup and glyphosate.
- A detailed analysis of why the current U.S. EPA's acceptable daily intake (ADI) is much too high.
- Evidence that regulators in Europe considered the U.S. ADI to be “very high” and “far outside the range” of what chemical companies other than Monsanto submitted for safety approvals.
- Scientific evidence that refutes Monsanto’s claim that glyphosate does not accumulate.
- A call to action – to investigate regulatory collusion at the EPA, end the practice of pre-harvest spraying of Roundup on food crops and a call to release all the scientific data submitted by Monsanto for safety assessments.
