High Level of Weed Killer Chemicals Found In Dozens Of Children’s Cereals | See Brands
Reports making rounds online have shown that high levels of Monsanto’s best-selling weedkiller ingredient is contained in children’s cereals, including Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Quaker Old Fashioned Oats.
According to Fox 32 News, this revelation comes just days after a jury at the Superior Court of California awarded $289 million in damages to Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, a groundskeeper who sued Monsanto after claiming the weed killers he used containing glyphosate caused him to develop non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Johnson’s case was the 1st of about 4,000 people who claim the weed killer caused their cancer, and plan to sue the companies that use glyphosate in their products.
The ingredient, glyphosate was classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization in 2015, though there are large corporations fighting that label.
45 food items were tested by nonprofit Environmental Working Group in their recent study, and almost three-fourths of popular kids’ breakfast cereals, were found to have levels of glyphosate that EWG says may be dangerous to children’s health.
However, many EWG scientists consider levels higher than 160 parts per billion of glyphosate above the safety threshold for children.
What’s more, about one-third of the 16 samples made with organically grown oats also had glyphosate, but at levels below EWG’s benchmark.
Popular children items, including General Mills’ Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal, Lucky Charm’s, Kellogg’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran and Quaker’s Old Fashioned Oats- all had levels exceeding EWG’s safety guidelines.
But while those products exceeded the EWG’s threshold, they still fall within the EPA’s regulations, many food brands said.
In a statement to FOX Business regarding the report, a General Mills’ spokesperson says, “Our products are safe and without questions 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,” General Mills said in a statement.
Quaker also released a statement following the report, saying it does not add glyphosate during any part of the milling process,” and “glyphosate is commonly used by farmers across the industry who apply it pre-harvest.”
Kellogg’s issued a similar statement, saying its food is safe and they follow the EPA’s strict standards for safely levels of these agricultural residues “and the ingredients we purchase from suppliers for our foods fall under these limits.”
In response to EWG’s report, a Monsanto spokesperson said, “Even at the highest level reported by the EWG (1,300 ppb), an adult would have to eat 118 pounds of the food item every day for the rest of their life to reach the EPA’s limit.”
“Of course, nobody eats close to that much food! Using oatmeal as an example, 118 pounds would equal 228 servings or 3,658 percent of the daily recommended intake of fiber. These numbers translate to 9 ½ servings every hour without sleep for a person’s entire life,” Monsanto said.
Yet, Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., and senior science adviser for the EWG says the bottom line is that glyphosate does not belong in children’s food and that recent bio-monitoring studies show detectable levels of the ingredient in people’s urine, which likely comes from dietary exposure.
“And tests show that glyphosate levels in American’s bodies have been rising over time,” she says.