June 12, 2019 – San Diego, CA. Once again a news story featured on CNN is illustrating the ongoing tainting of our food sources from the chemical called glyphosate. This time it’s the popular children’s cereal Cheerios. The news story featured a NEW study from Environmental Working Group (EWG).
Who is EWG and what do they do? We found this information from their website: (link below)
With the generous support of Jonas Philanthropies, in October 2016, EWG launched the Jonas Initiative for Children’s Environmental Health. The Initiative redoubles EWG’s decades-long commitment to children’s environmental health with a bold new research agenda that focuses on crucial areas of children’s health.
The mounting evidence connecting children’s exposures to environmental contaminants and serious, life-altering health problems continues to grow, confirming that toxic chemicals in air, water and food are having adverse impacts on the well-being of our kids. EWG has long been on the forefront of the fight against these threats to children’s health, empowering parents and all citizens with information on how to avoid toxic exposures in everyday environments.
EWG’s Jonas Initiative for Children’s Environmental Health extends our established, game-changing research even further, by developing model safety standards for a number of pollutants that contaminate our air, water and land. The criteria for these no-compromise benchmarks are based solely on health impacts, putting children’s health first.
What did EWG find in the new Roundup study?
Doctors Olga Naidenko, senior science advisor and Alexis Temkin; toxicologist, new study follows their previous study done in July and October of last year. The new test confirms their findings that high levels of glyphosate were consistently above EWG’s children’s health benchmark. The two highest levels of glyphosate were found in Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch, with 833 parts per billion, or ppb, and Cheerios, with 729 ppb. The EWG children’s health benchmark is 160 ppb. 
The test was performed by EWG buying products from online retail sites. They bought about 300 grams of breakfast products (General Mills and Nature Valley brands) and shipped them to the Anresco Laboratories in San Francisco. Glyphosate levels were analyzed by a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method.
Here is the study statement made by EWG:
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. All but four products contained levels of glyphosate higher than what EWG scientists consider protective for children’s health with a sufficient margin of safety.
Not only is EWG doing these glyphosate studies but they are also an advocate group that recently delivered more than 80,000 names on a petition urging the Environmental Protection Agency to sharply limit glyphosate residues allowed on oats and prohibit its use as a preharvest drying agent.
All but one of the tested products contained glyphosate at levels higher than what EPA previously allowed on oats, in 1993. EWG’s petition, currently under consideration by EPA, calls on the agency to return to its health-protective 1993 standard. But it could take years for EPA to act, and the agency has been caught colluding with Monsanto to promote the claim that the chemical is safe.
More than 236,000 people have signed a petition directed at these food companies, calling on them to take action to protect consumers’ health.
General Mills, the maker of all the products tested by EWG said in a statement its “top priority is food safety.” They went on to say: “most crops grown in fields use some form of pesticides and trace amounts are found in the majority of food we all eat” but said it was working to “minimize the use of pesticides on the ingredients we use in our foods.”
New study came after $2 billion dollar Roundup lawsuit.
This study comes in off the heels of a massive $2 billion dollar lawsuit against Bayer/AG, who recently purchased the Roundup line of weed killers from Monsanto.
That court verdict that took place last Monday May 13th. A California State court awarded a married couple a huge $55 million in compensatory damages and a staggering $2 billion in punitive damages. Of course Bayer said it would appeal, like it did in all previous lawsuits against them. Pilliod, et al. v. Monsanto Company, et al. Case No.: RG17862702
Conflicting Roundup Studies confuse the public, and some juries.
Dozens of studies have been published since the late 1990s analyzing the safety of Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate. Many of these studies link the weed killer to a deadly form of blood cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma and its subtypes.
Monsanto did their own studies, and was accused of hiring ghost writers. Consulting company Intertek Group Plc, was paid by Monsanto to craft a “review” called “An Independent Review of the Carcinogenic Potential of Glyphosate” According to the review’s Declaration of Interest statement: “Neither any Monsanto company employees nor any attorneys reviewed any of the Expert Panel’s manuscripts prior of submission to the journal.” However the internal company emails illustrate something entirely different.
Read about the Roundup Cancer Lawsuits Here.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/12/health/glyphosate-cereals-ewg-study/index.html
