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It's a story that made international headlines when the health alert first became public – dozens of children's breakfast cereals laced with dangerous amounts of a potentially cancerous chemical, known as glyphosate.<\/p>\n
With much of the country now in the know, tens of thousands of Americans are calling on federal regulators to reduce the allowable amount of weed killer that can be used on oats.<\/p>\n
More than 100,000 U.S. adults and 20 companies<\/a> have attached their names to a petition put together by the Environmental Working Group, which urges the Environmental Protection Agency to crack down on farmers who use glyphosate on oat crops to deter weed growth. Specifically, 104,952 signatures were collected, most of them submitted online, all supporting EWG's position that the legal limit for glyphosate residues be confined to just 0.1 parts per million, well below the current 30 ppm.<\/p>\n Colin O'Neil, legislative director at EWG, said this is a public health issue that ought to be taken seriously and the government has the ability as well as the authority to do the right thing.<\/p>\n "Administrator Andrew Wheeler and the EPA could quickly remove one of the more concerning routes of dietary exposure to glyphosate for children by restricting the unnecessary use of glyphosate on oats," O'Neil said. "Americans are demanding the agency act to protect the public and the food supply from being contaminated with this toxic weed killer linked to cancer."<\/p>\n What is glyphosate?<\/strong> However, several studies have shown the weed killer may be doing more harm than good. EWG noted that in 2015, approximately 17 cancer researchers described glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans." Two years later, California went even further, adding the chemical to its state list of agents known to increase the risk of cancer development.<\/p>\n Chemical found on all cereals tested in 2018<\/strong> While the long-term health effects of this chemical are potentially problematic, they're not considered harmful in low quantities. This explains why an estimated 70 percent of American adults have trace amounts of glyphosate in their bodies at any given time, according to a 2017 study<\/a> published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But given its linkage to cancer development, its perceived low toxicity level is cold comfort for many health officials and businesses. <\/p>\n Stonyfield Farm, Amy's Kitchen, Organic Valley, Nature's Path and Ben & Jerry's are some of the household name companies calling on the EPA to do more to curb the use of the chemical on staple crops.<\/p>\n
Glyphosate is an herbicide that was first registered for usage in the United States back in the mid-1970s, according to the National Pesticide Information Center. It's since become the most widely used pesticides not only in the country but the world as a whole. Farmers and agricultural growers primarily use glyphosate as a form of weed control, which in turn hastens the pace with which staple crops like oats, corn and soybeans grow.<\/p>\n
Last year, EWG released a study<\/a> showing the extent to which glyphosate has penetrated the food supply. Of the 28 breakfast cereals they tested, each and every one of them came back with trace amounts detected, including Frosted Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios – consistently among the top five cereals sold in the U.S. annually – and Quaker Oatmeal Squares.<\/p>\n