Over 80% of Americans’ Urine Tested Positive for Glyphosate
Is Glyphosate Dangerous when Consumed?
A CDC study tested the urine samples of 2,310 Americans, of which 1,885 samples, or over 80%, tested positive for glyphosate. One third of the participants were children 6-18 years old. Scientists have called this “disturbing” and “concerning”, but it gets worse…
Glyphosate, a widely used herbicide, has sparked intense debate over its health risks. Most of us know it as the chemical in Round-Up, a spray advertised to kill weeds in our gardens, but its use in our food crops far exceeds what most of us realize. It’s now considered the most widely used pesticide in human history.
The most notable glyphosate usage is:
| Staple Crops | Fruits and Vegetables |
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It’s also used in “off-label” cases like residential lawns, public parks, golf courses, and the most disturbing case of all: chickpeas. Some farmers are now spraying glyphosate on late season crops to prematurely kill them off, so that they dry out, and be ready for market quicker! This leads to more absorption of glyphosate, and therefore more pesticides in food.
39 out of 44 restaurant food samples were found to contain glyphosate residues across America. These include restaurants like Panera, McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, Olive Garden and more.
Is Glyphosate Toxic to Humans?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2020, glyphosate “does not pose a serious health risk” but just two years later a federal appeals court ordered the EPA to reexamine its position.
Much of the arguments for its safe usage are built upon a “safe amount of exposure” to the chemical. But we now know that glyphosate is in the air, water, food, and soil. Traces of glyphosate have been found in organic beer, wine, and even baby formula. Furthermore, the long term bioaccumulation of glyphosate can cause problems in timelines that are not researched by the EPA. Does the accumulation of glyphosate consumption after 20-30 years still not pose a serious health risk?
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen”.
Researchers at UC Berkeley found that childhood glyphosate exposure is linked to liver inflammation and metabolic syndrome in early adulthood, increasing risks of liver cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Analysis of 480 mother-child pairs showed high glyphosate and AMPA levels in children's urine were associated with these conditions by age 18.
Recent evidence shows that even low doses of glyphosate can disrupt the female reproductive tract and affect fertility. Animal studies reveal that exposure before puberty alters ovarian follicles and the uterus, suggesting similar risks for humans.
In March 2019, Monsanto, the makers of Roundup, lost a lawsuit to Edwin Hardeman, who claimed that exposure to Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The court ordered Monsanto to pay Hardeman over $80 million in damages.
In another case, a jury determined that repeated exposure to glyphosate led to school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson developing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, awarding him $289 million in damages.
In 2022, the Supreme Court rejected Bayer's attempt to dismiss thousands of lawsuits alleging that Roundup causes cancer. The court upheld a $25 million judgment for a California man who claimed he developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after decades of using Roundup on his property.
Bayer, now Monsanto's parent company, is currently facing nearly 10,000 similar lawsuits.
So How Do We Protect Ourselves From Glyphosate In Our Food?
Sadly most of us aren’t able to move to a European country that enforces a complete ban, however we can do the best we can to lower our exposures over time.
1. Buy Organic
We know that organic foods are expensive and can still contain glyphosate and other pesticide residues, but they will be significantly better than conventionally made food.
2. Refer to EWG’s Lists
Each spring Environmental Working Group publishes their annual EWG Clean 15, and EWG Dirty Dozen list of conventional produce with the least and most amount of pesticides tested that year. Additionally, the Detox Project has certified around 5000 products without glyphosate.
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EWG 2024 Clean 15
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EWG 2024 Dirty Dozen |
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3. Get a lab-tested Pesticide Purifier
Tests show this is the best way to wash fruits and vegetables to remove pesticides. The Garrnish Pesticide Purifier removes up to 99% Glyphosate and Chlorpyrifos and 91.9% of Dichlorvos making it the best produce cleaner on the market. Garrnish uses electrolysis to split water molecules into (H+) and (OH-) ions and with a pinch of salt, degrades the molecular structure of chemical pesticides rendering them into harmless non-toxic substances easily washed away with water without using soaps, sprays, or chemical detergents. You can find the lab tests right on the website.
Some people use baking soda to clean fruit, and others clean fruit and vegetables with vinegar, but vinegar and baking soda have been tested to only remove a percentage of certain pesticides (most studies don’t specify which pesticides). While fruit and vegetable cleaners (veggie sprays) may be widely sold, the FDA does not recommend them as they’re ineffective and leave their own residues.
Although there's no way to completely avoid glyphosate or other pesticides, we can reduce our exposure and bioaccumulation of it as much as possible over our lifetime.
Eat clean!
References:
https://wwwn.cdc.gov/Nchs/Nhanes/2013-2014/SSGLYP_H.htm
https://www.ehn.org/glyphosate-childrens-health-2659484037.html
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18790555/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glyphosate-roundup-urine-samples-bayer-monsanto-weed-killing-chemical/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/09/weedkiller-glyphosate-cdc-study-urine-samples
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0303720720302343#preview-section-references