Tag Archives: RoundUp

Who Knew? Weed Killer Roundup Found in GM Foods

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A highly influential organization of pediatricians is facing blowback over advice it published earlier this year urging parents to avoid foods with ingredients from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) are a go-to source for practicing pediatricians and for some parents. But critics say the advice ignores a wide body of evidence supporting GMOs’ safety. They add that AAP is raising unfounded fears that will drive parents to assume they must buy only organic products, which by definition are not genetically engineered—an option that’s financially out of reach for many families…

The guidelines, published in Pediatrics in January in 2024, were accompanied by a parent newsletter that included “tips for limiting GMOs on your family plate” and referred to “news stories [that] may shrug off the dangers of GMOs.” The Pediatrics paper, whose senior author is Boston College pediatrician and epidemiologist Philip Landrigan, cautioned about potential health harms, especially to infants and children, of residues in food from the weed killer glyphosate, which is widely used on genetically engineered crops.

The AAP guidelines had an impact almost immediately; by March 2024, Mexico was citing them in a trade dispute with the United States, which is challenging Mexico’s ban on imports of genetically modified corn grown in the U.S. But the Pediatrics paper did not mention that regulators in the U.S. and Europe have judged glyphosate at the levels currently found in food to be safe….

The AAP report authors focus on glyphosate, sold commercially by Bayer as Roundup, because its use has exploded in recent decades: Ninety percent of the corn and 96% of the soybeans planted in the U.S. this year were genetically modified, much of it to be resistant to destruction by glyphosate, which instead kills all the weeds around the crops. The herbicide is often sprayed on genetically modified canola and sugar beets as well. As a result, glyphosate residues are in foods made with ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and canola oil, among them children’s favorites from hot dogs and chicken nuggets to sweetened cereal and potato chips.

The AAP report notes a 2015 finding from an arm of the World Health Organization that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” It also cites one meta-analysis that found an elevated risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in people with high exposure to glyphosate from years of applying it to crops.

But the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found no evidence of adverse health effects in humans from genetically engineered foods or from glyphosate residues in them. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration tests foods for glyphosate residues and has rarely found levels exceeding those determined safe for consumption by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Numerous other agencies worldwide have similar positions.

Excerpts from Meredith Wadman, Pediatrics academy accused of ‘fearmongering’ over GMO ingredients in kids’ diets, Science, Sept. 17, 2024

Herbicides: safer than table salt

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It’s been a tough year for glyphosate, the world’s most popular weedkiller. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Organization, declared that glyphosate—the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup products—was probably carcinogenic to humans. In the months since, multiple lawsuits have been filed blaming the chemical for causing cancer and birth defects. In February, testing found traces of glyphosate in German beer and organic panty liners sold in France. Other tests have found chemical residue in British bread, as well as in the urine of people across Europe. In early March, the European Union put off a vote to renew a 15-year license for glyphosate after several member states balked.

Monsanto famously advertised Roundup, which was introduced in 1974, as safer than table salt. In 1996 the company stopped making the table salt claim after complaints from New York state….. In September 2016 state officials in California proposed adding the herbicide to a list of known carcinogens. The FDA said in February 2016 that it would begin testing for glyphosate residue in food in the U.S. The results aren’t yet available. The Environmental Protection Agency has been reviewing its use since 2009. The agency, which in 1985 temporarily classified glyphosate as “possibly carcinogenic,” was supposed to wrap up sometime last year; it now says a draft of its decision should be available for public comment sometime this year.

The herbicide industry has mounted an aggressive campaign to discredit the cancer finding and to convince regulators—and the public—that the herbicide should remain in use. …

Glyphosate works by blocking the production of certain amino acids that a plant needs to grow, and it’s nonselective, meaning it kills most plants. It began to dominate the herbicide market only after Monsanto genetically engineered crops to survive it, marketing them under its Roundup Ready brand. Global sales of glyphosate were about $7.8 billion in 2014, 30 percent of the herbicide market, according to Cropnosis, a market-research firm. Monsanto’s dominance of the glyphosate market has declined since the chemical went off patent in 2000. Some weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, triggering the need for other weedkillers. Nonetheless, Roundup remains the primary money-maker for Monsanto’s agricultural productivity segment, which brought in 32 percent of its revenue in fiscal 2015.

A rejection of glyphosate by either the U.S. or Europe would have “massive” ramifications on farming and food production, says Jason Miner, an analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. “You could quickly take us two decades back in terms of farm yields,” he says. “The world doesn’t have capacity to produce all the alternatives.”

Monsanto’s Roundup Could Get Whacked by European Regulators, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Mar. 10, 2016