Traces of the common herbicide glyphosate were found in all but two of the cereals, granola bars, and oatmeal recently tested by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). According to a new report released by the consumer advocacy group, 12 of the of the tested breakfast foods contained safe amounts of glyphosate, and 31 exceeded EWG’s benchmark for safety.
Glyphosate was deemed a probable carcinogenic hazard by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2014. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the World Health Organization have declared that it probably isn’t carcinogenic.
Alex Lu, associate professor of environmental-exposure biology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in an August 17, 2018 article in The Atlantic that he trusted the IARC’s findings as it has “long been recognized as the only agency that looks at environmental chemicals and their carcinogenicity.”
He said that although the herbicide has been on the consumer market since 1974, safety data has only recently become available. “The reason that the IARC took so long is because of lack of data,” he said. “They had to weigh the validity [of the risk] before coming to the conclusion.”
Read The Atlantic article: How Much of an Herbicide Is Safe in Your Cereal?
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