The Environmental Working Group knows how to play the media like a goddamn piano.
Most recently they looked for glyphosate, a common weedkiller used in farming, in oat based cereals.
They found only the tiniest traces, well under anybodys safety benchmarks, so theres really no story here.
But with the right spin, the reportwhich is a press release, not peer-reviewed sciencemade headlines.
What did the EWG do?
The EWG had several oat products tested by an outside lab.
To be clear, this is not a published, peer-reviewed scientific study.
The bottom line on the results: The numbers are well under government guidelines, sorelax.
Your cereal will not kill you.
But there is more to the story.
What is glyphosate?
Glyphosate is a chemical that can kill plants, making it an herbicide and thus also a pesticide.
Its commonly used, and fortunately its one of theless toxic pesticidesout there.
Its best known under the name Roundup, sold by the much-demonized corporation Monsanto.
(Technically there is no Monsanto anymore;Bayer bought the companyand stopped using its old name.)
Roundup Ready crops were among the first commercially successful GMOs, the pesticide is especially high-visibility.
But neither GMOs nor Roundup are associated with any serious health risks.
Thats why tiny traces of it may end up in food.
Does glyphosate cause cancer?
Nobody knows, and its a controversial question.
So dose is important, and well get to that in a minute.
But its also important to ask whether the IARC made the right call in saying glyphosate probably causes cancer.
They didnt have much evidence to go on, and other groups have come to different conclusions.
Does cereal contain a dangerous amount of glyphosate?
The Environmental Protection Agencyallows no more than 30 parts per million of glyphosate on oats.
The EWG found glyphosate levelsranging from undetectable to 1.3 parts per million.
So far, so good, right?
But California has a different way of looking at it.
The state hasproposed a rulelimiting glyphosate exposure to 1100 micrograms per person per day.
They call this the no significant risk level (NSRL).
But the EWG didnt use this level either.
Theydivided Californias NSRL by 100to represent a one-in-a-million standard with a tenfold childrens health factor.
Then they asked the lab to test a bunch of oat products.
We should all know better by now
Weve seen the EWGs shenanigans before.
But every time, they carefully construct the tests or the ranking systems to come up with that result.
Companies can also pay for an EWG Verified seal, giving the group a huge conflict of interest.
Remember how I said the EWG knows how to play the media?
They conveniently dropped their report just after a California man won a lawsuit about the chemical.
Dewayne Johnson got non-Hodgkin lymphoma after working a job as a groundskeeper where he often sprayed Roundup on weeds.
A jury had to come up with a verdict, andthey decided that Johnson deserved $289 million.
This doesnt mean thatscientistsbelieve the chemical causes cancerthey disagreejust that a jury was convinced.
