Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

First, some background: Glyphosate, which is commonly sold by Monsanto under the brand name Roundup, is the most widely-used pesticide in the United States; it is an herbicide most often used to kill weeds. The EPA is responsible for setting maximum limits for pesticides, and the FDA tests food to make sure those limits are not exceeded. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests were quickly filed, and the newest set, this one by thenon-profit food industry research groupUS

Right to Know and published this past weekend bythe Guardian, turned up some interesting emails from within the FDA showing that their chemists have been busy doing some extra-curricular work testing regular foods brought from home, as opposed to the official samples tested by the FDA, for the presence of glyphosate. All of the official samples passed the test and were within the legal limits of glyphosate residue. But those off-the-record, unofficial samples, though done with the same equipment and tested by the same chemists, showed glyphosate.

That’s right. The chemists found glyphosate residue on just about everything: crackers, granola, cornmeal, honey, oatmeal, baby food, and even corn. Theirsurreptitious corn test—one of the four items the FDA is actually testing—found glyphosate significantly over the legal limit set by the EPA.

The chemists emailed their bosses to ask what to do. The FDA’s response (which was also captured in the FOIA documents): That corn was not an “official sample” and will thus be ignored.

Source: modernfarmer.com