The Environmental Working Group, which has links to the organic industry, found that the 21 products tested had glyphosate levels "higher than what the eWG scientists consider. as a protection for the health of children.
Manufacturers say their food is safe and the findings are not unprecedented: the group also found in October that most breakfast cereals tested contained glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, an effective herbicide.
The new report follows two important legal verdicts that determined that the herbicide caused cancer in the complainants.
In March, a federal jury unanimously determined that Roundup was a "substantial factor" in the cancer cause of a California man. And last month, California juries ordered the maker, Monsanto, to pay more than $ 2 billion to a couple who had stated that a long-term exposure to the product was causing their cancer .
The latter verdict is on appeal, but about 11,000 similar cases are pending in federal and state courts.
The pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG, which now owns Monsanto, says its product is safe.
A spokeswoman for the company's plant science subsidiary, Charla Lord, said that a "scientific data set" and "the findings of regulators around the world" show that "glyphosate-based products are without danger if they are used according to instructions. "
General Mills, which manufactures all the products tested in the eWG report, said in a statement that its "top priority was food security".
The company noted that "most crops grown in the fields use some form of pesticides and that trace amounts are found in the majority of the foods we all eat," but said that this was meant to "minimize the amount of food they eat." use of pesticides on the ingredients we use in our food. "
General Mills did not respond directly when asked why he was reducing the use of pesticides while he was already considering that his products were safe.
How much glyphosate is too much?
An analysis published in February found that glyphosate could increase cancer risk by 41%, although researchers focused on those most exposed to the product, such as field wardens, exposed to more glyphosate than people can not eat it during snacks.
The herbicide can enter processed foods after being used in farms producing oats, but none of the levels found in food products in the new report have exceeded the legal limits of the # 39; Environmental Protection Agency.
"It is not surprising that very small amounts of pesticides, including glyphosate, are found in food," said Dr. Paolo Boffetta, deputy director of population science at the Tisch Institute Mount Sinai Cancer. "In general, these levels are unlikely to have any effect on the health of consumers."
Nevertheless, "it is important that people know if there is glyphosate or other chemicals in their food, even at very low concentrations," said Boffetta, who did not been involved in the reports or in the analysis.
General Mills emphasized in his statement that he was following the "strict rules" set by the "experts of the [Food and Drug Administration] The president of Bayer said: "The reality is that regulators have strict rules on pesticide residues and the levels in this report are well below established safety standards."
The Environmental Working Group, however, uses a much more conservative benchmark, which includes an extra buffer for children, because "early-life exposure can have greater effects on development." later in life, "said Dr. Alexis Temkin, a scientist from the electronic working group. co-authored both reports and spoke to CNN last year.
Manufacturers dispute this threshold. In an October statement, General Mills said that "the extremely low levels of pesticide residues cited in recent press reports represent only a tiny fraction of the amount authorized by the government."
In April, the EPA said that the proper use of glyphosate posed "no risk to public health" and that the chemical "is not a carcinogen," a carcinogenic chemical. However, an agency of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, determined in 2015 that glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic to humans".
A separate group of WHO evaluating pesticide residues said in 2016 that it "is unlikely that glyphosate poses a carcinogenic risk to humans as a result of dietary exposure." food ", adding to a vertiginous number of contradictory results, but the International Agency for Research on Cancer vigorously defended its conclusion.
The agency wrote in 2018 that she "has been the subject of unprecedented coordinated efforts to undermine the evaluation, the program and the organization". These attacks, he said, "come largely from the agro-chemical industry and associated media."
A war of words
A CNN survey conducted in 2017 on Monsanto's internal emails seems to show that company executives are trying to discredit the report of the International Agency for Research on Cancer even before its publication.
The e-mail from a manager, titled "RE: IARC planning", suggested to the company elements of a 2015 study in which experts rejected the agency's conclusion that Glyphosate could cause cancer. A spokeswoman for Monsanto told CNN at the time that the study was not fantasized and constituted "the work of the expert group on glyphosate".
Although the EPA maintained that glyphosate was safe, the CNN investigation also raised questions about the influence of the industry at the federal agency.
A Monsanto executive wrote in a 2015 internal email, for example, that an EPA official had offered to help cancel another glyphosate review by an agency: "If I can kill that, I should get a medal. "
The company has denied any undue influence on the regulators. And its parent company, Bayer Crop Science, criticized the environmental working group in its recent statement to CNN. "The group behind the new report has long been spreading misinformation about pesticide residues", The spokeswoman said Lord.
EWG, a non-profit organization based in Washington, has denied these allegations. Bayer's critics "must be taken with a grain of salt," EWG chairman Ken Cook said in a statement. In light of the lawsuits, he said, Bayer was "desperate to continue to hide the truth".
While maintaining that it is an independent organization, EWG recognizes the support of the organic industry, stating that its "business partners for general support and events" include Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farms. Organic labeled foods can not be grown with most synthetic substances, including glyphosate.
The group also has a "Shared Services Agreement" with the Organic Voices Action Fund, a non-profit organization funded by companies such as Nature & # 39; s Path and Annie & # 39; s, both of which produce cereals.
CNN's Holly Yan contributed to this report.
