U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers have found a weedkiller linked to cancer in a variety of common foods, according to a report in the British newspaper, The Guardian.
The newspaper said emails obtained via a freedom of information request show the weedkiller glyphosate, an ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, is found in many foods. An FDA chemist, Richard Thompson told colleagues in an email in 2017 that he found a “fair amount” of glyphosate in wheat crackers, granola cereal and corn meal.
The FDA has been testing foods for glyphosate, which has been linked to cancer, for several years, but has not yet released any findings officially.
Glyphosate has been used for more than 40 years. but the FDA only recently started testing food for the weedkiller. Calls for testing followed after the International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC) classified it as a probably human carcinogen in 2015.
U.S. farmer use more than 200 million pounds of Monsanto’s Roundup on crops that include corn, soybeans, wheat and oats. It’s also used by spinach and almond growers.
An FDA spokesman told the Guardian that the agency had not found any illegal levels of the weedkiller in corn, soy, milk, or eggs. The FDA findings are due to be released later this year or in 2019.
Monsanto, which is being acquired for $62.5 billion by Bayer, announced in 2015 it was shuttering it’s Research Triangle Park research and development facility and moving a third of its 75 employees there to its headquarters in St. Louis, MO. Part of the Bayer deal, which is expected to close in May, includes Monsanto’s European herbicides containing glyphosate.
Bayer Crop Science also has a significant presence in the Research Triangle.
