There's been a lot of noise recently about glyphosate, because a of a report from the EWG looking at glyphosate in breakfast cereals Most of the reporting about this has been problematic 1/
This is a problem, because there doesn't appear to be a solid scientific basis for this threshold - it's hard to know what it's based on, unlike the Californian or EPA ones 7/
-
-
The EWG cites "additional factors" that led to the number of 160 nanograms/day, but it's very hard to know what that actually means 8/pic.twitter.com/ccBFjhpuVd
Show this thread -
Meanwhile, the EPA and other international agencies have detailed risk assessments that have been used to calculate the 1-2mg/day dose 9/ i.e. https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/glyphosate/earlier-assessment_en … https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/reregistration/fs_PC-417300_1-Sep-93.pdf … https://apvma.gov.au/node/13891
Show this thread -
So all of the stories that reported "unsafe" or similar were basing that on the EWG assessment, which is not accepted by any government agency in the world that I know of 10/
Show this thread -
These stories all also reported the IARC figure, that glyphosate is a "probable carcinogen" to imply that it causes cancer (SCARY!) 11/pic.twitter.com/xZl2c49HDQ
Show this thread -
But what they failed to mention is that glyphosate is only a "probable" carcinogen at MUCH higher doses than found in this study, even over a lifetime 12/
Show this thread -
Glyphosate may, potentially, cause cancer, but so far the risk has only ever been seen in humans for people who use the pesticide every day for years, not in people who consume glyphosate-containing foods 13/
Show this thread -
I wrote a blog about this if you want the specifics, but the basic story is that glyphosate/cancer would only be a worry if you were eating hundreds of kilos of breakfast cereals a day for an entire lifetime 14/
Show this thread -
Show this thread
-
To recap: 1. Breakfast cereals may have up to 800ppb of glyphosate in them 2. To get an "unsafe" amount - as defined by most experts - you'd have to eat 20kg+ of these cereals a day 3. Current best evidence doesn't support a link between glyphosate and cancer for most people 15/
Show this thread -
So why is the EWG pushing the scare narrative so hard when most impartial government reports have found that these levels of glyphosate are safe? It's not immediately clear 16/
Show this thread -
One possibility is funding. The EWG is proudly sponsored by the organics industry, who of course do not use glyphosate 17/pic.twitter.com/X91MCHNvMt
Show this thread -
The report that they recently released even has a specific call for the companies who produce these breakfast cereals to switch to organic suppliers, who would of course include the above sponsors 18/pic.twitter.com/Wfz03YraHA
Show this thread -
Is this a problem? Impossible to know. It is, however, strange that the EWG has gone against all international advice to set a threshold low enough that breakfast cereals are an issue 19/pic.twitter.com/fAWDuvVBIF
Show this thread -
I should note - I don't think the EWG has done anything explicitly wrong here. They've set their own threshold for risk, based on their own assessment. It conflicts with most established scientific estimates, but that's not uncommon 20/
Show this thread -
The problem is that we don't really know WHY it's so low. It's more than 10x lower than the next most conservative estimate that I can find, which is California who are usually BY FAR the most conservative anyway 21/
Show this thread -
It's very hard for me to understand why they'd consider such low levels a problem, given that there are numerous studies that have not shown an issue even at much higher doses 22/
Show this thread -
For some context - the California reference dose of 1.1mg/day is based on their "no significant risk" threshold, which means that an intake of this much is associated with a increase of less than 0.0001% lifetime risk 23/
Show this thread -
To put it another way, this means that eating 1.1mg/day of glyphosate would be expected to harm 1 in 100,000 people over the course of 80 years 24/
Show this thread -
Blog is now out on thishttps://medium.com/the-method/roundup-isnt-poisoning-your-cheerios-626d61f4c3d8 …
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.