Tell the USDA: Test our food for Monsanto’s toxic glyphosate.

The USDA tests our food for pesticides to make sure it’s safe for us to eat. But it’s not testing for glyphosate -- a.k.a. Monsanto’s Roundup®.

The USDA is dragging its feet on protecting us from this toxic pesticide. We need your help to change that!

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To whom it may concern,

I’m very alarmed by reports that USDA is failing to implement the Government Accountability Office’s recommendations and test our food for residues of glyphosate. I urge you to immediately implement all of the Government Accountability Office’s recommendations regarding USDA’s Pesticide Residue Monitoring Programs from its 2014 report.

I recognize that USDA currently tests our food for a number of different pesticides and I think it is critical that it expand the scope of its tests to include glyphosate given its widespread use in agriculture and impacts on human health.

The impacts from glyphosate are clear. In early 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) -- the cancer evaluation arm of the World Health Organization -- convened a meeting of 17 scientific experts from 11 countries to review the cancer data regarding glyphosate. The IARC experts unanimously voted to classify glyphosate as a probable (Group 2A) human carcinogen. In 2017, California listed glyphosate as a chemical known to cause cancer. The EPA calculated that 1-to-2-year-old children are likely to have the highest exposure to glyphosate.

Right now, over 8,700 people with cancer are suing Monsanto. They allege that their exposure to Roundup® is to blame. One case has gone to trial and Monsanto was ordered to pay $289 million in damages, but Monsanto is trying to overturn the decision. In addition, recent tests revealed large doses of glyphosate in kids’ food.

Glyphosate is used in over 750 herbicide products and applied to fields in the U.S. at over 250 million pounds annually. Apart from significant risks to human health, the U.S. Geological Survey routinely finds glyphosate in U.S. waterways. Ecological data also reports that glyphosate and glyphosate-formulated products are toxic to aquatic organisms and are extremely lethal to amphibians. Independent studies have found concentrations of glyphosate in human urine and breast milk. Recent studies even indicate glyphosate has the potential to be even more harmful in combination with other chemicals.

In the past 19 years, glyphosate use in U.S. agriculture has increased 20-fold. Glyphosate’s long term impacts are just starting to be apparent with monarch decline serving as just one example.  Glyphosate  is widely used among the monarch’s migration route -- virtually wiping out milkweed, the only food young monarchs eat. A recent report found monarch butterflies would need a 5-fold increase to recover from risk of quasi-extinction.

Monsanto’s glyphosate is harming our environment and the very ecosystems we depend on for sustainable food and farming systems. It’s also harming our health and could be showing up on our plates at unsafe levels.

We need action now. I urge the USDA to immediately implement all of the Government Accountability Office’s recommendations from its 2014 report titled: FDA and USDA Should Strengthen Pesticide Residue Monitoring Programs and Further Disclose Monitoring Limitations.

Sincerely,

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