From Cradle To Grave, Monsanto Is Always With You: Glyphosate Found In Baby Food, Oatmeal

From Cradle To Grave, Monsanto Is Always With You: Glyphosate Found In Baby Food, Oatmeal

By Kurtis Bright

We Are All Monsanto’s Children Now

Regulators and investors are still attempting to sort through the various legal and financial implications of Bayer’s proposed blockbuster merger with Monsanto, even as bad news continues to dog the agrichem giant.

For starters, the usually docile Indian government under the leadership of neoliberal Prime Minister Narendra Modi--a government that never met a genetically modified seed it didn’t like--has suddenly sprouted a backbone and started offering up some pretty stiff opposition to Monsanto’s proposed introduction of GMO mustard seed there.

In addition, the latest studies have found that glyphosate, the star weed-killing chemical in Monsanto’s Roundup brand herbicide is indeed likely responsible for the deaths of millions if not billions of honeybees in recent years, jeopardizing food production both commercial and personal.

However, don’t cry for our agrichemical overlords just yet, although it is truly amazing how they manage to so consistently bring this stuff on themselves.

For instance, yet another paper has backed up a blockbuster study from a few months ago showing that glyphosate is present in numerous samples of oatmeal--as well as baby food.

In the original study, a Food and Drug Administration chemist discovered a residue of glyphosate in a broad variety of oat-based cereal marketed for infants, some of which had concentrations of up to 1.67 parts per million.

That may not sound like much, but the fact is that for developing children who have weak immune systems and a body weight that is a mere fraction of that of an adult, any amount of what the World Health Organization has called a probable carcinogen is too much.

I mean, put it this way: is that too much for your child?

This of course also comes out on the heels of the news that samples of U.S. honey have also been demonstrated to be tainted with glyphosate--little surprise there, given the mounting evidence that honeybees have been contaminated via the copious spraying that has blanketed the crops of the nation with literally billions of pounds of glyphosate over the past 20 years.

What many observers found to be particularly alarming on that front was the revelation that these tainted honey samples often came in with glyphosate levels double what is legally allowed in the E.U.

For its part, the EPA has stated that the glyphosate residue tests they are currently officially conducting do not include oats or honey, and thus they would not comment on the aforementioned studies that were not conducted under their purview.

The EPA is currently testing for glyphosate residues in corn, soy, eggs and milk, they say, and so far none of them has shown levels that exceed what is legally allowed, although the analysis is ongoing.

Of course, the agency’s Office of Pesticide Programs recently released the conclusion that glyphosate is “...not likely to be carcinogenic to humans at doses relevant to human health risk assessment,” and that the WHO study was wrong, regardless of the fact that their own research is ongoing.

Which is conveniently--and suspiciously--good news for Monsanto. But it is not at all surprising, coming as it does from a captive government agency that is staffed with dozens of former and future Monsanto employees, especially when you consider that people are just starting to awaken to the fact of how much glyphosate we are ingesting every day.

The takeaway here is probably that, despite the reassurances of the FDA and its allegedly ongoing research, perhaps staying away from oat products for your infant is in order.

Hell, for yourself too, really.

We can thank Monsanto for poisoning even baby food for us, but let’s not forget to offer a slow-clap, sarcastic round of applause for the FDA to for its ponderous foot-dragging, and relentless efforts at providing cover for these sociopaths as they poison the entire land.

Your tax dollars at work, working hard to benefit big corporations--as usual.

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