In 2021 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was exposed for possibly being aware for years of a probable link between glyphosate (ingredient used in Roundup weedkiller and other herbicides) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  Nevertheless, the EPA has continued to insist that glyphosate is safe, hence Roundup and other herbicides containing the controversial ingredient are still being sold.  Fortunately, last month a court decided in favor of petitioners who challenged the EPA’s claim and the agency must now re-evaluate glyphosate’s risks.  In the meantime, Roundup victims continue to win lawsuits against the manufacturer (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and the CDC has discovered that most Americans have glyphosate in our urine.  Sounds like grounds for more lawsuits, doesn’t it?

From Newser:

‘Most of Us Have Glyphosate in Our Urine’

New study finds the chemical in 80% of US samples

By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff

(Newser) – “People of all ages should be concerned, but I’m particularly concerned for children.” So says one scientist interviewed by the Guardian in reaction to a new CDC study that found glyphosate in 80% of US urine samples. The study used 2,310 samples from what was meant to be a group representative of the US population, nearly a third of them children. Detectable amounts of the weedkilling chemical, the active ingredient in herbicides including Roundup, was found in 1,885 of them. Glyphosate has been linked to cancer. “I expect that the realization that most of us have glyphosate in our urine will be disturbing to many people,” says another scientist.

Children are primarily exposed via the food they eat; glyphosate has been found in many popular food items, including baby food, made using crops that have been sprayed with the herbicide. Roundup maker Monsanto and Bayer, the company that bought it in 2018, maintain that the weedkiller is safe, but a unit of the WHO declared glyphosate a probable human carcinogen in 2015 and many researchers have warned against it. In the US, the EPA claims it’s not likely to cause cancer, but last month a federal appeals court ordered the agency to take a closer look at the risks to humans (and other creatures) and the environment, Reuters reports. The CDC has just recently begun investigating how common human exposure to glyphosate is in the US. (Read more glyphosate stories.)