About 80% of Americans have been found to have a chemical called chlormequat in their bodies, found in foods like Cheerios and Quaker Oats. It could lead to issues like difficulty having children, changes in how babies grow, and puberty happening later. This information comes from a study by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG) published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology.
This article was written by Brendan Taylor and originally published by Insider Paper.
Government allows use of harmful chemical on US grain imports, according to EWG study
The research says that the “highly toxic agricultural chemical”, which is considered very harmful, is allowed by the government to be used on oats and other grains brought into the US. They explain that when this chemical is sprayed on oat and grain crops, it changes how the plants grow. It stops them from bending over, which makes harvesting them easier, according to the nonprofit.
“Just as troubling, we detected the chemical in 92% of oat-based foods purchased in May 2023, including Quaker Oats and Cheerios,” as per the report findings.
The EWG also examined 20 more oat-based products for chlormequat, along with seven organic, 13 non-organic, and nine wheat-based items, although it didn’t specify the brands tested.
Detectable amounts of the chemical were discovered in 92% of non-organic oat-based foods, while only two wheat-based products, both bread, had low levels of chlormequat. Out of the seven organic samples, only one showed low levels of chlormequat.
Another worrying finding suggests consumer exposure to chlormequat could be on the rise
The EWG conducted tests on urine samples collected from 96 individuals between 2017 and 2023 to check for the presence of chlormequat. The nonprofit organization “found higher levels and more frequent detections of chlormequat in the 2023 samples, which suggests consumer exposure to chlormequat could be on the rise.”
In 2017, chlormequat was found in 69% of the people tested. This number rose slightly to 74% from 2018 to 2022, then jumped significantly to 90% in 2023.
Because chlormequat usually exits the body within a day, the high rate of positive tests suggests that Americans are frequently coming into contact with this pesticide, as reported by the EWG and earlier mentioned by the Daily Mail.
The group stated its intention to further investigate chlormequat and its harmful impacts, and urged the federal government for clarification, including whether the Food and Drug Administration should require testing of US foods for chlormequat.
