02/19/2024
Food For Thought
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) published a study in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology on Thursday that found a staggering 80% of Americans tested positive for a harmful pesticide called chlormequat. This “highly toxic agricultural chemical” is federally allowed to be used on oats and other grains imported to the US, according to the EWG. When applied to oat and grain crops, chlormequat alters a plant’s growth, preventing it from bending over and thus making it easier to harvest, per the EWG. They say that four out of five Americans are being exposed to chlormequat, which is found in popular oat-based foods, including Cheerios.
Just as troubling, they detected the chemical in 92% of oat-based foods purchased in May 2023. For reference, chlormequat was detected in 69% of study participants in 2017. The number edged higher, to 74%, between 2018 and 2022, and spiked to 90% in 2023. Since chlormequat typically leaves the body within 24 hours, such a high concentration of positive tests indicates that Americans are regularly being exposed to the pesticide.
This work highlights the need for more expansive monitoring of chlormequat in U.S. foods and in human specimens, as well as toxicological and epidemiological study on chlormequat, as this chemical is an emerging contaminant with documented evidence of low-dose adverse health effects in animal studies.
