By now, many consumers have heard of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide known as Roundup, and warnings about its presence in many of their favorite foods. From oatmeal to granola bars, ice cream to even orange juice, trace amounts of the chemical can be found throughout your local supermarket.
It’s the world’s most widely used weedkiller—a blockbuster for Monsanto Co. since it was introduced in the 1970s. The vast majority of U.S. corn and soybeans have been genetically modified to withstand it, making it a critical component of modern farming. But in 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer—an arm of the World Health Organization—labeled it a probable carcinogen. Since then, it’s become a legal headache for Monsanto, and now Bayer AG, which bought the company in June for $66 billion.
While regulators including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say the glyphosate found in food isn’t a problem because it’s at low levels, some scientists contend not enough is known about the effects of eating small amounts of it, especially over long periods of time.
“It does seem to be in everything,” said Cynthia Curl, the co-director of the Center for Excellence in Environmental Health and Safety at Boise State University. “We know enough that we should be learning more.”
Bayer rejects the IARC report and says glyphosate is “safe when used as directed.” For support, it points to numerous studies as well as regulators including the EPA and the European Food Safety Authority, which have said the weedkiller is unlikely to be a carcinogen.
But in a major defeat this week in California state court, a judge upheld a jury’s verdict that Roundup contributed to a dying groundskeeper’s cancer. Working for a school district in California, Lee Johnson had mixed and sprayed hundreds of gallons of the herbicide. Bayer, ordered to pay $78.6 million, said it plans to appeal—but an additional 8,700 plaintiffs are waiting in the wings, with lawsuits that one analyst said could mean hundreds of billions of dollars in potential liability.