Cereal killers? General Mills hit with Cheerios lawsuit

With the ink barely dry on the jury’s shock ruling in the case of Dewayne Johnson versus Monsanto, news that food giant General Mills has been hit with a class action lawsuit over the presence of miniscule traces of weed killer in its Cheerios breakfast cereal has an air of inevitability. Now that the brakes are off, the litigation gravy train has truly left the station.

It’s grim reading for cereal producers as they contemplate a tsunami of claims that could cost the industry millions of dollars – despite the weight of evidence that supports not only the continued use of glyphosate in common agricultural practise, but also the government-approved benchmarks that ensure our food is safe to eat. And the lawsuit is only part of a wider problem linked to widespread “chemophobia” among the general public.

Bad science

The suit was prompted by the release of a controversial study last week from the consumer advocacy organization Environmental Working Group (EWG), which found traces of the herbicide in the majority of oat products it tested, including popular brands like Quaker Oats and Lucky Charms, as well as Cheerios.

On the face of it, the evidence sounds damning; who would welcome a breakfast cereal fortified with Roundup? There’s more to the story than meets the eye, though. The report itself, which was uploaded online rather than being published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, makes a series of bold claims that it consistently fails to substantiate, mainly in relation to the issue of toxic dosage levels. Indeed, a high-enough dose of anything – even water – can be toxic, hence the need to set agreed thresholds for potentially harmful products. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set the acceptable threshold for glyphosate back in the 1990s and none of the foods tested by EWG come even close to reaching, let alone passing it.

The discrepancy has arisen because EWG employed a drastically lower threshold – a safe limit that’s one ten-thousandth of the EPA recommendation. Which means that while just two cups of cereal a day would be enough to tip you over EWG’s threshold, you’d have to consume hundreds of times that amount to come within even spitting distance of the safe level set by the EPA.

For its part, EWG has a long history of publishing potentially misleading reports: its so-called ‘dirty dozen’ annual ranking of fruit and vegetables based on pesticide use has also been subject to accusations of faulty science.

‘Everything’ causes cancer

It’s not the only case in which shaky science has been used to claim that an everyday product has a connection to cancer. Mobile phones, for instance, have long been a source of concern for people worried about their possible link to certain cancer types. And yet, despite the explosion in mobile phone use since the mid-90s, the number of people developing a brain tumour has barely changed during that period.

In certain circles, there are even worries about foods and drinks that humans have been consuming for centuries, if not millennia. Earlier this year, for instance, a court in California ruled that coffee shops had to carry a cancer warning due to the acrylamides produced in the roasting process, even though some studies suggest that imbibing a regular cup of joe may actually deliver health benefits.

The uncomfortable truth is that cancer is becoming more common because people are living longer. And, the lifestyle factors that give us the best chance of dodging some forms of cancer are those we don’t really want to change – like improving our diet, quitting smoking and exercising more.

Chemophobia is driving the agenda

Part of the problem is that the word ‘chemical’ has become synonymous for all that is artificial and toxic, despite the fact that everything – including us – is a product of chemistry.

It’s led to a deep mistrust of manufactured drugs and chemicals that are components in millions of everyday items and, conversely, a growing movement to adopt so-called ‘natural’ remedies. It can be downright dangerous, especially in cases where patients with serious conditions are encouraged to eschew traditional medicine in favour of the untested ‘treatments’ peddled by snake oil salesmen.

The media’s tendency to whip up scare stories merely feeds this chemophobic frenzy and causes some customers to boycott brands they feel they can no longer trust, not because a given product is necessarily unsafe but because they’ve been primed to respond to chemical triggers. Formaldehyde, for instance, certainly sounds hazardous, leading to a commonly shared conclusion that it must be toxic. Though it is true that it should be avoided in large doses, it’s equally true that it is a naturally occurring chemical present in the air we breathe and food we eat, and is harmless in most contexts. Nonetheless, the facts at hand weren’t enough to quell certain consumers’ fears over its presence in Johnson & Johnson’s baby shampoo – leading the company to introduce a reformulated version without the chemical in 2013.

Risk versus harm

Though such campaigns may be scientifically baseless, they’re both spreading unnecessary fear and putting an economic squeeze on perfectly legitimate businesses. Groups like EWG may claim to have consumers’ best interests at heart, but much of the content they produce represents a basic misunderstanding of how to evaluate harm – and may in fact be guilty of causing harm through misinformation. And even if their assertions are proved to be bogus further down the line, the genie is already out of the bottle for consumers and companies alike. It’s time to stop to consider the strength of the evidence before jumping to hasty scientific conclusions – advice that applies as much to those who publish articles as to those who read them.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.