More than four out of five Americans have tested positive for a chemical found in Cheerios, Quaker Oats and other oat-based foods that causes infertility and delays puberty. The “highly toxic agricultural chemical” chemical, chlormequat, can also alter the normal growth of a fetus. A study published Thursday in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology conducted by the nonprofit organization, The Environmental Working Group (EWG), shows 80% of Americans tested positive for chlormequat, per the Daily Mail.“Just as troubling, we detected the chemical in 92% of oat-based foods purchased in May 2023, including Quaker Oats and Cheerios,” EWG wrote in its report. The study also tested the urine of 96 people between 2017 and 2023 for the presence of chlormequat and “found higher levels and more frequent detections of chlormequat in the 2023 samples…which suggests consumer exposure to chlormequat could be on the rise.”Chlormequat was detected in 69% of study participants in 2017, 74% between 2018 and 2022 and a staggering 90% in 2023.The EWG referenced chlormequat studies done on animals, with results showing reduced fertility, other reproductive harm and altered fetal development, “changing development of the head and bones and altering key metabolic processes.”These findings “raise questions about whether it could also harm humans,” the nonprofit wrote in its report. Twenty oat-based foods were tested for chlormequat, plus seven organic, 13 non-organic and nine wheat-based products. Detectable levels of the chemical were found in 92% of the non-organic oat-based foods, while two wheat-based samples had low levels of chlormequat, as did one organic sample. “EWG's recommendation for shoppers is to buy organic oat products since these oats are grown without the use of toxic pesticides such as chlormequat and glyphosate,” the organization’s vice president of science investigations, Olga Naidenko, told the New York Post.The US allows chlormequat to be used on oats and other grains imported into the country, according to the EWG. The toxic chemical alters a plant’s growth by making it more resilient to drooping, which is easier for a farmer to harvest. The EWG called on the Biden administration for answers and the Food and Drug Administration to mandate better chlormequat testing on foods entering the US, but the government seems adamant about allowing and even increasing, chlormequat exposure.In April 2023, President Joe Biden’s US Environmental Protection Agency proposed to allow the chemical to be used on crops grown nationally, which would be the first time that’s ever been allowed in the US, at the request of chlormequat manufacturer, Taminco.
