Transcription
EWG's research on pesticides has always been about letting people know what they can be exposed to through the foods that they're eating. When I first heard my colleagues tell me they found Chlor quat in the foods that they had tested, I said, "What's Chlor quat?"
Chlor quat is a new chemical in the US food supply. It is used primarily on grain crops like oats and wheat. Once we learned that the EPA had essentially started allowing Chlor quat on oat-based products that were being imported into the US, we decided to test them.
When we tested those products, we found Chlor quat in over 90% of those samples. Those were samples like cereals, breakfast bars, and snack bars—really common foods that people are eating every day. EWG's toxicologist looked at the chemistry of this particular chemical and were alarmed. Chlor quat causes really concerning health effects in animal studies. It harms the reproductive system and it can disrupt fetal growth, and that gives us concern for how this chemical might also impact human health.
Once we knew it was really prevalent in the food supply, the next question was: well, can you measure it in people? This is the first study of Chlor quat exposure in the US population. Our study is published in the peer-reviewed journal called Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. We tested the urine of about 96 different people.
We expected to find a little bit of Chlor quat, or maybe some people would have detections, but the fact that four out of five—77 of the 96 people—had exposure to Chlor quat was really astonishing, especially because this is a pretty new chemical to Americans.
The average American probably believes that the EPA is solely in the business of protecting them and their families from contaminants, including pesticides in the foods. But the opposite is actually true. We need the EPA to protect children's health and use the best available science and data to do that.