The USDA has canceled plans to test for glyphosate residue in corn syrup, according to documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act by Carey Gillam, who writes about them in The Huffington Post. Glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, is the most widely used herbicide in the world, but has come under scrutiny as a potential carcingogen.
“The USDA’s plan called for the collection and testing of 315 samples of corn syrup from around the United States from April through August, according to the documents,” says Gillam. “Researchers were also supposed to test for the AMPA metabolite, the documents state. AMPA (aminomethylphosphonic acid) is created as glyphosate breaks down. Measuring residues that include those from AMPA is important because AMPA is not a benign byproduct but carries its own set of safety concerns, scientists believe.”
Based on the documents, the plan to test was moving ahead as of January of this year, but a USDA spokesman said last week that no such testing would take place after all.
“The final decision for this year’s program plan, as a more efficient use of resources, is to sample and test honey which covers over 100 different pesticides,” said the spokesman, who didn’t want to be named. Glyphosate would not be part of the honey screening, he explained, without offering any explanation as to why the agency halted the tests.
Monsanto already faces a lawsuit brought by hundreds of people who blame Roundup for the fact that they or their loved ones contracted non-Hodgkin lymphoma. “Internal Monsanto documents obtained by plaintiffs’ attorneys in those cases indicate that Monsanto may have manipulated research regulators relied on to garner favorable safety assessments, and last week, Congressman Ted Lieu called for a probe by the Department of Justice into Monsanto’s actions,” says Gillam.
