Pesticide in your pee?

CDC says the answer is yes for over 80 percent of us.

In fresh evidence of the pervasive nature of pesticides, more than 80 percent of urine samples drawn from children and adults participating in a US health study contained a weedkilling chemical linked to cancer and other health problems.

The report by a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that out of 2,310 urine samples collected, 1,885 were laced with detectable traces of glyphosate, the active ingredient in herbicides sold around the world, including the widely used Roundup brand. About 28% of the participants were children ranging from age 6 to 18.

 The new data was released as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which relies on a series of ongoing studies to evaluate the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. NHANES research is typically highly valued by scientists because the sampling is designed to be representative of the US population.

Academics and private researchers have been noting high levels of the herbicide glyphosate in analyses of human urine samples for years. But the CDC has only recently started examining the extent of human exposure to glyphosate in the United States, and its work comes at a time of mounting concerns and controversy over how pesticides in food and water impact human and environmental health.

“I expect that the realization that most of us have glyphosate in our urine will be disturbing to many people,” said Lianne Sheppard, professor at the University of Washington’s department of environmental and occupational health sciences. “Now from this NHANES analysis we know that a large fraction of the population has it in urine.  Many people will be thinking about whether that includes them.”

You can see the rest of the story at The New Lede.