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Partnering with EHN.org, the environmental wellness blog and community had the oat milks tested by a U.S.-Environmental-Protection-Agency-certified lab for glyphosate and heavy metals. They found traces of glyphosate and arsenic in MALK Organic Oat Milk at 12 parts per billion, and glyphosate in Silk Extra Creamy Oatmilk at 14 parts per billion.
“Oat milk is consumed by many people as a drink alternative that goes into coffee, cereals, baked goods, and other foods,” Linda Birnbaum, scientist emeritus and former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program, told Mamavation. “One exposure would be fine, but daily exposure is concerning. “
Glyphosate is the most widely-used herbicide in the world and linked to number of human health problems including cancer, neurological diseases, endocrine disruption and birth defects. Arsenic is linked to cancer, cardiovascular disease and developmental impacts to children.
EHN.org partially funded the testing and Pete Myers, chief scientist of Environmental Health Sciences, which publishes Environmental Health News, reviewed the findings. The report builds EHN.org and Mamavation’s growing library of consumer products tested. For example, recent testing found evidence of PFAS chemicals in contact lenses.
Other scientists who reviewed the results said the two products with contaminants are cause for concern.
“Glyphosate residues in food products are troubling at any level,” Terry Collins, Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry & Director of the Institute for Green Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, told Mamavation. “Clearly, the company with glyphosate and arsenic above 10 [parts per billion] would be well advised to discover why these are there and eliminate them.”
Related: Glyphosate, explained
Collins also pointed to the good news: most brands had no detectable levels of the herbicide.
“And it is encouraging that most products were found to be free of such heavy metal contamination above 10 parts per billion,” he added.
Why is glyphosate in oat milk?
Glyphosate has been found in a variety of oat products, including oat meals and cereals, as well as some lentils and barleys. Some experts believe late season glyphosate spraying — which hastens the drying out process for crops in the field — is the culprit.
“I used to eat oat products frequently, but when I learned about pre-harvest desiccation I stopped eating any oats that weren’t grown organically,” Myers told Mamavation.
Heavy metals can get into food from soil, past pesticide use, manufacturing or storage.
What brands were glyphosate-free?
Mamavation found no glyphosate or harmful metals in oat milks from Three Trees, Rise Brewing, Oatsome, Kirkland, Califia, Planet Oat, Oatley, Nut Pods, Elmhurst and Chobani.
“It’s important to select products that do not have detectable glyphosate or other heavy metals in order to protect your family (and yourself) from the complications that can arise from daily exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals,” Birnbaum said.
See the full investigation at Mamavation.
Interested in other tested products? Check out our ongoing investigation into PFAS in popular products.
While experts believe more data are needed to confirm the findings, this study sheds light on the possible penetration of microplastics into the human reproductive system and the urgency for understanding their potential health impact.
Led by researchers from Peking University in China, the small-scale study analyzed six testis and 30 semen samples for the presence of microplastics using two different laboratory techniques. Microplastics were detected in both human testis and semen, with the abundance in the testis significantly higher than that in semen.
The researchers found differences in the types of microplastics predominating in either testis or semen. While polystyrene, a main ingredient for plastic foams, was the most abundant polymer in the testis samples; polyethylene, which is commonly used for packaging, and polyvinyl chloride, which makes PVC pipes, were predominant in the semen. Additionally, they concluded that microplastics ranging from 20 micrometers to 100 micrometers, which is the average diameter of human hair, were the most common in testis, while those in semen had bigger sizes.
The fact that tiny plastic particles were found in human testis and semen is "no surprise", Dick Vethaak, an ecotoxicologist and emeritus professor at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam who has been investigating microplastics but is not involved with this study, told Environmental Health News (EHN). However, whether it is true that the larger microplastics can penetrate the male reproductive organs, as reported in this study, still presents "quite a question mark."
"It's a pilot study that, in my opinion, provides preliminary evidence that microplastics are present in human testis," Vethaak said. "But before we can draw any definite conclusions, I think we need more data."
The paper's lead authors did not respond to the interview requests by EHN.
How widespread are microplastics?
Typically derived from plastic breakdowns or used as an ingredient in commercial products, microplastics can be as ubiquitous as plastic products are. As microplastics transverse through the global environment — from the French Pyrenees to Arctic sea ice — these particles also permeate our daily lives, with traces found in drinking water, food and air.
Previously, Vethaak and his collaborators have identified microplastics in human blood. "If it's in the blood, it can in fact go everywhere in your body," he said, adding that mounting scientific evidence has also indicated that microplastics can enter the human gut, lungs and placenta. Despite their omnipresence, the health impact of microplastics still remains unclear due to scant scientific evidence.
"An important first step"
"I do think it's an important first step," Douglas Walker, an environmental health professor at Emory University who is not involved in this study, told EHN about the new paper. "I think [the researchers] are establishing a foundation to show that they're being detected in different types of tissues."
Walker, whose lab has been trying to develop a scalable and reliable exposure assessment method for microplastics, said the authors in this study "did take acceptable steps" to ensure the microplastics measured in the analysis were actually present in the samples versus contaminations introduced during the experiment.
"One of the challenges that we face in developing methods to measure microplastics — and one of the reasons that they are so difficult to quantify — is that microplastics are everywhere," Walker said. "If you go into a research laboratory, one of the first things you'll notice is that just about everything is plastic there."
Still, echoing Vethaak's point, Walker said the study's results on the larger microplastics can be "a little concerning," especially given that previous evidence has typically linked smaller particles to the human body uptake.
In addition, given the small sample size of this study, Walker warned against drawing conclusions on the potential health impact. "It shows the potential for microplastics to exert some effects on the male reproductive organs," he said. "What that effect is, we can't say at this point."
Microplastics' unknown health impact
Shanna Swan, who is a leading reproductive epidemiologist from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and is not involved in the study, told EHN that, at this point, scientists "can only speculate" the impact of microplastics on human health based on the chemicals that have been studied in plastics — such as phthalates and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Swan is also an adjunct scientist with Environmental Health Sciences, the publisher of EHN.
"We know a lot about what those [chemicals] do individually, but what they do in the form of a microplastic or nanoplastic, we don't know yet," said Swan, whose research helped underpin that global human sperm count and quality are declining at an alarming rate.
In addition, emerging studies in animal models, such as mice, also pointed to microplastic exposures to the potential adverse outcomes in spermatogenesis and sperm quality, hinting at the possible risk of these particles for male fertility health in mammalian organisms.
"We know testosterone levels are decreasing worldwide," she said. "Is that related to the presence of microplastics in their organs? I don't know — that is an open question."
A proposal being considered by European regulators finds that current BPA exposure limits vastly underestimate the harm the plastic additive causes to human health. The revised rules say the new exposure threshold should be 20,000 times lower than today's level.
If the recommendations in the new assessment — released today by the European Food Safety Authority, the European equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — are adopted, it would more than likely force bisphenol-A, or BPA, out of products that come into contact with food in Europe.
“This new safe level is so low that it will drive and accelerate changes in the supply chain,” Maricel V. Maffini, an environmental consultant focused on environmental chemical exposures who has worked with the Environmental Defense Fund and others, told Environmental Health News (EHN).
Related: What it will take for the EU to be a model for safe chemicals
The new assessment and recommended daily dose is more in line with current science, which continues to find BPA impacts our health in myriad ways. It is also in stark contrast to U.S. regulations of the ubiquitous chemical. The U.S. safe daily exposure level for BPA, which was set in 1988, is 250,000 times higher than the new European recommendation.
The new risk assessment “provides scientific evidence that makes it urgent for FDA and other agencies to act to reduce the levels of exposure,” Maffini told EHN.
EHN asked the FDA why that exposure level has stayed the same for 35 years and about the discrepancy between U.S. and European agencies’ BPA safety determinations.
“The FDA has supported research and reviewed the safety of BPA uses in food packaging as it has become available,” a spokesperson wrote in an emailed response. “The FDA’s regulatory decisions are grounded in the robust evaluation of the totality of the available science on food additives, including substances used in food packaging.”
BPA in our blood
The European Food Safety Authority estimates that most people, including kids, have more than a hundred times more BPA in their blood than their new recommended daily dose.
Credit: CDC
BPA is an endocrine disruptor, meaning it alters the proper functioning of our hormones. The chemical has been linked to multiple health problems, including cancer, diabetes, obesity, reproductive, nervous and immune system impacts, and behavioral problems. It remains a key ingredient in polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins — ending up in Tupperware, food can liners and other food packaging. The chemical can leach out of such packaging and get into our food.
Most people have BPA in their blood. The European Food Safety Authority estimates that most people, including infants and toddlers, have more than a hundred times more BPA in their blood than their new recommended daily dose.
Academic scientists and health advocates have for years called into question how BPA and other endocrine disruptors — such as phthalates, some flame retardants, pesticides — are regulated. Most federal agencies subscribed to the concept that “the dose makes the poison.” However, for chemicals like BPA, that’s not always true and sometimes low doses and high doses can have different effects: Europe’s new assessment recognizes that.
Europe’s latest move on BPA
Today’s assessment, which included a broad range of human and animal studies, represents the latest European move on BPA.
OK, here’s some math: In 2015 the agency set a temporary “tolerable daily intake” for BPA of 4 parts per billion of body weight — which is more than 12 times lower than the U.S. level of 50 ppb. In 2021, the European Food Safety Authority recommended slashing the allowable daily dose to 0.00004 ppb of body weight per day – a 100,000-fold drop. Today’s assessment revises that 2021 recommendation up to a 0.0002 ppb tolerable daily intake — but that still represents a 20,000-fold drop from Europe’s current allowable levels.
The bottom line? Even the tiniest amount of BPA in, say, the cap of a soda bottle will violate the new exposure limits. Europe says we basically shouldn’t have BPA in our products at all if we don’t want health impacts.
The assessment released today will go to the European Commission, which will make the final decision on changes to allowable BPA levels.
BPA CLARITY
As part of the reevaluation, the European Food Safety Authority reviewed new studies on BPA since 2013, and pointed out that some of the most critical research came out of the CLARITY-BPA Core Study, which was a U.S. research effort meant to bridge the gap between FDA scientists and academics and environmental health advocates.
While well-meaning, the program didn’t work out as planned: Academics found BPA was having a profound impact on various health endpoints in lab studies, but the FDA didn’t consider the academic contributions and put out a 2018 report, along with the National Toxicology Program, stating the current uses of BPA remain safe. Environmental Health News investigated the CLARITY project and found, via Freedom of Information requests and dozens of interviews, the FDA often sought to discredit the independent evidence of harm from BPA while favoring pro-industry science despite significant shortcomings.
European researchers, however, found the academic contributions to CLARITY quite useful in their latest assessment. They used such studies to show evidence of harm to thyroid, pituitary and adrenal glands, bone marrow, kidneys and livers. Maffini also pointed out that studies show “the immune system is the most sensitive to BPA toxicity.”
Pete Myers — chief scientist for Environmental Health Sciences which publishes EHN.org — has been following the BPA saga since the early 1990s when University of Missouri scientist Fred vom Saal’s research first started to appear on BPA as an endocrine disrupting compound.
Commenting on this new assessment, Myers said “it’s not surprising but it is reassuring that European Food Safety Authority’s estimates of BPA safety are consistent with the work of 18 independent investigators who participated in the CLARITY-BPA mega-study.”
Myers said it’s also not surprising that the findings are dramatically different from the conclusion that the U.S. FDA drew from CLARITY. “The FDA chose to ignore all the work of the independent scientists, established experts funded by the National Institutes of Health. It makes you wonder for whom FDA scientists are working. The public or the chemical industry.”
US review of BPA safety
After Europe’s recommended slashing of BPA allowable doses last year, a group of doctors, scientists and health organizations petitioned the U.S. FDA to review the safety of BPA in food packaging. The FDA accepted the petition last summer, which means they need to complete an assessment that justifies whether they will accept the petition’s suggestions or not. That assessment hasn’t happened yet.
The FDA is currently reviewing a BPA petition we received in September 2022 … [and] does not comment on petitions that are under review,” the spokesperson said. “We will publish our response to the petition in the Federal Register once we have completed our review.”
Maffini, who submitted the petition along with several organizations, said “the finalized European Food Safety Authority risk assessment confirming that BPA is toxic to the immune system at extremely low levels should give FDA a greater sense of urgency to act on the petition that is already overdue.”