Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #134: NEW Pesticide in 80% of Americans as well as Cheerios & Quaker Oats: Linked with Reproductive Issues

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Episode #134: NEW Pesticide in 80% of Americans as well as Cheerios & Quaker Oats: Linked with Reproductive Issues · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Even though this pesticide is not really talked about, even in our circles, there's a new study that found that this chlormaquat pesticide was present in four out of every five people.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: In other words, 80% of people who were tested in America.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, everybody.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another Beyond Labels Podcast.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're your hosts, Joel Salatin, the farmer, and Dr.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough, a guru researcher.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So Cena, you're telling me that you have found something and uh you want to you want to drill into it a little bit.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: What have you found?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, Joel, there's a new kid on the block, and his name is Chlormaquat.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Not not Sas not Sasquatch.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, not Sasquatch, but chlormaquat.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Chlormaquat, right?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: That'll get you made fun of on the playground.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Chlormaquat.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: So have you heard of it before?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't, but it sounds like a kissing cousin to Paraquat.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Paraquat was an is an herbicide that's been around for a long, long time.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Paraquat.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so chlor chlormaquat, c h l o r m e q-uat.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Who makes it?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so let's dive into all of that now.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so chlormaquat, it is a pesticide, but it is not well known, right?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: As you can see, Joel and I both were not familiar with chlormaquat, even in our space.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now, it is associated with reproductive and developmental problems that's been shown in animal studies, um, including reduced fertility and altered growth of a baby in the womb.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: These animal studies may suggest similar harm could occur in a human.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: So here's the thing: even though this pesticide is not really talked about, even in our circles, there's a new study that found that this chloromaquat pesticide was present in four out of every five people.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: In other words, 80% of people who were tested in America.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, 80%.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: 80% of those who were tested had chloromaquat in their urine.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Also, the study tested different foods, predominantly oat-based foods and wheat-based foods.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: And they found the pesticide present on those foods.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll get into the details of that in just a moment.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it has this study has sparked headlines, as you can imagine.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Headlines such as this one pesticide linked to reproductive issues found in Cheerios, Quaker oats, and other oat-based foods.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, now the fact that there's another chemical on the market in our food supply wasn't actually groundbreaking news for me, right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're routinely, it seems like, finding more and more chemicals showing up in our food and our water supply.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: What was interesting about this one to me was, as I mentioned, it's already on food and in 80% of Americans who were tested, okay?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: But get this chlormaquat is not allowed to be applied to food grown in the US.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we can't actually use it on food grown in the US.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually only allowed in the US on ornamental plants.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, how did this chloromaquat get on our food and how did it become so prevalent in the human body that it's showing up in 80% of Americans that are tested?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so this what to me was the interesting part.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: The what I found out was that in 2018, the U.S.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, uh, began to allow imported foods, primarily grains, to be treated with chlormaquat, right?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: So at the same time that our governments were saying our farmers can't put it on our food, the EPA decided in 2018 that imported foods could have chloromaquat.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the way that the EPA went about doing this was they essentially published a list of acceptable food tolerance levels for chloromaquat chloride.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: So they basically just said, here's the acceptable levels of chloromaquat that are going to be allowed on imported oats, wheat, barley, and some animal products.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: That publication essentially allowed the import of chlormaquat, the introduction of chloromaquat into our US food supply.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the so the EPA did this, not the FDA.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because the EPA, so even though it's food, the EPA is the one that's in charge of chemicals that are applied to the food.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: So the EPA allowed the tolerance levels on the food.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so because the EPA said, oh, here you go, we put this online that now these are the tolerable levels, it opened the gateway to now companies being able to say, like, oh, Canada, Canada grows, you know, some grain that that is that it has chlomerquot applied to it.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So now we can start importing from Canada.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Even though American farmers are prohibited, are prohibited from using it.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: So so then the story gets a little even more involved from here.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: So in that was in 2018.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now in 2020, the allowable levels were increased for oats.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so they're increased for oats.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Then in April of 2023, right?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: So so this only just recently happened, right?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Last year, the EPA proposed allowing in the US for the first time ever, phlamaquat to be used on barley, oats, wheat, and um triticale grown in the US.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: So why?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Why all of a sudden, right, first they allow these imports in 2018, then they raise the level that was allowed on the imports in 2020, and then in 2023, they're saying, oh, wait, now let's just use this clomerquat, right?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because remember, I already told you that there's studies showing that in animal models, at least, there's harm.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: So what it turns out is this proposal by the EPA to allow the first ever use of clomerquat on some of our food crops in the US, it was in response to an application that was submitted by the chloromaquat manufacturer Teminco.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I'm saying that right.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: T-A-M-I-N-C-O.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Teminco.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: So um I actually looked at that application, and I'm going to send uh include a link um in the description box so everybody can look at it, look at it for themselves.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's 283 pages long.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: I actually went through this application to examine, okay, what changed?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: What changed in the research, for instance, that now all of a sudden this chemical could be allowed on our food.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: So what I found was in that application, the studies that were used to back this request to put this apply on this pesticide on our food supply, these studies are severely lacking, in my opinion.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Many of these studies look at simply residue levels on the plant.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, now beyond looking at just the residue level on the plant, one study looked at residues in eggs coming from hens that were fed plumerquot treated feed.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, they reported that residue did appear at some of the dosages, but they were in the quote-unquote acceptable range.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and this, by the way, the acceptable range is also published in that document.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they got this from um a joint FAO World Health Organization meeting on pesticide residues, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: So they're using this, um, they're adopting the codex um levels.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so so basically they're petitioning the EPA saying, hey, why don't we allow this chemical, this pesticide in our food supply, and we'll just follow the Codex's level, right?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the studies, as I said, as I just said, reported that residue did show up in the eggs, but it was within that acceptable range, the Codex acceptable range.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there were also residues detected in the liver of those hens at every dose tested, right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: But they said it didn't show up in the meat or the fat.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, in cows, they also did a residue test, and residues were present in some of the meat, the fat, the liver, the kidney, and in the milk.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it crossed over into the milk.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: I did not see any human studies listed.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, these are just residue studies in animals given different dosages on chloberquat-treated foods.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: All of the studies that I read in this 283 document, 283 page document, all of the studies were funded by the same industry producing the pesticide.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so they were funded by the companies.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: At the end, the company concluded this quote, there is the potential for secondary transfer of chlormaquat chloride residues in ruminant meat and milk with the existing uses on grain cereals.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: Then they go on to say they recommend tolerances only on meat and meat byproducts, which will cover the liver and kidney tissues.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: So they conducted the study.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: They're saying that there is potential for secondary transfer of it in the meat and the milk.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: And they're saying basically, just put put these late um limits, the codex limits on it, and we should just approve it.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Now, um, I want to highlight one thing before I go on to um some of the study results.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: I do want to highlight, like Joel and I do often, this is not um uh we're not taking sides with a political side.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, because if you look at the timeline, the EPA, you know, in in 2018, right?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Who was president in 2018?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was Trump.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was Trump.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: So under Trump, they allowed imported foods to now um foods to be imported that had plumerquot on them.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, same in 2020.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then in April 2023, that was Biden's EPA that proposed allowing the first ever use of plumerquot on US, US foods, U.S.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: crops.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: So this is another example of how these issues in our food supply that affect all of us, right?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Pesticide is non-discriminate, it's gonna affect all of us.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: And they span the political aisle, right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: So this is another example, I think, of how we can't just rely on the politicians to change the food supply.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's really has to come from we the people, pushing back through the market largely, right?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: So don't be lulled into this false sense of security that your Republican or Democratic politician is going to fix this for you because they're they're not, right?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: We see this happening under both uh both both sides of the aisle.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the the problem is that they they they essentially create enabling legislation to go to the agency, and at that point their hands are off.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we did it, those are the experts over there.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Though those guys, they're they're the experts, you know, go talk to them.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've washed our hands of of responsibility, and it's all good.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem with that is that it it combines the executive, legislative, and judicial branch in one agency.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so the people that write the regulations, interpret the regulations, and enforce the regulations.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the that's the very definition of tyranny.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so and so this is another example of how we have that in our government, right?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: So what's happening is we're importing crops that have been treated with these pesticides, and then we're processing them into numerous food products that we're feeding ourselves and our family.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: So, for instance, chlormaquat is approved for use on food crops in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada, right?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's primarily um approved on wheat, oats, and barley.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, chlormaquat is the most um is often the most detected pesticide residue in grains and cereal in the UK and the European Union.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's because it is the most commonly used plant growth regulator throughout the world, right?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And and that I actually got that statistic from a study published in toxicology in 2020.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, this is one reason why I do think it's fascinating that we're now just learning about this chlorquat because it is the most commonly used plant growth regulator.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and and and we're gonna get into what that means.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: But what I what I'm trying to say is um this is why this new study was conducted.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: This new study that's making all these headlines about Cheerios and Quaker oats having this, you know, new pesticide on it that can hurt reproduction.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we're feeding this to our children, you know.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the the authors of this study, they wanted to characterize what is the impact of the EPA's decision allowing uh chloromaquat in the U.S.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: food supply.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, how has this impacted people?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so what they did was from 2017 to 2023, they measured urine in Americans from three different geographical regions.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: They also love measured levels of chloromaquat in oat and wheat products that were purchased in the US between 2022 and 2023.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I will link to this study.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was actually just published uh February 15th, 2024, in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: So here's the highlights from the study.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: This was the first study to ever look at the presence of chloromaquat in humans in the US.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, first time ever.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we don't really have anything to compare it against.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Chlormaquat was detected, as I said, in 80% of all the samples.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they tested 96 people and showed up in 77 of them.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: They also showed that the frequency of detection was higher in 2023 compared to any other year.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: So going back all the way to 2017 compared to now, the levels were higher in 2023.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this increase indicates potentially more exposure to this pesticide over time.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: It also indicates, um, as this the study has concluded this, okay, that it could be an indication of a chronic exposure to this new pesticide chloromaquat, because chloromaquat has a short half-life in the body.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: It usually has a half-life around two to three hours.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, a lot of the experimental doses uh show excretion completely within about 24 hours.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: And those are in human studies with human volunteers.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, what they're saying, the authors are saying in the study is that not only is the amount that we're being exposed to uh apparently increasing, but our frequency of exposure also appears to be increasing.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now, in terms of food exposure, they said that 92% of conventional oat-based products were positive for chloromaquat.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: 92%.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that's 23 out of 25 oat-based products that they tested.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that does include Quaker Oats and Cheerios.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: So 92% already have chlormaquat.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now they said that 12%, one out of eight of organic oat-based products were positive for chlormaquat.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then in terms of the wheat-based products, 22% or two out of nine tested positive.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: So the conclusion was obviously that the oat-based products contain more chlorquat more frequently compared to the wheat.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they think that might be because the levels of clomerquat is greater in the food samples coming from the UK.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: 90% of bread samples, for instance, in the UK, their wheat-based breads were positive for chloromaquat.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: So it might just be where we're sourcing it from.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so either way, though, this is pretty alarming that for something that's not even allowed to be applied to our crops yet, we're showing up with this high level in the human themselves and in the food products.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: So then the next question is why are they using chlormaquat?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like what benefit does it give?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: So it's um, it's actually, like I said, a plant growth regulator.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Those, that means that it's a chemical used to manipulate the growth of the plant, either the height of it, the flowering, or the fruit yield.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: In grain crops, they use chlormaquat to decrease the stem height because that will reduce the likelihood of the crop lodging or bending over, right?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it helps with harvest.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: So what they said was that basically it's not actually providing a nutritive benefit to the plant or to the animal consuming that crop.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: This is for our economic purposes.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's to help with the harvesting of the plant.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: And again, this is already the most common plant growth regular in the whole regulator in the whole world.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: So then knowing learning this, my next thought was okay, well, so let's try not to be biased.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Let's first try to figure out is this actually bad for humans, right?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of data do we have to show that?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we've actually known since the early 1980s that in Denmark, pigs that were fed grain that had this chlorquot treatment, they actually had impaired reproduction and they had fertility issues already.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: That was back in the 1980s.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Those results were later confirmed in controlled lab experiments on both pigs and mice.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: So female pigs, for instance, that were fed chloromaquat-treated grain, they did have um disruptive um menstrual cycles.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: They had difficulty mating compared to controls.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: And male mice that were exposed to chlorquat, either through food or drinking water, they um they presented with decreased fertility capacity of the of their sperm.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what I want to point out here though is that in these studies, the amount of chloromaquat that the pig consumed and that these mice consumed, it was actually below below the acceptable daily intake.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: So that means it's the acceptable daily intake is 0.05 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is like this is what the regulators use as the level of as long as you're below that.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: So when they're measuring residue, for instance, on the crops, as long as you're below that, it's acceptable.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: You can go ahead and feed humans with that.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: And what I'm saying is these studies have shown harm, reproductive harm in both pigs and mice at levels below that, which raises concerns over the limits that have been set.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So Cena, pardon my ignorance, but when the when the EPA set that that daily consumption level, that this amount is okay, what did they use to determine that?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do they how do they set that this is an okay amount to to consume?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: So they're using predominantly information that's coming from these companies.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: So that the EPA isn't actually going out and testing.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: We all know that.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: But at some point, somebody at D EPA sat down and said, well, this amount is okay.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was that was company, that was just company data.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that the EPA just just wrote in.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, it didn't come, it didn't come from Denmark where these pigs were having problems.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: So what we're having here is, and this is a common theme, right?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: This is a common theme when you have any chemical that's in the food supply.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so let me walk you through um let me walk you through this common scenario.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: So there's the studies I just showed, right?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Then there's recent reproductive toxicity studies on chlormaquat showing delayed onstant puberty, reboot, reduced um sperm motility, decreased weight of the reproductive organs, decreased testosterone level, um, and other ones showing that if you're exposed during pregnancy, it can dysregulate fetal growth and metabolism, even after birth.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Some are showing seven days after birth, still having issues.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: So um the but here's the issue you have all those studies, and then you have other studies that didn't find any impact of clormaquat on reproduction in mice, pigs, you know, or other other animals.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so what they'll say is you have equivocal evidence.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: Now, when you look at those studies, so for instance, here's here's a study published in 2006, and they showed that former quat did affect fertility in mammals.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: And what they said here is um it affected it at bel below the acceptable daily intake.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then they say reports from the industry do not show any effects at these low levels.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh right?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, it it rem it reminds me, it reminds me of the um of the Monsanto uh potato GMO tests that are articulated in um Jeffrey Smith's uh Seeds of Deception book, which is which is kind of you know iconic now in the in the genre of GMOs, where where Monsanto used geriatric mice to do their studies.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and when and when the when the Scot when the Scotland um scientist duplicated everything except he used juvenile mice instead of geriatric mice, suddenly it's had all problems, organ problems, behavior problems, all sorts of things.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, because geriatric mice, they're not reproducing anymore.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're not, you know, they're pretty much behaviors done.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so um that that that was when I appreciated how subjective an experiment can be set up in order to, you know, prejudice the in order to not find something.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't want to find something, you can set it up so you won't find something.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you have the statistical uh you have you have the study design issues, you have statistical analysis issues, you know.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um this we we just talked about this too with the the GMO purple potato, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Criticism about how that study was not set up.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Purple tomato, purple tomato.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, purple purple tomato.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: What do I say?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Purple potato?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Purple potato.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I like the peach.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Purple potato.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Purple potato.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, no, no.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Purple tomato.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Purple tomato.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, purple tomato.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: That one, well, now we're never gonna forget that, right?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's like purple tomato.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: So so that one too, the the pilot study they used for that, for the rat uh feeding study.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: That one has studied study flaws, you know, according to some geneticists.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: So so we have the same thing here.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: You can guide the outcome of a study from the start of the study.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then we know that there's also manipulation of data, there's cherry picking data, right?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: This even goes back to the um dietary guidelines, right, with Ansel Keys, cherry picking the data.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: So this is not a recent phenomenon.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: This occurs.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some of this is called out as well, you know, in in falsified studies.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: We have studies that are retracted, um, studies that can't be reproduced, right?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh because of a lot of these little factors coming into play.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, if if industry doesn't want a negative effect to appear, a negative effect may not appear, right?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so so that's the thing.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: When you submit these, and and that's why I went to uh I spent so much time talking about the application that um Taminko sent to the EPA asking, hey, can we now apply this to the crops here?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: The reason I spent that time in the application was to show you the lack of um, I'm gonna call it integrity of the studies, right?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: These are not in-depth studies looking at what happens when you consume this in a human and how much residue is there in their urine.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, let's measure reproductive markers there.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're not doing these types of studies.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, from in my opinion, as a scientist, these are these are very remedial markers that they're looking at, remedial studies.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: But also, as I mentioned previously, every study that I found in that 283-page document was funded by industry, right?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: The same industry that wants to use the product.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: So you have this conflict.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so what happens is when someone submits an application, that's what they submit, right?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: They submit all this favorable data.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm telling you, you're not going to have people on the other end receiving this being like, um, wait, let me go and research the data myself, right?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: Let me go into the scientific literature and see if there's any contradictory studies.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you do that, you might not get got you might not get invited to the uh wine and cheese tasting at the you know, at the um annual gala.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'll and on, you know, you're not gonna be part of the revolving door for sure, right?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, so that this is what happens there.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it's some I'm not saying every single time, but uh clearly you can see the document for yourself.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: There, these are industry-funded studies, and they're concluding that there's no problem, even though they are seeing a residue.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Then you have the other studies that are showing harm.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: And oftentimes it's the studies that are not funded by industry that are ones that are showing harm, but what's submitted to the EPA is just this document.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that's largely, uh to my knowledge, what the EPA looks at.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so I think what happens is the the companies present the information and the EPA must take a similar stance to the FDA, where the FDA is like, it's your job to basically present that there's no harm, and it's your job to make sure it's safe.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: And as long as you have this documentation, then you've checked the boxes.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right, you know, so so we have another example of of that here, and it's actually it's it's documented in in the literature that that that's actually what's happening.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: So um one thing that I find interesting here is that um so the World Health Organization, right, was involved in setting these limits and basically uh allowing the use of chloromaquot on the food crops.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: So uh they're the ones that help set that five milligrams per kilogram body weight um level, and the EPA uh uh basically adopted it.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: So my point is the World Health Organization essentially set the standard in spite of data showing that the pesticide can be harmful to reproduction, even at lower levels than what their standard is.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Then just last year in 2023, the World Health Organization released a new report where they concluded that infertility is on the rise and affects now one in six people worldwide.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: And they have now defined for infertility as a quote, disease.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's now a disease of the male or female reproductive system, and they have deemed it a major health challenge globally with a quote, urgent need to increase access to affordable, high-quality fertility care for those in need.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: And here's their solution.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: It says, despite the magnitude of the issue, solutions for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infertility, including assisted reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilization, remain underfunded and inaccessible to many due to high cost, social stigma, and limited availability.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: So do you see the irony here?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: They're supportive of putting these chemicals in the food, and we're consuming them at you know across the world, right?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: When we and we know they have fertility issues, and we know they're happening at levels lower than the standard, and now they're like, oh, we need more funding to give people the solution, which is in vitro fertilization.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, just take the chemical out.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like and you know, anyone who thinks that these watchdog watchdog outfits are actually guarding anything, they're they're they're shills, you she they're they're just shills for you know, for the corporate um they're not interested in truth.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're not interested in truth.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know that.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: No, not soever.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, according to the study, they're saying that there's no monitoring of this chlormaquat on our food products in the US.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why this one of the reasons why this study was so important, because they're calling it out.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: And right now our government agencies they according to the study, they do not monitor this, you know.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: So um so they're not out there like testing for it, for instance.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but but but here the um the EPA is actually reviewing whether or not they're gonna they are gonna allow non-organic crops to start being um treated with chlormaclot.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: So they're still reviewing that.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it could actually happen, uh, even though we already have all these studies showing harm and no one's monitoring it.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, oftentimes we talk about how children are more susceptible to the chemicals, right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, well, who who's eating a lot of these oat-based products, right?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the cereals and such, right?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you got Cheerios and Krakow oats, like you got a lot of kids eating those granola bars, you know, various types of cereals, like yeah, these all these uh little new um whatever snack bars, your cliff cliff bars, you know, all that sort of stuff.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's all it's all oat, it's all oat-based because oats, oats have a real different texture.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: They they mix up and texture different than wheat.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a it's a very different, it's a very different flake.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's why it's used in a lot of these things rather than wheat, is because it the the flake has a has a different texture.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I mean the fact that the fact that so there's one study this was in toxicology in 2020, and it has it concludes that it has an adverse effect on postnatal health.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: So the mothers who are exposed to it, it affects the development of their baby, like I said, seven days after.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: Seven days after.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, imagine all the things the mom's eating with when she's pregnant, you know, and we're and we're told to eat, you know, eat your oaths, right?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's promoted by the American Heart Association stuff for the fiber content and whatnot.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: And goodness, I mean, as I was researching this, I thought to myself, because it even showed up in the organic uh sample, right?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: So uh less, but you know, uh albeit less.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: So they're still saying choosing organic is a better option, okay?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: But geez, I'm reading all this and I was like, wow, and the fact that like nobody knew this, like, how long have we been consuming these things?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, think of all the reproductive issues that we have in our country and worldwide.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: And how long have we been consuming this?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we and nobody really knew, like, I didn't know, you didn't know.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: We're just finding this out, right?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking to myself, I'm so glad I don't eat grains anymore.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm so glad in like pseudo grains, right?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: But then you start thinking about what about all the other foods that I'm eating?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: What's on there that we just don't know about yet, right?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: That just hasn't come in into view yet.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it kind of also it reminds me of you and I talked about this before with recombinant bovine growth hormone and how we were allowed to be the guinea pigs for eight years.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it right, it didn't have to be, it was experimental.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was an experimental drug at the time.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: The first genetically engineered drug introduced into our food supply, still experimental, and it didn't have to be labeled.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was sold in grocery stores, right?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: The milk from these cows was sold in grocery stores, it did not have to be labeled.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we probably miss some of us unknowingly consumed that.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm thinking of that.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm reading this, I'm thinking of how GMOs got approved, how they were grass status and deregulated.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I need to get my garden going.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like and and now you need to tent it from the drift.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're we're back to um, you know, know your farmer, know your food.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, uh, you know, do for yourself as much as you can.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, our summit coming up, I can't help but but segue in it.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's about detoxing.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: The the fact is, the fact is right now you would have to go live in a in a in a bubble somewhere to to really, and even then the the bubble would probably have some toxin in it.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so uh so you know the the fact is we we need to be aggressive about understanding we are being touched by all these things, and we need to be, you know, detoxifying with the right kind of foods, water and and and sweat, you know, sweat, um, all that.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh that's a really important thing.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we'll we'll go all into it at the at the summit, but but you know, these kinds of things help you to realize how ubiquitous all this stuff is.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: You do the best you can, you go to one you know, church party and suddenly you know you've eaten all this, and and it just it just is what it is, you know.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to become a anti-socialite hermit, uh, you know, curmudgeon in order to actually, and most of us don't want to do that.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we want to circulate some, we want to go to our our our family, you know, kiddo birthday parties, things like that, and you don't want to be a a bore and a pain.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so you know uh how we how we respond to that, um to try to keep ourselves uh above it and and uh whatever cleaned out, cleaned out is a you know, is a is a big deal.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and cleaned out, yeah, that yeah, that has all sorts of ramifications.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah uh I get that, but but you know, um cleaned out is a is a big deal.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well thanks, Cena.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um anything we've missed on this, we're we're really out of time, but um that's it's been great to to um explain it.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And just just so everybody knows, so so so this material, um chlormaquat, is a is an herbicide.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is not technically, I know we we we use the term pesticides as kind of a generic thing, but I can tell you as a farmer, we're very uh it's kind of like the difference between a cow, a heifer, a steer, uh, you know, and a bull, and and we have all these nuances.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh in agriculture, it's the same thing.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Chlormaquat is actually an herbicide because it affects plant growth.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and uh a fungicide affects fungi, a bactericide affects bacteria, and a pesticide infects insects and pests.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so chlormaquat, uh, as you're talking with people about this, uh just remember that it is an it is an herbicide because it is it affects the vegetation, the herb, the herbage.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: That that's where you can remember it, um as opposed to you know the insects and things like that.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's absolutely true.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's little nuances because the EPA defines it as a pesticide.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's the generic, that's kind of the generic view.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like a catch-all.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like it's become like a catch-all term.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: So when you go to the EPA documents that I've listed here, you'll see um EPA proposes to register a new use of pesticide chlorchloride.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we're talking about the same thing, they're just labeling it something different.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, the E the EPA also is not known for its um nuanced grammar.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's farm savvy.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's nuanced grammar either, you know.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, everybody, thanks for thanks for uh staying with us here through this.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this has been a tough one.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and but uh that it obviously is uh is just really penetrating our food system now and uh giving us another reason to um to find sources other than the supermarket and get beyond labels and and go clear off labels for that matter, if we can.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for being with us again, and we look forward to visiting with you again next week.