Reach out to Congress with a simple message: we need to stop poisoning our children. Action Alert!
Listen to the audio version of this article:
THE TOPLINE
- American children are regularly exposed to dangerous toxins, such as glyphosate, heavy metals, and PFAS in their school meals, leading to proven and serious health risks like cancer, neurotoxicity, and liver disease.
- ANH-USA and coalition partners have urged the EPA to address the dangers of glyphosate, highlighting the agency’s failure to consider the full toxicity of pesticide formulations and their harmful impact on human and environmental health.
- The Safe School Meals Act of 2024, introduced by Senator Cory Booker, aims to limit these toxins in school meals by banning glyphosate, PFAS, and harmful packaging materials, taking a critical step toward protecting children’s health.
Every day, millions of American children are exposed to harmful toxins in their school lunches — toxins that have been linked to cancer, neurological damage, liver disease, and more. From glyphosate to heavy metals and PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as ‘forever chemicals’), these contaminants are showing up in the very food that’s meant to nourish our kids. The time has come to address this crisis — and a new bill could finally help turn the tide.
A delegation from ANH-USA, Moms Across America, the Organic Consumers Association and others met with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C. earlier this week, urging regulators to take immediate action to protect American children from the negative health effects of toxins in our food. ANH Founder Rob Verkerk, PhD joined Zen Honeycutt of Moms Across America, Kelly Ryerson of Glyphosatefacts.com, Alexis Baden-Mayer of the Organic Consumers Association, and Ruth Westreich of the Westreich Foundation to provide scientific evidence and insights on how escalating amounts of glyphosate and other toxins are damaging the guts, brains, metabolism and immune systems of children, while poisoning the soil and foods they consume.
While EPA staff listened diligently to the evidence while taking copious notes on the accumulating evidence incriminating glyphosate, the truth is that the agency’s track record on glyphosate is abysmal. The most important actions taken by the EPA have been to keep glyphosate on the market and to maintain that there is “insufficient evidence” linking glyphosate to “any human diseases.”
Pictured from left to right: Zen Honeycutt (Moms Across America), Rob Verkerk (ANH), Ruth Westreich (Westreich Foundation), Kelly Ryerson (Glyphosatefacts.com), and Alexis Baden-Mayer (Organic Consumers Association)
Such delegations and briefings might appear futile on the surface, but they stand as key markers in the sand in any future legal proceedings given the agency can then not claim ignorance of the evidence. Ultimately, this issue must be taken out of the agency’s hands.
The Hidden Dangers in Your Child’s Lunch
While glyphosate is widely known to be the world’s most widely used weedkiller that protects crops from invasive weeds, few still recognize that the highest levels of residue comes from its common use as a crop desiccant — a chemical sprayed on crops just before harvest to make them dry out more evenly. Glyphosate residues on crops have had no capacity to be broken down by soil microbes and end up in disturbingly high concentrations in your breakfast, in your child’s school lunch, and everywhere else in between.
Back in 2018, ANH-USA brought attention to this alarming issue when we published test results showing how much glyphosate was present in common breakfast foods, including cereals. But glyphosate is just the beginning of the problem. Recent tests from Moms Across America found shocking levels of contamination in school lunches, including heavy metals, pesticides, and even veterinary drugs. Some of these heavy metal levels were found to be 6,293 times higher than the EPA’s limits for drinking water!
The presence of these toxins in our children’s food should be unacceptable to everyone. How can we expect our kids to thrive when we’re allowing them to be poisoned, meal after meal?
The Many Dangers of Glyphosate
ANH-USA, along with our coalition partners, has been calling for a ban on glyphosate for years. This toxic herbicide has been linked to a wide range of devastating health effects, including cancer, neurotoxicity, liver disease, and hormone disruption. And the problem is worse than the EPA is letting on. The agency has consistently refused to look at the whole formulation of pesticides, focusing only on the toxicity of the active ingredient itself. Research has shown that the so-called “inert” ingredients added to pesticides can make them up to 1,000 times more toxic than just the active ingredient alone.
It’s not just human health that’s affected either. Scientific research, presented by ANH Founder Rob Verkerk, PhD and other experts, showed that glyphosate disrupts soil microbial communities as well as the beneficial bacteria in the human gut, contributing to a wide range of health and ecological problems.
A Step in the Right Direction: The Safe School Meals Act of 2024
But there’s some good news to report! Lawmakers are starting to take this issue seriously. Just a few days ago, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Safe School Meals Act of 2024, which aims to protect our children from these harmful substances. This critical piece of legislation would:
- Direct the EPA to set limits for heavy metals in school meals.
- Ban glyphosate and other pesticide residues in school meals.
- Ban PFAS, phthalates, and bisphenols (such as BPA) from packaging in school meals.
- Direct the FDA to reevaluate the use of artificial food dyes and other harmful additives in school meals.
While a full ban on glyphosate and PFAS is what’s ultimately needed to get to the root of the problem, this bill is an essential step in the right direction. It would, at the very least, establish meaningful safeguards for our children’s health, reducing their exposure to some of the most dangerous toxins found in their food.
It’s Time to Clean Up Our Kids’ Plates
Protecting our kids should not be a partisan issue. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or simply someone who cares about the future of this country, you should be concerned about the toxic burden we’re placing on the next generation. Congress must pass the Safe School Meals Act of 2024 to ensure our children are not being poisoned every time they sit down for lunch.
If we truly want our kids to flourish — to grow, learn, and achieve their full potential — we must clean up the food they eat. Congress must take this bill seriously and pass it without delay. The health and future of our children depend on it.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and tell them to support the Safe School Meals Act of 2024. Please send your message immediately.
It’s all well and good to remove glyphosate, but the truth is, the children are exposed to more toxins in vaccines. Aluminum and mercury are only two of the worst neurodevelopmental toxins. Most of the mercury comes pre-natally when they give expectant moms flu shots with mercury. The aluminum adjuvant is in DTaP, MMR, and many more and is injected directly into the body, thus bypassing most of the immune system,.