Glyphosate, a cancer-causing herbicide, was found in 80 percent of urine samples from kids and adults in the U.S., the CDC's "National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey" found.
Researchers collected samples from people in the U.S. ages 6 and older. The chemical is the active ingredient in the Roundup brand, which is owned by German pharmaceutical company Bayer after it bought Monsanto in 2018, CBS reported July 12.
"Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the country, yet until now we had very little data on exposure," said Alexis Temkin, PhD, a toxicologist at the Environmental Working Group. "Children in the U.S. are regularly exposed to this cancer-causing weedkiller through the food they eat virtually every day."
A spokesperson for Bayer told CBS the CDC study confirmed human exposure to the chemical is low and that the company plans to replace glyphosate in the product beginning in 2023.
"CDC's data provide further confirmation that human exposures to glyphosate are well below levels that regulatory agencies established to protect human health," Darren Wallis said in an emailed statement. "CDC's highest reported value (8.13 ng glyphosate/ml of urine) corresponds to exposures that are less than 0.14% of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s safety threshold."