Monsanto’s Roundup is turning up everywhere.

And that’s a big problem, since the evidence linking its ingredients to serious health problems, including cancer, is piling up.

The commonly-used herbicide’s main active ingredient, glyphosate, has been found in breakfast cereals, snack bars, ice cream — and now a new study has found it in beer and wine.1,2

Even worse — we’re still not sure how serious the long-term health effects are from exposure.3

Iowa PIRG is working to ban Roundup in Iowa unless and until it’s proven safe. Will you make your Earth Day gift before our drive ends at midnight tomorrow?

Our goal is to raise $15,000 to help pass more local and state bans this year, and keep all of our other campaigns going strong, from standing up for consumers to protecting public health.

It’s bad enough you can still find Monsanto’s Roundup on store shelves. But researchers keep finding traces of glyphosate — the key toxic ingredient in Roundup — everywhere it shouldn’t be.

Our research partners at U.S. PIRG Education Fund tested 20 samples of beer and wine, including Budweiser, Coors, Samuel Adams and New Belgium, and discovered detectable levels of glyphosate in nearly all of them — even in organic varieties.4

Fifty-seven years after Rachel Carson warned us of a Silent Spring, and 49 years after millions of Americans called for action on the first Earth Day, we’re still spreading poisons throughout our natural environment. We’re stuck in a “spray first, ask questions later” mindset.

I don’t want a silent spring for the next generation. I want to celebrate an Earth Day when the mindless overuse of toxic chemicals is a thing of the past. Will you help make this dream a reality?

Donate today to ban Roundup unless and until it can be proven safe, and to support our other work to protect consumers’ rights and the public interest. The deadline is Earth Day — tomorrow — to raise $15,000 to keep the momentum going.

Your support will give our Ban Roundup campaign the resources we need to put our reliance on this toxic pesticide behind us and win local and statewide bans to protect public health. With your support, Iowa PIRG and our national network will:

• Call for bans on Roundup in states across the country, while also supporting active legislation to ban glyphosate-based pesticides in states like Massachusetts.
• Work at the municipal level to pass bans on Roundup in communities across our state. Our national network has already helped restrict Roundup in Miami, Florida, and Austin, Texas.
• Defend existing bans by filing amicus briefs in the courts, such as the one our national network filed in Maryland. Monsanto is fighting a Roundup ban in Montgomery County there. Our network is defending it right now.
• Partner with Iowa PIRG Education Fund to do the research and release hard-hitting reports that expose the risks of Roundup, while also shining a spotlight on the issue in the media.
• Put boots on the ground in more than 16 states across the country to go door to door, educating the public and building the support we’ll need to win.

It’s absurd that we’re allowing a weed killer with potential health risks to be used on our food and near homes and playgrounds. That’s why we’re working to ban Roundup unless and until it can be proven safe — but we can’t do it without your support.

Donate by the Earth Day deadline to support this and other vital campaigns in the public interest.

Sincerely,

David Rossini
Acting Director

1. Kara Cook, “Glyphosate pesticide in beer and wine,” U.S. PIRG Education Fund, February 2019.
2. Oliver Milman, “Weedkiller found in wide range of breakfast foods aimed at children,” The Guardian, August 16, 2018.
3. “Glyphosate Listed Effective July 7, 2017, as Known to the State of California to Cause Cancer,” OEHHA, June 26, 2017.
4. Kara Cook, “Glyphosate pesticide in beer and wine,” U.S. PIRG Education Fund, February 2019.

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