The Munich Environmental Institute detected high concentrations of glyphosate in 14 well-known beer brands. The world's most widely used herbicide, classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, continues to raise alarm.
Beck's, Paulaner, Warsteiner, Krombacher, Oettinger, Bitburger, Veltins, Hasseroeder, Radeberger, Erdinger, Augustiner, Franziskaner, König Pilsener and Jever. These are the German beer brands tested by the Munich Environmental Institute. The result? The analyses show concentrations of glyphosate ranging between 0.46 and 29.74 micrograms per litre. No reference limit exists for beer, but one does for water: 0.1 micrograms. The comparison makes it clear that in some beers glyphosate residues are 300 times higher.
"A substance that could be carcinogenic loses nothing either in beer or in the human body," specified Sophia Guttenberger of the Munich institute that carried out the research.
For months glyphosate has been at the centre of controversy over its health risks, above all because scientists have issued conflicting opinions on the matter. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc), a body of the WHO, after a lengthy and thorough examination of all studies on glyphosate published in scientific journals, classified it as a "probable human carcinogen".
Subsequently, the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (Bfr) released a report that absolved glyphosate of this risk. The Efsa, the European Food Safety Authority, issued a similar opinion based precisely on what the Bfr had published. But, as an interesting article published in the German weekly Die Zeit reports, the report clearing glyphosate was not drawn up by the Bfr but by the Glyphosate task force, a working group in which the companies that manufacture glyphosate and have applied to sell it in Europe are involved. "These studies have never been published and much of the data, such as the names of the authors and the laboratories in which they were carried out, was removed from the Bfr report. What is clearly legible, however, is the final conclusion: not carcinogenic," writes Die Zeit.
Regarding the recent glyphosate-in-beer alarm, the Bfr stated in a press release that the detection of herbicide residues is "scientifically plausible" since the product is used in fields for weeding. "An adult would need to drink around a thousand litres of beer a day to ingest a quantity of glyphosate that is a cause for concern for their health."
The German Brewers' Association considers the Munich Institute's study "not credible" and the accusation of failing to check raw materials "absurd and completely unfounded," stating that its own checks have never found excess levels of glyphosate in beer. The German Farmers' Association, on the other hand, suggests that the presence of herbicide residues may be caused by the importation of barley malt from countries with less stringent plant protection regulations than Germany's. Every year one tonne of barley malt is grown in Germany and the same quantity is imported from abroad, primarily from France, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
The European Commission will shortly have to decide whether or not to renew the permit for the use of the herbicide in EU territory for a further 15 years. The Stop glyphosate movement, made up of 32 Italian environmental groups, has called on the government to take a stand in favour of a ban. At present the Commission appears inclined to authorise glyphosate on condition that it is not combined with chemical substances, such as tallow amine, which would increase its hazardousness.