93% of pregnant women had Roundup in them

Dr. Serge Gregoire

Jun 8 (edited) • Detox

Sperm counts have been falling for fifty years.

Miscarriage rates are climbing.

The age at which couples can conceive has crept up every decade since the 1970s.

Something is changing about the environment our species reproduces in…

And most of what's changing is chemistry. New chemistry. Chemistry humans have never lived inside before.

This piece is about one chemical in particular, because it's everywhere, and the evidence is clearer than for any other.

I’m talking about glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.

In 2018, researchers tested 71 pregnant women in central Indiana for glyphosate via urine samples.

93% had detectable levels. The women with higher levels delivered shorter pregnancies.

Let me show you what's going on. But first, a bit about glyphosate so we’re all on the same page…

Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum herbicide patented by Monsanto in 1974 and brought to market as Roundup.

It works by inhibiting a metabolic process called the shikimate pathway, which plants and some bacteria use to make essential amino acids.

Animals don't have this pathway, which is part of why glyphosate was sold as low-risk for humans. We'll come back to that.

Today, it's the most heavily used herbicide on earth.

The reason isn't only Roundup, but the system Monsanto built around it.

Starting in 1996, "Roundup Ready" crops were engineered to survive direct glyphosate application. Soybeans, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa. Spray entire fields, kill everything that isn't the crop.

The product and the seed got locked together.

But the part most people don't know (and the part RFK Jr. specifically singled out in 2024) is the practice of pre-harvest desiccation.

Glyphosate is sprayed on non-Roundup-Ready crops shortly before harvest to dry them out for processing. Wheat, oats, and legumes such as beans, chickpeas, and lentils.

So your "non-GMO" oat product can still carry significant glyphosate residue, because the chemical wasn't used to grow the plant but to kill it on schedule.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has found significant residue in 80–90% of wheat-based products like pasta, pizza, and crackers, plus legumes, including beans and lentils.

Now consider what regulators and juries have done with the question of harm…

In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization (WHO), classified glyphosate as Group 2A, "probably carcinogenic to humans."

The classification rested on limited human evidence, sufficient animal evidence, and strong mechanistic evidence of genotoxicity and oxidative stress.

The EPA holds the opposite position. It classifies glyphosate as not likely to be carcinogenic at typical exposure levels.

Juries have largely sided with IARC.

Since Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018, the company has paid roughly $10 billion to settle non-Hodgkin lymphoma claims tied to Roundup exposure.

More than 192,000 lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto/Bayer over Roundup. As of January 2026, about 65,000 cases remain pending.

In March 2026, a $7.25 billion class settlement received preliminary approval from a Missouri court. Final approval is expected in July 2026.

In April 2026, a jury awarded $2 billion to a single plaintiff who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after 20 years of Roundup use.

The Supreme Court is currently weighing Monsanto v. Durnell, which will decide whether federal pesticide labeling laws preempt state failure-to-warn lawsuits. If Bayer wins, the pesticide industry could be shielded from nationwide cancer claims.

The decision is expected by the end of this month…

Researchers enrolled 71 pregnant women between 2015 and 2016, taking urine samples and tracking pregnancy outcomes. 93% had detectable glyphosate.

The women with higher urine levels had measurably shorter pregnancies, a statistically significant correlation. Two of the 71 infants were born premature.

That said..

The cohort was small, regional, and not racially diverse. National NHANES data show lower median urinary glyphosate levels in the general US population, suggesting the Indiana women may have had unusually high exposure due to agricultural surroundings.

The researchers called for a larger and more diverse follow-up study. So far, that study hasn't been funded.

But we have the first direct evidence in US pregnant women:

Near-universal detection plus a correlation with shorter gestational length, a known predictor of lifelong adverse outcomes.

Glyphosate inhibits the shikimate pathway in plants and some bacteria, including species in the human gut microbiome. Roughly 90% of the body's serotonin is manufactured in the gut, by cells called enterochromaffin cells.

A 2022 systematic review concluded that exposure is associated with neurotoxic effects across the studied populations. These include abnormal cell development, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuronal death. (PMID 35562999.)

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93% of pregnant women had Roundup in them