Girl Scouts Push Back On Claim That Cookies Have Unsafe Levels Of Weed-Killer Chemical

Many look forward to Girl Scout Cookie season, planning to stock up on boxes of their favorite treats to keep in the freezer all year-round. Now they’re also bombarded with online claims the cookies aren’t just tasty, they’re also toxic.

“Girl Scout Cookies are safe to consume,” is the unequivocal response from Girl Scouts of Wyoming and Montana. 

The regional branch of the national organization involves 7,000 Girl Scouts and more than 2,800 volunteers across the two states. Anyone involved with Girl Scouts of America is earning a crisis management badge amid a wave of concerns raised by an online awareness campaign about Girl Scout cookies that claim the wildly popular treats are tainted and toxic.

A recent study from Moms Across America tested 13 types of Girl Scout cookies collected from three states — California, Iowa, and Louisiana. The study found all the cookies contained trace amounts of glyphosate, the cancer-causing chemical in Roundup weed killer. 

Girl Scouts of America and its regional branches are now executing a public relations offensive ahead of the start of cookie sales this month. 

“Our stance isn’t any different than the national organization,” wrote Briana Rickman, director of public relations and development for Wyoming and Montana, in an email Friday to Cowboy State Daily. “I can assure you and Wyoming consumers that Girl Scout Cookies are very safe to eat.”

Not only are they delicious, they support Girl Scouts across the two states for their activities and trips throughout the year, she said.

With around 200 million boxes sold every season, it's a $800 million annual business.

“Those are nationwide numbers and GSUSA does not make any revenue from the cookie program. All proceeds stay local within each of the 111 councils across the nation,” wrote Rickman. 

Cookie sales teach Girl Scouts about everything from goal setting to business ethics, continued Rickman. 

‘Danger In The Dough’

The start of Girl Scout cookie season in January usually comes with a wave of feel-good news coverage. But this year, the group MAA crashed the Girl Scouts’ annual cookie launch.

In late December, MAA released its “Danger in the Dough” report, and it’s gaining an audience online just as Girl Scouts are preparing to set up shop in front of grocery stores and other strategic foot traffic locations.

In Montana and Wyoming, Girl Scouts will sell cookies in person from March 21 through April 13.

“Girl Scout Cookies are made with ingredients that adhere to food safety standards set by the Food and Drug Administration and other relevant authorities,” states Girl Scouts of America in its detailed online campaign to debunk the “Danger in the Dough” report. 

The Girl Scouts offer FDA and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assurances that glyphosate is safe to consume up to a certain level, turning this clash over cookies into a conversation about whether it’s time to stop using products containing glyphosate. 

The Joe Rogan Effect

The annual operating expenses for Girl Scouts of America are about $135 million, according GSUSA’s own reporting for 2023. 

The annual operating budget for Moms Across America is $250,000. MAA and its partner nonprofit group GMOScience are tiny by comparison. 

Their recent “Danger in the Dough” report follows previous testing and studies done on tap water, breast milk and school lunches. Those efforts over the last 12 years generated some strong reactions online. 

But now MAA is getting traction with its call for glyphosate regulation because the group’s research — which is not peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal — is getting high-profile mentions on social media, including through the popular “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. 

“Holy shit! They’re f***ing toxic as f***! Thin Mints being the worst offenders,” said Rogan during his Feb. 24 episode. “Five flavors of Girl Scout Cookies contained levels of glyphosate and heavy metals above EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) water safety limits.” 

Girl Scouts of America’s response was rapid and detailed. 

In addition to putting out a slate of fact checking counter points, other podcasters joined the debunking effort. 

"A 66-pound child would need to consume approximately 9,000 cookies daily to approach the EPA's chronic reference dose," Dr. Jessica B. Steier, host of "The Unbiased Science" podcast told the debunking site Snopes.

Forbes Magazine reported Feb. 26, “A small number of tested samples doesn’t always indicate widespread contamination, and some studies make false comparisons — like applying standards meant for water safety rather than FDA-approved food safety limits — which can make results sound more alarming than they actually are.”

The MAA report isn't the first time Girl Scout Cookie sales have been targeted in some way. On a more local level, a Girls Scout from Pinedale, Wyoming, made national news last year when the town fined her more than $400 for selling cookies from her grandmother's driveway.

What’s The Big Deal With Glyphosate? 

From her small organic farm outside Asheville, North Carolina, Zen Honeycutt oversees media outreach for Moms Across America. She is the founding executive director of MAA, and she’s a former Girl Scout. 

“We would assert that the original intention was for the girls to learn how to bake cookies and sell them, to be entrepreneurial, to learn a new task,” Honeycutt told Cowboy State Daily in a phone interview. “It was not just to sell some highly processed box of cookies made by some corporation that's making hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Two large industrial bakeries, ABC Bakers in Virginia and Little Brownie Bakers in Kentucky, supply the world with Girl Scout Cookies.

Honeycutt dreams of a day when Girl Scouts sell homemade organic cookies during the annual cookie season. 

“Learn how to bake cookies with their moms and grandmas and aunties or whoever else in their family who wants to bake cookies with organic ingredients,” added Honeycutt. “And sell those cookies instead. Educate the public about the benefits of organic as well.”

Joe Rogan, said Honeycutt, isn’t the first high-profile personality to pay attention to her group’s work. 

“Bobby Kennedy mentioned that part of the reason why they sued Monsanto was because we found glyphosate in breast milk,” said Honeycutt, linking her group’s work to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administration’s new Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the FDA. 

“He's been our adviser for seven years, so he's been a supporter,” said Honeycutt, who insisted RFK Jr. did not assist with the current “Danger in the Dough” campaign against glyphosate. 

“He was like trying to get into the HHS and the confirmation was happening, so we haven't spoken about this at all,” said Honeycutt. “But he is a huge supporter of getting toxins out of our food supply.” 

Glyphosate taints the American food system, said Honeycutt, because it is used as a herbicide on a wide variety of food crops. She also said that Girl Scout cookies are not unique — any non-organic store-bought cookie probably comes with a dose of glyphosate. 

Litigation over exposure to glyphosate through the popular weed killer Roundup continues to mount. 

According to the firm, TorHoerman Law, around 80% of the more than 100,000 Roundup lawsuits have been settled. The mega multinational company Bayer owns the Roundup brand, and according to attorneys targeting Bayer for future lawsuits, the company is seeking state legislation to obtain legal immunity from cancer claims related to Roundup, arguing that it has complied with EPA regulations. 

That’s a point also raised by Girl Scouts of America. 

“Glyphosate is widely used in agriculture in accordance with established EPA standards and is found nearly everywhere in the food chain,” states a recent online information sheet from Girl Scouts of America. “Trace amounts of glyphosate can be found in fresh fruits, vegetables, cereals, baked goods, and other food and beverage commodities.”

Meanwhile, an army of Girl Scouts across Wyoming and Montana are preparing to spend much of their free time manning cookie booths at local stores across their communities.

David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.