Is Herbicide Atrazine Bad for You?
Scientist Tyrone Hayes says it is and will share research results Thursday at ISU
By CLARE HOWARD (choward@pjstar.com)
Posted Mar 13, 2010 @ 09:51 PM
Last update Mar 13, 2010 @ 10:31 PM
The neighborhood where Tyrone Hayes grew up was developed by draining a swamp. He spent his youth fascinated with frogs, turtles, snakes and lizards that shared his stomping ground. Hayes graduated from Harvard University with a major in evolutionary biology, earned a Ph.D. at 24 and became the youngest tenured professor at the University of California-Berkeley. He became a world expert on frog development. Then he met atrazine, an herbicide used on more than 70 percent of cornfields in Illinois.
The scientific evidence supporting a ban on atrazine is convincing and well-documented by multiple studies, according to Hayes, who will speak Thursday at Illinois State University about atrazine-induced chemical castration, feminization and homosexuality in frogs. "Surprisingly, frog hormones are very similar, and in some cases identical, to human hormones," Hayes said. "So what affects a frog may also affect humans." Hayes' results from a three-year research study released March 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found male frogs exposed to atrazine mate with males and lay viable eggs.
As an endocrine disruptor, atrazine has been linked with breast cancer and prostate cancer in humans, he said. "Atrazine induces estrogen. That has negative effects on wildlife and negative effects on human health," he said. Steven Goldsmith, spokesman for Syngenta, the corporation that manufactures atrazine, said Hayes' research is based on his past work that was considered flawed by Anne E. Lindsay, former deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency during the administration of former President George W. Bush.
In an e-mail, Goldsmith wrote, "How are we going to feed nine billion people in 2050 if activists like Hayes succeed in banning safely used agricultural chemicals? You simply can't feed the world without this safe and important technology. Atrazine has been used safely for 50 years. The science will confirm again that atrazine does not cause harm to humans or the environment. Actually, atrazine improves the environment by helping offset global warming and soil runoff by reducing the amount of tillage required by farmers to tend their crops." Hayes said his dean regularly receives letters from Syngenta lawyers warning the university to prohibit Hayes from speaking publicly about atrazine. "My original work was paid for by Syngenta, and I found negative affects of atrazine, and they tried to manipulate my data and offered me more money. I quit," Hayes said. "I went to Harvard on scholarships. I owe you! I did not go to school to let someone pay me off to say things that are not true."
Atrazine kills weeds and is one of the most commonly used agricultural chemicals in the United States. It has been banned by countries in Europe. Illinois has one of the highest levels of atrazine use in the United States. The herbicide runs off cornfields and ends up in public water supplies. The EPA has established what it considers a safe level of atrazine in drinking water. Illinois American Water Co. said it complies with current levels considered safe but expects tighter regulations will be forthcoming, and the company is upgrading its water treatment, spokeswoman Karen Cotton said recently. Even at low levels, atrazine has been linked with low birth weight and birth defects in humans, Hayes said.
The EPA is currently re-evaluating atrazine. "Levels established by the EPA as safe are not safe. We also know more about how many water systems are contaminated with atrazine above EPA safe levels," Hayes said. "The EPA was hijacked by the last administration. I hope we have a different ruling with this EPA. If not now, it will never happen." Dr. David Rubin, associate professor in biological sciences at Illinois State University, said Hayes produces good, credible research. He and Hayes were undergraduates at Harvard together. "The science is black and white. I describe Syngenta research as deep pockets research," Rubin said. "A lot of the EPA was funded by Syngenta. A conflict."