Source: Agriculture.com (Successful Farming)
Recently, crisis in cities like Flint have drawn attention to the issue of drinking water pollution. While industrial manufacturing is a major source of pollutants, another major source is farming. Farming requires the use of many different fertilizers and pesticides which are designed to have various effects on living things. One chemical that has been controversial is Atrazine. This chemical has been subject to a great deal of coverage with different authors alleging exposure effects from ovarian cancer to Alex Jones' assertion that it turns frogs gay. Atrazine, along with other triazine herbicides have been invaluable to food production in North America, with it reducing the cost of corn production ~7.5%. It is mainly a pesticide for broadleaf crops like corn and sorghum. It works by killing other plants competing for nutrients. Corn, being one of the most produced crops in the world creates a large amount of runoff. Because of this many argue that the economic benefits of atrazine outweigh the harm.
One issue with determining whether the use of atrazine is pragmatic, is that much of the research done on the issue has been partly funded by Syngenta, the primary manufacturer of the chemical. Even the article referenced here which provided data on the history and scale of atrazine use disclosed that it had taken funding from Syngenta along with other support. Syngenta also provided funding to the Eco-Risk team which created the report cited by the EPA which contradicts claims that it acts as an endocrine disruptor. This would not be an issue of Syngenta was not the largest producer of the chemical in the world, producing billions of dollars worth annually. My research for this article reveals not just atrazine’s impact on amphibians and fish but also the larger issue of how corporate influence in environmental governance through laws like the Data Quality Act threaten the health of millions of people and their ability to access real information about risks from their government.
Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. It has also been shown by endocrinologist Tyrone Hayes to be a cause of improper sexual development of leopard and African clawed frogs both in the lab and in field specimens from Wisconsin. Many genetic males collected by Hayes exhibited either only female gonads or both testes and ovaries. This work has been highly controversial, with the even the Wikipedia page for atrazine saying of Hayne’s work “Syngenta-funded study, requested by EPA and conducted under EPA guidance and inspection, was unable to reproduce Hayes´ results”. The article referenced does not just inform Wikipedia readers, but the EPA as well seeing as this is the same report cited as proof atrazine is not harmful and should not be reclassified. This is a dubious claim for two reasons.
First, it states that Hayne’s work has not been replicated, which it has in African clawed frogs. It was also known that Atrazine negatively impacted the gonadal development of both fish and amphibians as a shown by a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences literature review. This review was even conducted more than a year before Hayes' 2011 publication. The literature review by Rohr and the research published by Hayes presents strong evidence that atrazine is an endocrine disruptor in multiple taxonomic classes within vertebrates.
Secondly, the research was conducted for the EPA by a third party but funded by Syngenta as stated in the acknowledgements, prompting response from Hayes which discussed the conflicts. This joint EPA-Syngenta piece caught the interest of The New Yorker’s Rachel Aviv, who in 2014 published an article in which she exposed Syngenta’s management for conspiring to tarnish Hayes' reputation and cast doubt on his research during company time. She also revealed the Hayes used to work indirectly for Syngenta, as part of a panel created in 1994 called EcoRisk which analyzed the effects of atrazine for the CDC and EPA. Hayes maintains that he left over concerns regarding the manipulation of and unwillingness to share raw data with authorities by Syngenta. This article also confirmed that the EPA has received raw data correlating atrazine use and frog gonad development issues on at least one occasion. Syngenta also contracted a group called the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness who, on behalf of the Swiss agro-giant, petitioned the EPA to disregard Hayes' data because it did not meet the standards set out in the Data Quality Act. This group hired by Syngenta is run by Jim Tozzi, an American lobbyist famous for authoring the Data Quality Act. Both the Data Quality Act and Jim Tozzi’s group have been heavily critiqued, such as in an Environmental Health Perspectives article which demonstrates that this law will only allow the government to use research to inform legislation if that research abides by pre-existing US Government test protocol.
This is difficult as the government did, and still does, lack standards in many research areas. A specific example from Sass is that there is no benchmark that meets the standards set out in the Data Quality for data from in epidemiology research as it relates to most molecular methodologies. The law also does not consider whether the research is published in a peer-reviewed journal when determining the quality of the research in informing policy. Because of this, the law is not viewed favourably by environment researchers due to its application in denying peer-reviewed research application into climate and environmental science.
Humans, like frogs and fish, are part of the phylum Chordata. Because of this, there is growing concern that the effects of atrazine shown in other animals, may be present in humans as the effects of atrazine are largely consistent across all Chordata. The human effects of atrazine consumption were researched by the National Cancer Institute’s Dr Alavanja, who found that triazine herbicides, including atrazine, were related to the causes of some ovarian cancers in multiple Italian studies. Despite the efforts by Syngenta to repress research like that done by Hayes, the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry now recognizes the reduced fertility, developmental and neurological effects of the chemical. Atrazine has also been shown to possess the quality of mitochondrial toxicity resulting from short term exposure.
What is more concerning is that most traditional methods of removing atrazine from drinking water such as filtration are largely ineffective, with ozone treatment being the best option. The fact that only one effective method of purification is known and is not a standard practice has led Syngenta to settle a lawsuit for 105 million USD where the plaintiffs were water utilities. Atrazine is the second most widely used pesticide in the US according to Aviv, being found in drinking water all over the country. This chemical is also still widely used in Canada. A study of Quebec drinking water confirmed atrazine presence in many municipalities affecting up to 4.7 million people.
The case of atrazine shows how mass production and particularly agriculture are tangibly altering our environment in ways that may not be immediately apparent. It also shows how humans should not just be concerned with the health of animals for altruistic reasons, but because the vulnerability of amphibians and fish to environmental changes often serves as the ‘canary in the coal mine’ regarding potential adverse health effects in humans. Finally, when reviewing data it is important to consult academic, peer-reviewed data, as often unreviewed studies can be misleading or influenced by private interests.