buried in pseudo-science and innuendo
"You know, I used to get up in arms about how we could make DDT illegal in the U.S., but how we still sell it to other countries," Hayes said in a recent interview. "The same thing is happening to us; atrazine was never allowed in Switzerland [home of its manufacturer, Syngenta AG], and now it is banned across the European Union. And it is still being sold to us."
When the EPA is notified of serious possible risks associated with a chemical, agency policy requires an environmental and human health risk review of the chemical. The environmental agency also periodically reviews chemicals that have been on the market for decades. In October 2003, after a lengthy environmental review triggered in part by Hayes' initial research, the EPA reapproved atrazine for use in the United States. Critics think atrazine was reapproved because of pressure from Syngenta, a biotechnology giant with more than $6.5 billion in annual revenues.
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For instance, Hayes contends, a group of scientists led by John Giesy, an aquatic toxicology professor at Michigan State, did a study that exposed frogs to atrazine and claimed to find no effect on testosterone levels. "They took blood samples from juvenile males ... when it was not breeding time or season, and stressed them by anesthetizing them for hours," says Hayes. "It was as if I had taken [testosterone] samples from a 3-year-old boy. They specifically designed the study to fail." In another study, the same scientists treated green frogs with atrazine and claimed they found no change in the gonads. Hayes took a closer look at their study. Ninety percent of the animals died during the experiment, which, he contends, should have rendered any change (or lack thereof) seen in the remaining 10 percent statistically meaningless.
In another study led by Giesy, scientists claimed that they did get hermaphrodite frogs when they exposed the amphibians to atrazine. But, the scientists claimed, they found similar changes in the sex organs of the control group of frogs that they did not dose with atrazine. Thus, the study claimed, those changes were naturally occurring. After a closer look Hayes found that the control group of frogs was contaminated with more atrazine than the test group. It's possible, he notes, that the scientists didn't realize that tap water in Michigan is already contaminated with significant levels of atrazine. Giesy did not return calls or e-mails requesting comment for this story.
Alison Pierce/SFWeekly Jun.02.04
link KWSnet
Of the three camps, which one would require more cojones to go up against?
