Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #121739

Tyrone Hayes, PhD, Integrative Biology, University California Berkeley, Department of Integrative Biology, 3060 Valley Life Sciences Building #3140, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140, (510) 643-1054, tyrone@berkeley.edu

Atrazine is a potent endocrine disruptor that chemically castrates and feminizes exposed amphibians at low ecologically relevant concentrations. These effects occur through the reduction of androgens and the inappropriate elevation of estrogens. This finding has been reported in the open peer-reviewed literature by multiple independent laboratories, though industry (Syngenta) has introduced confusion into the literature and lobbied government agencies to ignore important data. The US EPA has even given the manufacturer the responsibility of producing the data necessary for regulating the compound. Despite the fact that even industry-supported laboratory and field research supports this finding (both with P < 0.005), Syngenta-funded scientists claim that atrazine is not responsible for these effects. Further, even though numerous peer-reviewed published studies from independent laboratories from at least five countries have demonstrated endocrine disrupting effects of atrazine (impaired fertility and reproductive cancers in laboratory rats and humans), the US EPA publicly denies that these data exist and has never reviewed the full weight of evidence. Despite a ban on atrazine in Europe (including Switzerland, the home of the manufacturer), the US continues to apply approximately 80 million pounds of atrazine in the US each year. In reality, the US EPA balances the scientific “weight of the evidence” against the economic value of the compound. Essentially environmental health and public health are being traded for economic gain.

Learning Objectives:

• To learn strategies used by industry to generate confusion in the literature and manipulate policy.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.