ATRAZINE, FROGS, AND THE EPA: The Three-Ring Circus that Won’t Go Away
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Contributed by: Audie Sciumbato
Since 2003, researchers at the University of California – Berkley have maintained that the herbicide atrazine “chemically castrates” frogs.1 According to a recent CNN story2 that drags up the scientific past, researchers found that “…10 percent of the exposed genetic male frogs developed into functional females who copulated with unexposed males and produced viable eggs. The other 90 percent of the exposed male frogs expressed decreased libido, reduced sperm count and decreased fertility, among other findings.” I hope that they realize that they are suggesting that extremely low rates of atrazine had some effect on 100% of their sample population. I also hope that they realize that atrazine is one of the most widely-used herbicides in the United States, and it has been examined ad nausea since its introduction. It would be shocking if this sure-fire effect on frogs is just now being discovered.
It is interesting to note that this research has been criticized before, perhaps surprisingly, by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”). Specifically, the EPA concluded in 2007 that “…atrazine does not adversely affect amphibian gonadal development based on a review of laboratory and field studies….” The EPA went on to state, “At this time, EPA believes that no additional testing is warranted to address this issue."3 On a side note, many researchers have experienced the pain and discomfort of having papers outright rejected when submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication, but few know what it is like to have the EPA single out your hypothesis and state the polite equivalent of “Uhhh…..no.”
Even so, the EPA announced in October 2009 that it is launching a new evaluation of atrazine.4 This evaluation will examine atrazine’s potential cancer and non-cancer effects on humans and will include the most recent data available on birth defects, low birth weight, and premature births. (One can only assume that a study or two on frogs will be thrown in there somewhere.) It will be interesting to see whether atrazine will be able to withstand another regulatory onslaught or if its registration will be pulled, thus taking one more tool out of the agricultural producer’s toolbox.
1http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2003/5932/5932.html
2http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/03/01/pesticide.study.frogs/index.html?hpt=T3
3http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/reregistration/atrazine/atrazine_update.htm#amphibian
4http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/554b6abea9d0672f85257648004a88c1!OpenDocument
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