[BCNnet] Re: Atrazine --SOON TO BE GONE

[Gmurphy6@aol.com]

>   Thought you might find this of interest.

      Virginia Murphy
       Belleville, Illinois
       Gmurphy6@AOL.com

>   Environmental group petitions EPA to take  weedkiller atrazine off the
>  market
>  
>   Tuesday, June 04, 2002
>   By John Heilprin, Associated Press
>  
>   WASHINGTON — An environmental group asked the government Monday to ban
>  the use of atrazine, a weedkiller commonly sprayed on cornfields and
>  lawns.
>  
>   The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a petition asking the EPA
>  to take the chemical off the market, charging its leading manufacturer
>  did not properly disclose that 17 workers had developed prostate cancer.
>  The group also said the chemical had been linked to deformities in
>  frogs.
>  
>   The petition also asks that the EPA and Justice Department investigate
>  the manufacturer, Swiss-based Syngenta, the world's biggest
>  agribusiness. The company's North American headquarters is in
>  Greensboro, N.C.
>  
>   The Environmental Protection Agency has been drafting new rules for the
>  use of atrazine, one of the nation's most widely used pesticides, and is
>  expected to issue any changes by late summer. After the chemical is
>  sprayed onto crops and grass, it can enter the food chain through
>  rainwater, snow runoff, and groundwater. EPA rules permit up to 3 parts
>  per billion of atrazine in drinking water.
>  
>   The resources council contends new research shows the chemical —
>  already banned in France, Germany, and Italy — is more dangerous than
>  previously thought and is unfit for public use. "We hope that the agency
>  will look at the new evidence and conclude as we have that atrazine is
>  not safe," said NRDC senior attorney Jon Devine. The petition maintained
>  that reports from the manufacturer last year on the result of a prostate
>  cancer screening program for employees at its plant in St. Gabriel, La.,
>  demonstrate that the weedkiller should be taken off the market.
>  
>  The group also cited research made public in April from the University
>  of California, Berkeley, that showed as many as 20 percent of male frogs
>  exposed to very low doses of atrazine can develop multiple sex organs or
>  both male and female organs. Many had small, feminized larynxes. The
>  researchers concluded the effects resulted from atrazine's causing cells
>  to produce the enzyme aromatase, which is present in vertebrates and
>  converts the male hormone testosterone to the female hormone estrogen.
>  It happened from doses as small as 0.1 part per billion.
>  
>  NRDC also said EPA's risk assessment for atrazine violates the agency's
>  own policy because it relies partly on "an unlawful and unethical
>  experiment in which human volunteers were intentionally exposed to
>  atrazine."
>  
>   Syngenta spokeswoman Sherry Duvall said NRDC was misusing preliminary
>  data on frogs to draw insupportable and "outrageous" conclusions,
>  needlessly alarming the  public with exaggerated claims about the cancer
>  risk and making a "desperate, ill-conceived attempt" to discredit the
>  EPA's review process for pesticides.
>  
>   "In all cases, Syngenta has been completely forthcoming with
>  information on atrazine to employees and to EPA as it became available,"
>  she said. "Farmers have  relied on atrazine for 40 years as an effective
>  weed-control tool in corn and for
>   conservation tillage."
>  
>   Copyright 2002, Associated Press
>   All Rights Reserved
>  
>