[Pharmwaste] atrazine

[Gilliam, Allen]

sorry for any cross posting (see below)...but, why does it seem the EU
is always a step ahead of the U.S?  is it simply because of their use of
the "precautionary principal"?
 
allen gilliam
adeq state pretreatment coordinator
 
 Living on Earth recent brief interview with Tyrone Hayes (April 21):

The audio is available at :
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=06-P13-00016&segmentID=1

________________________________


The European Union has banned the herbicide Atrazine, effective next
year, after finding it contaminated a number of drinking water supplies.
The weed killer first came under scrutiny for its effects on frogs, and
more recently has been linked to adverse affects on human health.
       Some 70 million pounds of Atrazine are used in the US each year,
mostly on cornfields. After studying Atrazine, the Environmental
Protection Agency decided not to ban it in the US, but says its research
into the chemical continues.
       Joining me now is Tyrone Hayes, a professor at UC Berkeley who's
done pivotal research on Atrazine. And he's just back from Europe, we
caught up with him at the airport. Professor Hayes, welcome to Living on
Earth.

HAYES: Good to be here.

CURWOOD: So from your expertise, what's your analysis of the science
behind the EU's decision to ban Atrazine?

HAYES: Well, there's a great deal of data showing Atrazine is in fact an
endocrine disrupter. In amphibians, Atrazine results in the
demasculinization - chemical castration - of male frogs, and subsequent
feminization. It produces hermaphroditic frogs, males with ovaries and
eggs. And in rodents and humans Atrazine is associated with breast
cancer and prostrate cancer and low sperm count.

       The European Union has a slightly different approach to
regulating chemicals than the United States. It operates under the
precautionary principle, which says that if there is the potential for a
chemical to cause environmental and public health harm, then that
chemical is regulated. And in the case of Atrazine, banned, because it's
found in the water.
       The United States counts on the industry that produces the
chemical to produce data to actually prove that the chemical's harmful.
There are states that have made some movements towards regulating
Atrazine. For example, Wisconsin bans Atrazine county by county,
depending on when it shows up in the water.

CURWOOD: Now, what about the exposures here in the real world. How much
Atrazine has been found in US drinking water? And how does that compare
to what's been found in Europe?

HAYES: I think the levels are about equal between the United States and
Europe. The current drinking water standard in the United States is
three parts per billion, and, particularly in the Midwest, that three
parts per billion can be exceeded. But, in fact, we know now that
Atrazine is biologically active as low as .1 parts billion. So that's 30
times lower than the current drinking water standard in the United
States.

CURWOOD: There's a lot of concern about prostrate cancer and breast
cancer here. What relationship, if any, is there between Atrazine and
those diseases?

HAYES: The relationship between Atrazine and prostrate cancer and breast
cancer is very significant. Excremental evidence in rodents show that
Atrazine is associated with an increased incident of both prostrate
cancer and breast cancer. And correlational evidence in humans shows
that people who are exposed to Atrazine have higher rates of breast
cancer and prostrate cancer.
In fact, if you feed a female rat Atrazine - her pups that she is
suckling, her male pups, can develop prostrate disease. So those effects
of Atrazine are transferable even from the mother to the suckling pup.
       There's also studies showing that prostrate cancer was increased
in men who worked in a factory that produced Atrazine. The levels of
prostrate disease and prostrate cancer were 8.4-fold higher than
expected, and 8.4-fold higher than men who worked in the factory but
were not exposed to Atrazine.
So given that Atrazine is the number one selling pesticide in the world,
and given that breast cancer and prostrate cancer are the number one
cancers in men and women, respectively, then I think this is a big
concern.

CURWOOD: How prevalent is the presence of Atrazine in US drinking water
supplies? Is this a problem for five percent of the country? Ten?
Twenty? Fifty percent?

HAYES: You know, the bigger problems for Atrazine are in the Midwest,
where it's used mostly, so like Nebraska and Iowa, Indiana. The concerns
are not just for people who live in areas where Atrazine is used. But
people have to also understand that Atrazine travels quite far and can
be found in areas that are even considered pristine. Both in Europe and
the United States it's been shown that Atrazine can be found as much as
600 miles from where it has been applied.

CURWOOD: So in your view is there enough evidence out there to ban
Atrazine in the United States?

HAYES: Certainly when you look at the environmental health risks and the
public health risks and the prevalence of Atrazine in groundwater and
drinking water, there's cause for concern. When you consider on top of
that the evidence in every animal class that's been examined that
Atrazine causes adverse biological effects, then this raises concern.
Essentially in the United States we've put a price on our breasts, on
our prostrates, on our environmental health, and decided that the
economic hit to banning Atrazine, that that concern exceeds our concern
for environmental health and public health.

CURWOOD: Tyrone Hayes is a professor at the University of California at
Berkeley. Thank you so much for speaking with me.


EU on atrazine. The European Union has banned the herbicide Atrazine,
effective next year, after finding it contaminated drinking water
supplies. The weed killer first came under scrutiny for its effects on
frogs, and more recently has been linked to adverse effects on human
health. Living On Earth
<http://newsletters.environmentalhealthnews.org/t?ctl=11EC95C:4B8C4AF>
[related stories]
<http://newsletters.environmentalhealthnews.org/t?ctl=11EC910:4B8C4AF> 
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=06-P13-00016&segmentID=1
 

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