>It is not paranoia when Syngenta plots in hundreds of internal emails to
> discredit you to marginalize your work on toxicology.
>
I've been following the Tyrone Hayes/atrazine story for some time. I have
yet to meet Dr. Hayes, but have spent some time in discussion with some of
the other players in this story. The story hits close to home, as I also
have sometimes chosen to take unpopular positions, which have led to hate
mail and behind the scenes attempts to discredit me. And I too, sometimes
(even on this List) lash out at those who I feel have been disrespectful to
me or others (not proud of this, but sometimes I bite on their bait).
While I abhor the Syngenta internal plotting to attack Dr Hayes personally
(as opposed to scientifically scrutinizing his research and conclusions), I
can also see how any business would want to defend their product from what
they believed was unsubstantiated criticism.
It would seem that research on any endocrine-disrupting effects of atrazine
on frogs should be fairly easy to run and interpret. But as seen by the
EPA's discreditation of much of such research, that is apparently not so.
Similarly, as we have discussed of late on this List, there is also a great
deal of highly biased "research" performed by those wishing to find
"evidence" against GMO's, glyphosate, neonics, etc. This does not by any
means suggest that such products are harmless, but rather that we need to
go over each study with a fine-toothed comb.
Out of curiosity, I spent some time a year or so ago seeing whether Dr.
Hayes' claims had merit. Difficult to do when so much of the research is
funded by industry. However, I also used my typical "ground-truthing"
approach of looking for field data from actual free-living frog populations
from various places in the world where atrazine was or was not applied. I
can't cite them now from memory, but my impression at the time was that the
ground truthing did not support Hayes' contentions as far as the frog
species that he studied. There was also quite a number of what appeared to
be well-run experiments that could not duplicate his adverse effects in the
lab.
My take at the time was that the EPA indeed had every reason to question
his findings. Before you start sending me hate mail, I'M NOT SAYING THAT
ATRAZINE IS HARMLESS. I'm just saying that there is certainly room for
doubt, and that one could make a pretty strong case that much of the
"evidence" against it is questionable.
So we now get to cost/benefit analysis. The benefit of atrazine to the
corn industry is pretty easy to put a dollar figure on. The corn industry
supports the livestock industry, and has a huge and powerful lobby behind
it. It will take pretty strong and indisputable evidence to pry this
herbicide from their arsenal.
Dr Hayes, by being so flamboyant and combative, has not helped the process
of rational scientific investigation into this subject. Similarly, some of
our better-known beekeeper anti-pesticide activists have also hurt their
own cases due to exaggeration and taking extreme stances.
Science can be a frustratingly slow process, especially when intentionally
impeded my monied interests. I have little doubt that some day we will
know the true effects of atrazine on frogs and humans (and of neonics upon
bees). The question then is, how liberal should we be with the
precautionary principle during the interim?
To me, the best test is to look at the downside of the alternative--what's
the worst that could happen if you're wrong? Let's look at a couple of
examples:
In the case of the neonics, if it takes 5 more years to figure out that
they are indeed causing "unreasonable risk to man or the environment," it
does not appear that any *irreversible* harm would be done. There is scant
evidence that their use is leading to the extinction of any pollinator
species, their *active* half life in the environment is relatively short,
and they do not bioaccumulate (as did DDT). So in this case, I do not feel
that the application of the precautionary principle is warranted.
On the other hand, let's look at anthropogenic global warming due to CO2
emissions. There are those who feel that the evidence is not conclusive.
The precautionary principle suggests that we should curtail CO2 emissions
anyway, just to be on the safe side. In this case, if we decide NOT to
curtail emissions, and we are wrong, there would be very strong negative
effects, that would be irreversible in our lifetimes. Many species would
go extinct, we could seriously disrupt oceanic ecology and coral reefs, we
could pass tip points at which methane hydrates and carbon locked in the
tundra organic could create serious positive feedback loops, and the CO2
that we released into the atmosphere during the 5 years that it took to
figure out that we were wrong would remain there for hundreds of years. So
in this case, I'd strongly support the precautionary principle.
In the case of atrazine, there are contributory factors to take into
account. Amphibian populations across the world have been decimated by the
chytrid fungus. So the precautionary principle suggests that any
additional factor that may be negatively affecting them should be looked at
very closely. And this is where ground truthing comes in. The frog that
Hayes studies, Xenopus, is native to Africa (and an introduced pest in
California).
Ironically, it appears that the export of Xenopus throughout the world as a
lab animal for pregancy testing of women, in the pet trade, (and perhaps
for Hayes' research) may have been the source of the chytrid epidemic that
has already apparently caused the extinction of several amphibian species [
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0063791].
Xenopus itself appears not to be harmed by the fungus.
In its native range, in on-the-ground field studies, Xenopus does not
appear to be harmed by atrazine, so it may not be the best species to
study. Better to study the effects on endangered species, such as the
California Mountain Yellow-Legged frog, which I personally documented
disappearing from one of its home ranges.
These environmental issues are often complicated. I do not envy the EPA in
its mission to make risk/benefit decisions. I caution those who think that
such decision making is simple.
--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com
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