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en.wikipedia.org...
Atrazine, 2-chloro-4-(ethylamino)-6-(isopropylamino)-s-triazine, an organic compound consisting of an s-triazine-ring is a widely used herbicide. Its use is controversial due to widespread contamination in drinking water and its associations with birth defects and menstrual problems when consumed by humans at concentrations below government standards.[1] Although it has been banned in the European Union,[2] it is still one of the most widely used herbicides in the world.
Health and environmental effects
Atrazine was banned in the European Union (EU) in 2004 because of its persistent groundwater contamination.[3] In the United States, however, atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides, with 76 million pounds of it applied each year, in spite of the restriction that used to be imposed.[18][19] Its endocrine disruptor effects, possible carcinogenic effect, and epidemiological connection to low sperm levels in men has led several researchers to call for banning it in the US.[3]
www.youtube.com...
ATRAZINE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
features Tyrone Hayes, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, California, shares his landmark research on Atrazine the widely used herbicide in North America, and its disturbing effects on frogs, the environment, and on public health. Atrazine is used throughout the United States to control weeds in agricultural fields, residential lawns, Christmas tree farms, and, golf courses, despite evidence of its toxic nature.
The Swiss company that manufactures Atrazine is a corporate partner with the University of California. They hired professor Hayes to study the effects of the herbicide. His research featured in this clip showed the devestating damage done to the environment, farmworkers and others when Atrazine is used commercially. The company attempted to prevent the publication of Professor Hayes' research in NATURE Magazine. This clip raises questions regarding the safety of herbicides, and the ethics and possible conflicts of interest that can occur when corporations "partner" with educational institutions like UC Berkeley.
Dr. Tyrone Hayes' Atrazine website
This website, designed and maintained by Dr. Tyrone B. Hayes, PhD, is dedicated to informing the scientific community, the activist community, and the public at large about the dangers of the herbicide atrazine.
HuffingtonPost - EPA Fails To Inform Public About Weed-Killer In Drinking Water
One of the nations most widely-used herbicides has been found to exceed federal safety limits in drinking water in four states, but water customers have not been told and the Environmental Protection Agency has not published the results.
Records that tracked the amount of the weed-killer atrazine in about 150 watersheds from 2003 through 2008 were obtained by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund under the Freedom of Information Act. An analysis found that yearly average levels of atrazine in drinking water violated the federal standard at least ten times in communities in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas, all states where farmers rely heavily on the herbicide.
In addition, more than 40 water systems in those states showed spikes in atrazine levels that normally would have triggered automatic notification of customers. In none of those cases were residents alerted.
www.youtube.com...
Tyrone Hayes: The toxic baby: TED TALKS: documentary, lecture, talk: herbicide danger
Filmmaker Penelope Jagessar Chaffer was curious about the chemicals she was exposed to while pregnant: Could they affect her unborn child? So she asked scientist Tyrone Hayes to brief her on one he studied closely: atrazine, a herbicide used on corn. (Hayes, an expert on amphibians, is a critic of atrazine, which displays a disturbing effect on frog development.) Onstage together at TEDWomen, Hayes and Chaffer tell their story.
Tyrone Hayes studies frogs and amphibians -- and the effects on their bodies of common farming chemicals.
NDRC - Atrazine: Poisoning the Well
Banned in the European Union and clearly linked to harm to wildlife and potentially to humans, the pesticide atrazine provides little benefit to offset its risks. In 2009, NRDC analyzed results of surface water and drinking water monitoring data for atrazine and found pervasive contamination of watersheds and drinking water systems across the Midwest and Southern United States. This May 2010 report summarizes scientific information that has emerged since the publication of our initial report and includes more recent monitoring data.
Approximately 75 percent of stream water and about 40 percent of all groundwater samples from agricultural areas tested in an extensive U.S. Geological Survey study contained atrazine. NRDC found that the U.S. EPA's inadequate monitoring systems and weak regulations have compounded the problem, allowing levels of atrazine in watersheds and drinking water to peak at extremely high concentrations.
The most recent data confirms that atrazine continues to contaminate watersheds and drinking water. Atrazine was found in 80 percent of drinking water samples taken in 153 public water systems. All twenty watersheds sampled in 2007 and 2008 had detectable levels of atrazine, and sixteen had average concentrations above the level that has been shown to harm plants and wildlife.
www.youtube.com...
A film about aerial spraying of the herbicide Atrazine in Tasmania. Atrazine is known to disrupt hormones, causing infertility across species including in humans. In Australia we allow 8 times the levels allowed in the US, and 40 times the levels that will cause a male frog to become a hermaphrodite.
www.youtube.com...
CGFIs Alex Avery discusses the flawed research claims on atrazine and frogs made by Dr. Tyrone Hayes. Learn more atrazine facts at www.cgfi.org/atrazine
EPA - Atrazine Updates - Current as of May 2012
Since EPA concluded its last evaluation of atrazine in 2003, the Agency has evaluated close to 150 published studies investigating a wide array of effects potentially relevant to human health risk assessment. Given this significant new body of scientific information as well as the documented presence of atrazine in both drinking water sources and other bodies of water, EPA determined it appropriate to review the state of the science in light of the new research and to ensure that the Agency’s regulatory decisions continue to protect public health and the environment. This review is based on transparency and sound science, including independent scientific peer review. Since 2003 EPA’s oversight of atrazine has always been dynamic, not static, to ensure continued safety.
www.youtube.com...
"From Silent Spring to Silent Night," a talk by Prof. Tyrone Hayes,
Department of Integrative Biology,University of California, Berkeley, given at Humphrey Institute in Minneapolis on March 23, 2007. Dr. Hayes is an authority on the effects of the pesticide atrazine on frogs, and is not popular with chemical companies for his views and proven research.
www.youtube.com...
LYRICS
Conversion, software version 7.0
Looking at life through the eyes of a tire hub
Eating seeds is a passtime activity
The toxicity of our city, of our city
New, what do you own the world?!
How do you own disorder, disorder?!
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence
Sacred silence and sleep.
Somewhere between the sacred silence and sleep.
Disorder, disorder, disorder.
More wood for their fires, loud neighbors
Flashlight reveries caught in the headlights of a truck.
Eating seeds as a passtime activity.
The toxicity of our city, of our city,
New, what do you own the world?!
How do you own disorder, disorder?!
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence,
Sacred silence and sleep.
Somewhere between the sacred silence and sleep.
Disorder, disorder, disorder.
New, what do you own the world?!
How do you own disorder?
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence,
Sacred silence and sleep.
Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep.
Disorder, disorder, disorder.
When I became the sun,
I shone light into the man's hearts,
When I became the sun,
I shone light into the man's hearts.
Originally posted by Agarta
."To achieve realistic goals, the more rational and desirable forms of control are to be employed. These include three types of control, often confused, namely: conception control, birth control, and population control.
Conception control refers to all the means behavioral, mechanical, chemical, physiological, and surgical -- by which conception is prevented.
Birth control involves not only conception control but, in addition, abortion, the elimination of the product of conception before birth.
Population control involves not only birth control, but also the relationship between fertility, mortality, and net migration -- the balance between immigration and emigration and internal in-migration and out-migration.
Moreover, it involves the effects of social, economic, and political changes on the components of population growth."
Source: Rapid Population Growth: Consequences and Policy Implications, Vol. II Research Papers, Published for the US National Academy of Sciences by the Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, MA.
www.youtube.com...
A global experiment is in progress, and we are the guinea pigs.
Tons of chemicals are released into the environment everyday. The average citizen is not only unaware of this daily exposure, but of the long-term effects these toxic substances can have on living organisms. The majority of the 100,000 industrial compounds developed since World War II that are now in daily use around the world have never been tested for the type of consistent, low-level exposure we experience in our day-to-day lives.
These compounds find their way into the body in a variety of ways: in the food we eat and the air we breathe, through contact with the skin, and in many cases passed from mother to infant in the womb. Up to 247 toxic substances have been found in newborns alone. Today we are handing down a toxic load to our children along with our genetic legacy.
Carried out with intelligence and humor, Homo Toxicus explores the myriad links between these toxic substances and increasing health problems such as cancer, allergies, hyperactivity, and infertility. Interviews with industry scientists and independent researchers shed light on inconsistent standards used for evaluation and regulation of chemical agents. The findings are disturbing and strongly challenge us to re-evaluate the laws and procedures currently in place to safeguard our health against man-made chemicals and potential environmental pollutants.
Originally posted by IpsissimusMagus
reply to post by SearchLightsInc
I used Lady Gaga because I thought that might draw more attention than putting hermaphrodites. And also the fact that she is a huge advocate for the LGBT community. I'm not sure why seeing her name made you have the reverse effect intended. But I understand that many people on ATS avoid the main stream pop culture like the plague.
What are your solutions in feeding a growing population to stabilize an entire plant?
Originally posted by LilDudeissocool
PS You need to read THIS> agsense.org...
agsense.org...
“While our EPA is in the middle of an unscheduled re-review of atrazine because of activist campaigns, the World Health Organization quietly relied on scientific evidence and found that atrazine is safe at levels up to 100 parts per billion,” White said. “Here in the U.S., activists, insisting that atrazine levels at or even below 3 parts per billion are dangerous, have led EPA and the American taxpayer on an expensive wild goose chase.”
Swiss chemicals maker Syngenta's agreement to pay $105 million to settle a nearly 8-year-old lawsuit over one of its popular agricultural herbicides could help reimburse nearly 2,000 community water systems that have had to filter the chemical from its drinking water, a plaintiffs' attorneys said today.
The proposed deal, announced Friday by Syngenta, must be approved by a federal judge in southern Illinois, where community water systems from at least a half-dozen states have sought to have the company reimburse them for filtering weed-killing atrazine from their supplies.
As part of the deal, some 1,887 community water systems serving more than 52 million Americans may be eligible to make a claim, said Stephen Tillery, the St. Louis attorney behind the class-action lawsuit.
Syngenta said it agreed to settle the matter "to end the business uncertainty" and avoid further legal costs. Under the settlement, the company will continue to sell atrazine to U.S. corn growers and denies any liability linked to the chemical, which Syngenta said is used in more than 60 countries and has been marketed in the U.S. since 1959.
Depleted Uranium is much more hazardous.
The fact is, we have more industrialized agriculture in these countries that haven't banned them. We have more arable land. With so much ground to cover, agribusiness is going to turn to these quick and dirty solutions to their pest and weed problems and therefore lobby to keep them legal and suppress unflattering research.
Originally posted by IpsissimusMagus
reply to post by LilDudeissocool
What are your solutions in feeding a growing population to stabilize an entire plant?
Weed killers are not necessary to feed people. We can grow corn just fine without it. People use these herbicides so that they can get the highest profit margin. They want a product that lasts a long time and looks good on the supermarket shelf. Regardless of taste, quality, health and sustainability.
I don't really know what your point is. Do you really think these large corporate farms are concerned with feeding the masses?