American Agri-Women

The Triazine Network has written a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, expressing its concern on the agency's re-review of atrazine.  As an organization or individual citizen interested in a science-based  outcome to the atrazine issue at the EPA, your support of this letter is vital.  In doing so, you can help assure that the EPA follows agency protocol and used science-based evidence when reviewing atrazine, not the false accusations of activists. 

Please sign on to this letter at http://agsense.org/take-action/

Atrazine and its companion triazine herbicides have a 50-year history as safe and effective weed-control products used on more than 30 commodities in over 40 states and 60 countries.  Atrazine is a staple product for producers, who use it as a critical tool for weed control in growing the vast majority of corn, sorghum and sugarcane in the United States.  Use of atrazine fights weed resistance, reduces soil erosion and increases crop yield.  Five decades of continued and rigorous EPA testing has shown time and again that atrazine poses no danger to public health.  Over the last half century, more than 6,000 atrazine studies have been submitted to EPA.  These studies confirmed, and EPA agreed, that atrazine does not affect human health. 

Atrazine was re-registered in 2006 and not scheduled for re-review until 2013.  In October 2009, EPA scheduled an unprecedented four Scientific Advisory Panels (SAPs) within 11 months.  Since 2000, EPA reviews have included more than 16 opportunites for public comment, including six SAP meetings convened under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicides and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). 

The current SAP proceedings are:  taking on a range of considerations; being conducted on an abbreviated timeline resulting in rushed science; and focused on studies and data that are not made available until shortly before the scheduled meeting.  Decision-making should be arrived at through a transparent, data-driven process. Data must be made available to the public, including stakeholders such as farmers.  There must be a regularity of process. Deviations from well-established, science-driven practices impair the integrity of resulting decisions. 

Large sectors of American agriculture today rely on atrazine to support their businesses and workers.  Its loss would result in the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs during one of the longest employment recessions in our history.  In rural America, loss of farm-gate dollars mean reduced resources essential to community services such as emergency medical care.  The integrity of the process is critical if the American people are to accept the regulatory decisions made by EPA, which so dramatically affect the livelihoods of millions across the nation. 

What Regulators and Experts Say About Atrazine

"It is expected that the use of atrazine, consistent with good plant protection practice, will not have any harmful effects on human or animal health or any unacceptable efects on the environment." ----Comment from a science review conducted for the European Union Scientific Committee on Plants, United Kingdom, 1996

Atrazine is deemed "not classifiable as to carcinogenicity to humans," placing it in the same cancer risk category as substances such as tea, rubbing alcohol and talc. -----World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on Cancer, 1998

"These and other additional analysis did not support a finding of association between prostate cancer and atrazine exposure."  ----- US EPA, 2004, in evaluating a study conducted with workers at an atrazine manufacturing plant.

"The Meeting concluded that atrazine is not likely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans." ----- "Pesticide residues in food 2007", Report of the Joint Meeting of the FAO Panel of Exprets on Pesticide Residues in Food and the Environment and the WHO Core Assessment Group on Pesticide Residues, Geneva, Switzerland, 18-27 September 2007

"The APVMA has not seen any direct evidence that current uses of atrazine pose a risk to human health.  Indeed, extensive studies in laboratory animlas show that there are no effects on health or reproduction in mammals maintained on drinking water containing atrazine and related compounds at low levels.  Even at concentrations up to 100 times the levels that can sometimes be found in groundwater in the USA, laboratory test results indicated there were no toxic effects on the animals, their progeny or their ability to reproduce." -----  Australian Pesticides & Veterinary Medicines Authority, Final Review Report & Regulatory Decision, Volume 1, 2008