Atrazine is a synthetic agricultural herbicide. The European Union has banned atrazine use, but it remains one of the most common herbicides in the United States despite widespread reports of water pollution, wildlife damage and impacts on human health. Atrazine has been linked to low birth weight, birth defects, endocrine disruption and cancer.
What is Atrazine?
Atrazine is the second-most common pesticide in the world. It is used to kill broad-leaf and grass weeds in crops including corn, sorghum and sugar cane, and is also used on commercially grown Christmas trees. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, atrazine is also used on lawns, golf courses and highway, utility, and railroad rights-of-way. Atrazine is so widely used that, according to reports in the Pesticide Science and Weed Science journals, many weeds have become atrazine-resistant.
Human Exposure
Atrazine is extremely persistent in the environment. Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sets limits for acceptable atrazine levels in food--which helps minimize human exposure through food consumption--atrazine is ubiquitous in drinking water supplies in farm areas with intensive atrazine use. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, atrazine remains in drinking water supplies a long time because the chemical is slow to break down in water. Most human exposure to atrazine is through drinking water.
Endocrine Disruption
According to Dr. Tyrone Hayes, an endocrinologist at the University of California at Berkeley, atrazine is an endocrine disruptor. Dr. Hayes writes that "atrazine inhibits production of testosterone (the male sex hormone) and induces production of estrogen (the female sex hormone), upsetting the balance between these two hormones." The result is a decrease in sperm counts and an increase in impaired fertility.
Reproductive Cancers
Research published in the journals Neoplasma and Toxicology Science reports that atrazine-induced estrogen production is associated with prostate cancer and breast cancer. A 2007 study by researchers at U.C. Berkeley, together with researchers from the Graduate School of Medical Science, Kyusha University, Japan, also concluded there was a correlation between atrazine and reproductive cancers in humans.
Immune System Failure
Dr. Tyrone Hayes reports that atrazine causes immune system failure in laboratory animals. Citing numerous studies in the journals Toxicology, Toxicological Science and Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, Dr. Hayes states that atrazine causes immune collapse in amphibians and rodents, most likely due to atrazine-induced increases in corticoids, the hormones which cause stress responses.
Pregnancy Impacts
Studies reported in Toxicology and other scientific journals concluded that atrazine can cause pregnancy loss in laboratory rodents and reduces production of prolactin, a hormone necessary for maternal behavior in mammals. Medical ethics preclude direct testing of similar effects on humans. However, Dr. Tyrone Hayes writes, "the mechanisms underlying the detrimental effects of atrazine in amphibians and rodents are common to all animals, including humans."
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