It’s time to talk about atrazine, one of the most widely used endocrine-disrupting pesticides in the U.S. Here are the top three things you should know about it:
- It turns male frogs into female frogs. Yup, you read that right. Researchers have found that exposure to even low levels of the herbicide can turn male frogs into female frogs that produce completely viable eggs.
- It’s commonly found in drinking water. Atrazine is regularly used on corn crops in the U.S. and, consequently, it’s a pervasive drinking water contaminant.
- It’s linked to a number of serious health concerns. Atrazine has been linked to breast tumors, delayed puberty and prostate inflammation in animals, and some research has linked it to prostate cancer in people.
So how is this stuff still legal?! Good question. It shouldn’t be.
That’s why EWG is teaming up with Food Revolution Network to demand that the EPA ban atrazine once and for all. Are you with us?
Manufactured by agro-chemical giant Syngenta, atrazine is sprayed mostly on Midwestern corn fields. It is commonly found in drinking water across the country.
Atrazine is banned in Europe. But it is the second most-used herbicide in U.S. agriculture, behind only Monsanto’s glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. More than 60 million pounds of atrazine are sprayed on crops each year.
The EPA is well aware of the dangerous environmental consequences posed by this toxic weed killer. In fact, just a few weeks ago, the agency released an official report finding atrazine poses serious ecological risks.
Now that the EPA has publicly recognized the harm caused by atrazine, it’s time to take the next step and ban it for good. But it won’t happen without your help.
Thanks for standing with us. Together, we’ll get atrazine out of our water and our environment.
EWG Action Alert
Comments