Tyron Hayes, Ph.D.

What is the most significant impact from your findings of atrazine?

From my own particular findings with atrazine, I think the idea that a chemical designed to kill weeds can actually have such dramatic effects on amphibian development — in the case of my studies — that I think is pretty interesting. And also, forewarns about the dangers of making assumptions about how specific some of these pesticides can be.

Speak to how widely atrazine is used.

Atrazine was up until a few years ago the most widely used pesticide in the world. When I say “pesticide,” I mean anything that kills a pest: an herbicide, a fungicide, a [lymphocyte], and insecticide.

Atrazine itself is an herbicide, or a weed-killer. And as I was saying, up until a couple of years ago, it was the number one-selling pesticide in the world. It’s now libeled by glyphostate for what most people know as Round-Up.

Though is quite persistent, more persistent than glyphostate, it seems, and it is the most commonly detected contaminant in ground water and surface water and in drinking water.

What are the implications for humans?

Well, while my work is focused on amphibians, the effects of atrazine — the mechanisms, the ways that atrazine works — are relevant to all species, including humans. So, some of the genes that get turned on in frogs are genes that are involved in converting androgen — or testosterone — into estrogen.

And so, the result is a male frog will make estrogen and lose testosterone. So, he is chemically castrated, or demasculinized, as well as feminized. Now, this effect, turning on this gene that converts testosterone into estrogen, has been demonstrated in all vertebrate classes. It’s been demonstrated in fish. It’s been demonstrated in turtles, and alligators, and birds, and in laboratory rodents.

And what’s significant is, the change in testosterone to estrogen in rodents is associated with breast cancer, with mammary cancer. Are there are also studies in humans that show an association between atrazine exposure and breast cancer. This shift in hormones — this hormone imbalance, if you will — induced by atrazine is also associated with prostate cancer in rodents, and it’s also associated with prostate cancer in atrazine exposure in men in one of Syngenta, the makers of atrazine, in one of Syngenta’s own factories.

This endocrine-disrupting effect, why is that a big deal?

Well, we’ve known now for maybe 15, 20 years that many hormones work by altering gene expressions, by turning genes on and off. And in particular, this is a concern during development. Because the coordination of these genes, these instructions, if you will, that help us build our reproductive organs and our reproductive capabilities.

These genes have to be turned on just at the right time. And hormones regulate these genes. So, when you introduce a chemical such as a pesticide that alters hormone levels, then you’re turning the instructions on at the wrong time. I guess, imagine a recipe for making a cake, and you scramble up the instructions so that you’re not adding the ingredients at the right time or the right amounts.

That’s essentially what these pesticides are doing. They’re scrambling the instructions that are required to help us develop properly. The consequences being things like, impaired brain development, or poor growth, or in the case of atrazine especially, low fertility, low sperm count in men, or inappropriate expression of genes that lead to things like breast cancer and prostate cancer.

What’s going on with the EPA?

I was very naïve when I first got involved in this area, and I really thought with a name like the “Environmental Protection Agency,” that their main goal would be to protect the environment. And that really is just simply not the case. The involvement, the influence that industry’s had over the EPA’s decision and policy-making process in this case is unbelievable to me.

The number of people that serve on EPA panels, for example, that are paid off by the industry, is unbelievable to me. There’s even now in the most recent review of atrazine, one of the previous panel members is co-authoring papers with a Syngenta employee. Has funding at the same time, it seems that he was supposedly acting for the Environmental Protection Agency.

And one of the equally unbelievable things to me is [Steven Bradbury], of the EPA, was interviewed a few months ago in the newspaper about atrazine, and why it wasn’t banned, actually made the statement that my work was interesting, but would not affect policy.

We’re showing that atrazine at 0.1 parts to the billion, at levels that are 30 times lower than what’s allowed in drinking water, causes male frogs to develop eggs, has an incredibly negative impact on frog development, and he’s saying, that’s interesting, but won’t affect our policy.

But what’s more, he went on to say that the ultimate decision on whether or not to ban atrazine is much bigger than science. So here we have this agency that’s supposed to do data call-in, and review science, and have these advisory panels, and scientific advisory boards, and ultimately they’re saying that the ultimate decision is beyond science, that they’re using other ways to make those decisions.

And many of those are financial.

How pervasive is atrazine?

Again, atrazine is the number one selling product for the largest agrichemical company in the world. And in this country, we’re using approximately 80 million pounds per year. As I said, it’s the most common contaminant of ground and surface water. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I think something like 70% of streams and rivers that are tested by the U.S. Geological Survey are contaminated.

Atrazine itself is not volatile, but doesn’t evaporate, but it does go up on dust particles, and seed clouds, and come down in the rainwater. So, estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey show that atrazine can travel up to 600 miles from the point of application. So, you can measure it, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Minnesota, when they applied it in Kansas.

It’s been shown in Europe, that it can travel as much as 600 miles between France and Europe. It comes down in your rainwater, and in the U.S., the estimates area a half-million pounds per year come down into the rainwater. So, it’s everywhere. It’s commonly detected in well water and in drinking water. And the EPA 3 parts per billion, which is really not based on biology, the 3 parts per billion only means that on average over a year, your drinking water shouldn’t exceed 3 parts per billion.

So, that might mean that during the growing season, you might have huge levels of atrazine, and then it resides or goes down. But on average, you only have 3 parts per billion. And I just saw a study — I can’t quote the author for you — that looks up birth defects and spontaneous abortion.

Showing that they more likely occur when women get pregnant during that time when atrazine levels are peaking.

It was banned in France 15 years ago, but they’re still finding it?

Yeah, there’s originally initially when I started working with atrazine, I was taught that it degrades very quickly. But what we’re learning now is, when it’s in aquifers that’s not true. We know from our own work that even in the wintertime, before atrazine is applied, you can still measure it in the ponds, and the lakes, etc.

We also know from a study in France — where it hadn’t been used in an area for 15 years — and researchers are reporting that the levels are constant in the aquifer. That it’s not going away.

Talk about sperm counts and atrazine.

Well, let me just say in general, here’s what’s important to me as a scientist and as a citizen. If there were one study that said, oh, atrazine might make sperm count go down in one species, then I might go, oh, that’s something work considering. But that’s not the case.

There’s published studies showing that atrazine exposure causes low [milt], or sperm, production in fish. There are our studies that suggest that the animals have demasculinized, and that the sperm number is low. And then there are rat studies that show decreased fertility and decreased sperm production with atrazine exposure. So, it’s not one experiment, and it’s not random. It’s completely different organisms showing a similar effect.

It makes me think that it can’t be a coincidence. And then finally, there’s a study by [Shada Swan] which shows that men who have atrazine in their urine are more likely to have low sperm count, low fertility, and low semen quality. And again, if all we had were these epidemiology studies showing a correlation, I’d say, well, maybe there’s something, maybe there’s not.

But we have experimental data that shows things that are consistent with this data in humans. And that’s what really gives me concern. It’s not so much my data alone, or anybody’s data in a vacuum, but all these studies indicating the same kind of effects.

Let me tell you exactly what’s happening and why I said that. I’ve written a review that shows this: just for the amphibian data, if you stack up every study that’s been published, every one, and go through the literature, every study that’s been published, there’s a total of 38.

Now, if you look at those studies, and ask how many find an adverse effect of atrazine and how many found no effect, the ratio is something like 31:7. So, 31 studies have shown that atrazine harms frogs, 7 studies have shown no effect. Every one of these studies that shows an adverse effect or a negative impact on frogs was independent of industry, of Syngenta. Every one of the 7 studies that says frogs are not affected by atrazine were all funded by industry.

And industry-funded studies have never once found any effect of atrazine, when industry funding was involved. Now, in that analysis, if we ask, well, are these really independent laboratories, or are these just the same people publishing the same stuff over and over again, if you do that, if you eliminate studies that have the same co-authors, the same people working on them, then the ratio becomes 25:1.

If you go to the library and look at all peer-reviewed published studies, there are 25 that show bad effects, negative effects of atrazine, that were free of industry funding. And there’s one group of scientists — if you want to call them that — funded by Syngenta, that says atrazine has no effect. So, that’s the first thing I did.

And then what happens is the EPA is treating those individual labs as if they’re independent, but in fact, it’s the same co-authors. They just re-shuffle their names around. Nobody else has ever said atrazine has does nothing. Further, to show the influence of the EPA, they narrow what they’re going to look at. They say, we will only look at atrazine effects on the gonads, in studies conducted without other pesticides, as part of the study.

So, they eliminate those 38 studies that I talked to you about. They only look at a few papers of mine, and then all the industry studies. So, it’s almost like they tailor what they’re going to examine in their regulatory decision to what Syngenta’s done. Now, here’s what I meant when I said “paid off.”

That’s one thing. So, now we have scientists that are paid by Syngenta presenting to the EPA. It goes one step further. When the EPA reviewed atrazine in 2003, they convened a panel of independent scientists to review all the data. One of those scientists in particular, a guy named [Verner Cloas], said, “There’s not enough data. We need more data.”

This is an EPA panel member, an independent scientist. Well, at the same time that he was reviewing this data, I heard a rumor that Syngenta was offering him money. It’s just a rumor. That scientist now, who said we need more data, is now being paid as an EPA panel member, he’s now being paid by Syngenta, by the manufacturer, and his data are the data that they’re reviewing now.

So, they pulled an EPA panel member, he said, “Oh, we can’t regulate atrazine. We need to know more. And hey, Syngenta, by the way, if you pay me more, I’ll get those data for you.” And now the only data that the EPA’s reviewing are his data. So, the equivalent is, if I were a juror, and we were hearing the case, and I came back and said, “You know, there’s not enough evidence to convict.”

And then the accused came to me as a juror and said, “Hey, I’ll give you a million dollars to find more evidence.” You see? So, that’s what I mean, when I said, “paid off,” is they have an EPA panel member who was supposed to be making an independent decision, who now shows up with a million-dollar check in his purse. And that’s not a secret. That’s public. He’s now publishing with Syngenta, a former EPA panel member.

Why would the EPA be tailoring these things and having some on a panel who’s involved financially with the industry?

I think the problems are several-fold. One is, I think, many of the high-ups in the EPA are politically appointed. So, they’re not necessarily people who started in science, and really wanted to do the right thing, so to speak. So, their jobs in part are dependent on the current political climate.

I think that’s one question. The other problem is, a lot of these people, not just in the EPA but also things like the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, who are appointed, are former executives in the chemical industry. So, they have a lot of ties, they have a lot of connections, they’re beholden to the chemical industry.

I think the other issues are that the EPA does more than just protect the environment. So, even if they identify that something has an adverse effect – this is actually in their mandate – they have to weigh the cost of that adverse effect to, if we ban this compound, how will it affect economics?

And so, they’re making judgment. And what that means is, they are deciding atrazine is too important economically to get rid of.

So, in other words, they’re deciding that the cost of getting rid of it would really hurt people, because it would put us in this economic situation. What they’re not considering, though, is that people who benefit from atrazine are not the same people who pay the costs. So, when you think about, for example, African-Americans, or agricultural workers, with much higher incidences of death from cancers, such as breast cancer and prostate cancer, those people who are out there in the fields, who are doing spraying, who are breathing this stuff in, etc., those are the people suffering the costs.

The people making the money primarily from atrazine aren’t the same people. When you start to consider the environment, and amphibians, and the reptiles, and the fish, the costs are not being felt by the people who are making the money. So, it almost makes sense that you would have that mandate that you would look at an adverse and say, okay, what are the benefits, though, and how do we balance those?

But, not every life form has the same voice when that decision is being made.

Can it be taken out of drinking water? Do people turning on taps have anything to worry about?

Well, I get no money from to say this, but Brita Filter will take out atrazine, and many of the pesticides we’re talking about. So, you can put filters on your water to take these chemicals out. The problem is, again, that doesn’t help the environmental situation, where you have water in the streams, you have water in the lakes, water in the rivers, ponds that are contaminated.

So, it doesn’t really affect wildlife. And, even in terms of humans, the people who can afford to and are informed enough to get a filter on their water aren’t really people who are at risk, anyway. So, the factor workers that are exposed, filtering their water won’t help. The farm workers, the agricultural workers that are exposed across the skin, by breathing it in, even if they have protective equipment that they’re supposed to wear, which we all know that if you drive down to Salinas, or drive down to any agricultural areas and see these workers, they’re not wearing them.

Filtering their water doesn’t really protect them. So, again, it’s a matter of, whom are we protecting? And with that level of protection, we’re not affecting the people who are most vulnerable. That situation doesn’t change for them.

How much money is involved?

I’m reluctant to say, because I have a number, but I don’t remember the source of the number. The number I’ve heard was $500 million in the U.S. and $800 million worldwide, from atrazine. That’s the number I’ve seen. But to be honest, if you asked me for a source, I could probably get it to you, but I don’t know it off the top of my head anymore.

What is Syngenta up to politically? Do you have a sense?

I know for a fact in Minnesota, when there were three bills to ban atrazine [Ellison], [Terrin Clark], [Gene Wogeny's], and Senator [Marty], were all behind these bills in 2005. They spent a quarter of a million dollars in lobbying. I know this from Representative [Shepling], one of the representatives in Minnesota. So, I’ve seen the numbers. They spent a quarter of a million lobbying that year.

And an undisclosed amount was spent on public relations and on law firms, people that they had following me around when I was there. So, they lobbied hard where it’s happening. Another bill came up this year in Minnesota, and apparently they lobbied the governor, who lobbied the Senate, to get the bill moved from the Health Committee and put in the Finance Committee.

So, in a way, that was a triumph, because what it said to me was, you can’t come into a room with me and argue the environmental and health impacts of atrazine. The only way that we can really have this debate that favors you is if we move this to the Finance Committee. I think that says a lot. What they’ve done in other states, I don’t know. What they’re doing in the U.S., I don’t know, but that’s just in one state alone.

I don’t know if that’s a lot or a little bit. To me, it’s a lot, but if they’re doing that in one state, I can only imagine, and now I know that they’re lobbying, next week I leave for Australia, who’s trying to get legislation going. And I would presume they’re spending money in multiple places. Canada is another place that’s looking at, consistently trying to regulate atrazine. So, the amount of money that they spend totally must be huge.

What’s it going to take for real science to have an impact on policy?

It’s become very important to me to bring science to the people, to the public, because I think that the only way the policy will be effective is if people really start to speak up and become involved. You’ve got to know the science, and you’ve got to get in contact and have these discussions with your politicians.

Talk about the ethanol craze and how it pertains to atrazine.

The ethanol issues is a very big one, and actually, I don’t think it’s very complicated. I think it’s been made complicated by propaganda. There are other people more qualified than me to talk about the economics.

[Herman Tell] has estimated — and I must say, I’m really not the expert on this — but, just to get a portion of our petroleum replaced by ethanol, the entire United States would have to be covered in corn. The entire surface of the United States. Even if we could accurately extract the energy that’s needed from corn, it’s just not feasible that we will replace our dependency on fossil fuels with ethanol.

It’s a nice idea, but it’s not feasible. The other problems are, there are calculations about energy balance, about how much diesel and how much energy goes into growing the corn, harvesting the corn, shipping the corn. And one of my favorites is, in Minnesota – and I think this is true in other places – that they’re using coal as a fuel to produce the ethanol.

So, they’re burning coal to distill this cleaner-burning fuel. Which to me just absolutely blows me away. And again, I’m not an economist. It’s one of those things that really confuses me and stresses me, because the gold standard is gone. We were an agricultural-based economy with corn as our number one-selling product, of which we only ate 2% of. That’s a confusing issue for me.

And now we’re converting it into something that is a good idea, but not a realistic idea. I’ve read about that the price of corn has gone up now from $1 a bushel to, I think, $4 a bushel. The price of corn has gone up from $4 a bushel to $1 a bushel, and what that means is, the pig and cattle farmers that depend on the corn now are having a hard time being able to afford the corn, which is going to cause the price of beef and pork to go up.

So, there are all these things that I think people are considering, but the propaganda machine, Syngentas, the [Moncentos] of the world, are really artificially driving the economy.

A lot of corn is being grown. Should agriculture be going in a different direction?

Yeah, there’s a flip side to this, as well. And that is, it’s arguable that atrazine increased corn yield anyway. So, even if the ethanol dream were real, which the data now suggest that it’s not, atrazine, according to the USDA, only increases corn yield by 1.2%. There are studies out in Nebraska that show that atrazine has no impact on corn yields.

So, again, it’s one of these mentalities. I’ve talked to farmers in Nebraska, where I’m going there to collect frogs, for example, and you expect them to be there with shotguns. And they say, “Oh, you can do whatever you want.” Many farmers say, “If you could show and help us get rid of this stuff,” but the problem becomes, I can’t not use if my neighbor uses it, because then I’ll lose.

And if I lose one year, then my farm’s gone. So, if my neighbor uses it, I have to use it. So, we don’t know if it does anything at all. And that’s the case with atrazine. It apparently may not really increase corn yield at all. But if I’m a farmer, I can’t afford not to do it, because if I’m wrong just one year then I’m done.

What I would like to see with agriculture is, I would like to see us grow food. I’m distressed when 20% of the world dies of starvation, and we’re using chemicals that we know to be harmful to the environment and to public health to grow potentially at most 1.2% more corn, of which we’re going to eat less than 2% of, while watching, again, 20% of the world die because they don’t have access to starch.

Those are the kinds of things that really disturb me or impact me. And now we’re going to try to grow more corn for a dream that’s not real, to produce ethanol, so that we’re not dependent on fossil fuels. Don’t get me wrong, we need to get over our fossil fuel addiction. It is a non-renewable resource. Don’t get me wrong about that part. We need to find cleaner fuels, and alternative fuels.

But this isn’t the answer, and it’s not an answer to bigger problems that are occurring right now in the world.

What happens when you mix pesticides?

Well, we’ve done experiments, and published experiments, because you’re not just exposed to atrazine. Even though it’s the most persistent, even though it’s one of the most active, if not the most, of all these pesticides, when it’s used, it’s used in combination with other things.

So, we conducted an experiment where we combine 9 pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides, and we used them on one plot. Overall, in the County of Nebraska, each plot is using a different combination, depending on what corn you’re growing. When you mix these 9 combines, you get effects that you would never see with each individual compound alone. And they include everything from retarded growth, retarded development, reproductive abnormalities, to immunosupression, so that they become more susceptible to diseases.

And it’s troublesome, because the EPA — not that they regulate anything anyway — only evaluates one chemical at a time. They never evaluate these realistic mixtures — which is what you’re exposed to. And it’s problematic because even if they did, how would you regulate it? If you use one compound and your neighbor used another, how would you regulate when and where that compound could be used?

But it’s a very serious matter. It’s as if when you go to the doctor, and he prescribes you a drug, he takes into account all of the medications that you’re taking, because of what they call “contraindications,” drugs that might interact negatively.

Well, this is the same thing we’re talking about. When you’re combining atrazine with these other compounds, you get unpredictable effects of the combinations.

Sum up the story of how Syngenta tried to buy you off.

Well, the trouble in this country is if you want to do research on pesticides, for example, most of the funding opportunities are from the industry because they’re the ones who will challenge the tests of their chemicals. But if your outcome is negative, then that can greatly impact your research. And so I think a lot of scientists who’ve identified themselves as toxicologists are sort of beholden to and dependent on industry.

And maybe that’s what was different for me. If I’m not a toxicologist, I’m really a developmental endocrinologist, which means I study how hormones affect development. And that’s what these problems are. These are not toxicology problems. These are problems in developmental endocrinology.

And so maybe it was easier for me to break away and be able to find more funding. Or, maybe I just had a different ethic by the time all was said and done. And actually, I do want to say one thing about that. I don’t want to sound like Mr. Self-Righteous.

When industry approached me as, why shouldn’t I make money? I really went into it as, if I were an artist and you came to me and said, hey, I want long blond hair. And I painted your picture and sold it to you, and it was no longer my responsibility, even if my name was on it, I was commissioned, and I did it.

And so, that’s the way I thought. They came to me and said, we want you to do this. And I thought, it’s their responsibility. I’ll do the experiment how they want, give them the data, and it’s there’s. And just when I saw the operation, how they operated and how they hid things, and the statistics that they tried to use, and how they distributed money, and the things they would offer me to “repeat” things in the way that they wanted them repeated, I just thought, I didn’t have to go to all this school to sell myself that way.

There are easier ways to sell yourself, if you know what I mean? Using the nicest words I can to describe that situation.    

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