herbicide hormone havoc

The Washington Post is reporting on yet another study that shows that the widely-used herbicide, Atrazine, scrambles hormones in wildlife.

In this study, Dr. Tyrone Hayes at UC-Berkeley found that male frogs who as tadpoles swam in water tainted with low levels of Atrazine (within the US EPA's drinking water limits) developed female sex traits. 10% of the male frogs even laid eggs that hatched!

Syngenta, the chemical company that makes Atrazine, continues to stick to their story that Atrazine does no such thing. Every study they've released shows the opposite.

Meanwhile, the US EPA is taking another look at Atrazine, which they re-registered for use in 2006 based on Syngenta's safety data. It seems all this independent research has shown things in a different light. Perhaps EPA will start making a practice of considering independent research - not just the company's own data - when evaluating a pesticide's risks. It would be long overdue.

Even Colbert is getting nervous about endocrine disruptors

guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Lowell Wood

A few weeks back I was watching The Colbert Report, when the only anchor I trust to give me the news (Stephen Colbert) sat down with New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof. Kristof addressed how the endocrine disrupting chemicals found in pesticides and other agricultural and consumer products are deforming wildlife living in polluted watersheds.

In the video below, Kristof manages to excite Colbert with mention of male genital deformation. Before the interview completely deteriorates into potty humor and genital jokes (like all Colbert's interview inevitably do), Kristof manages to convey the growing concern many environmental scientists have with the abundance of endocrine disruptors.

(Warning: video contains potty humor and genital jokes as referenced above - sensitive audiences please beware!)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nicholas Kristof
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

A week prior to Kristof's appearance on the Colbert Report, he published an op-ed column in the New York Times on the same topic. In the article, he discusses a recent scientific statement from The Endocrine Society which cites mounting evidence that endocrine disrupting chemicals are having negative effects on our health, and urges increased precaution. Kristof goes into detail in the article about the chemicals' disruptive effects on reproduction and growth in animals, and the growing evidence that endocrine disruptors are negatively effecting humans as well.

This reminds me of our old friend Tyrone Hayes and his astounding work on hermaphrodism in frogs caused by the herbicide atrazine and other chemical pollutants.

Articles and videos like these underline the importance of environmentally sustainable practices in all fields; whether they be the products we use and interact with daily, or the less visible ones a few steps removed from us, like the pesticides used on the foods we buy. Information like this inspires me to raise awareness about how our actions are harming not only the world around us, but us human beings as well. It also encourages me to use the power I have as a consumer to change these evil ways by purchasing organic goods.

Join me! Watch the video, read the article, take action, and make change! Check out Toxic Free NC's website for ideas to help you get started, or call our office at 919-833-1123 to get more involved.

We miss the bees

Though this has been a beautiful spring, we have noticed a disturbing absence in our flower garden. We seem to be suffering from a serious shortage of bees.

Our front yard is loaded with white clover, and our flower beds are full of bees' favorites. With names like Bee Balm and Bienenfreund (German for "Bee's friend"), you'd expect the flowers in our garden to be lousy with bees. And in past years, they have been. But this year, it seems eerily silent in our garden. The familiar buzzing is missing around our blooms.

Commercial apiaries are suffering dramatic losses of bee populations due to a mysterious killer called Colony Collapse Disorder, and wild bee populations, like the ones who should be pollinating our garden, are being ravaged by disease and parasites.

Last week Germany took dramatic action to ban an entire class of pesticides, called neonicotinoids, which have been blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees there. Bayer CropScience, one of the main producers of neonicotinoid pesticides like imidacloprid and clothianidin, two chemicals that have been blamed for massive bee die-offs in the US and Europe, denies that the pesticides are dangerous "when used properly."

I don't find their reassurances very satisfying. Surveys from the Apiary Inspectors of America this year report that honeybee populations in the US are down by about 36% over last year, and last year they were down by 31%. Growers who depend on honeybees for pollination, like fruit growers, are paying top-dollar for commercial pollination services, adding to the list of woes driving up food prices around the world.

We haven't had a scientific survey done in our garden, but I'm finding the quiet out there more than a little disturbing. We need some real answers about what's killing off bees around the world, and perhaps we need to be following Germany's example when we've got a good hunch.

Noisy spring, silent summer?

This is a story about sludge, worms and songbirds, and it starts in your bathroom cabinet.

When we treat our wastewater to remove "biosolids" -- a polite term for our human waste -- all sorts of other things end up in the leftover sludge, including the drugs we take and the "personal care products" like lotion, shampoo, makeup and cologne that we slather on our bodies, which have been absorbed through our skin and then excreted in our waste. The treated wastewater is usually discharged into the local river, and the sludge that's been removed from it frequently becomes fertilizer for agricultural production.

Researchers at the US Geological Survey have found that the hungry earthworms who feed on this sludge in farm fields contain concentrated levels of our drugs and personal care products in their bodies. In fact, a USGS study published in February found that the compounds bioaccumulate in earthworms, meaning that the worms bear higher levels of these pollutants than the surrounding soil does. The USGS researchers note that worms could become monitoring species to help us determine the relative pollution levels in soil, but state that the pollution in these worms have "unknown effects" for wildlife [read the story in Science News].

"Unknown" maybe in that particular study, but researchers in the UK published a disturbing study about a week later that provides some insight into what happens to the polluted worms: Birds eat them.

This particular study examined Eurpean Starlings in the wild, who like to forage in farm fields where fertilizer from sewage sludge has been applied, because the soil is rich in earthworms and other organisms who are busy feasting on the nutrients in the fertilizer. But they're also feasting on the contaminants in the fertilizer, and those contaminants have an impact on the foraging birds [read the story in the New York Times].

The contaminants in sewage sludge can contain hormone-mimicking compounds that act like estrogen in the birds' bodies (Following the thread here? Those compounds are the drugs and personal care products the USGS was examining in the earlier study).

The UK researchers found that the contaminants boosted development in the part of the male birds' brains that control their songs, making them sing longer and more complex songs. The researchers also found that female starlings preferred the long, complex songs of the contaminated male starlings.

The bad news is... they're contaminated. The same endocrine-disrupting compounds in the male starlings that made them attractive as mates make them unfit as fathers, because the compounds suppress the birds' immune systems and make them sick. While that might be good news for American birders who aren't fond of invasive starlings, it's rather bad news for birds everywhere who like to eat worms. While that fat earthworm might taste good and improve a male songbird's chances of attracting a pretty lady bird, it could actually be crippling his chances of producing a healthy brood of babies.

This might seem like just a scientific curiosity if the same kinds of effects hadn't also been noted in many other species, including fish, reptiles and amphibians. Sort of makes you think twice about that nice body spray in your bathroom cabinet that's supposed to make you more attractive to a mate, doesn't it?

frogs, frogs and fewer frogs

Oh, the beleaguered frogs. You probably already know that amphibian species are declining around the world. You have probably seen the depressing photos of deformed frogs trying to get through life with too many (or too few) legs. You may even have seen Dr. Tyrone Hayes' breathtaking presentation on how the herbicide atrazine turns boy frogs in to hermaphrodite frogs.

This week the N & O ran a story about a new study that reinforces the theory that farm runoff is causing the deformed limbs. Excess nutrients in the water lead to lots more parasites in the water that turn normal tadpoles into sickly, deformed adult frogs.

One of the questions about this research is, how come the trematodes make frogs so sick? They're not a new pathogen - they've always been in the frogs' environments. It's just that lately the frogs can't seem to fight them off. Another stumper: if it's one disease deforming the frogs, why does it affect so many species? Leopard frogs, bullfrogs, wood frogs, and many others have shown up with the deformed limbs, in many different parts of the U.S. and Canada.

The answer may actually lie in the frogs' immune systems: one of Tyrone Hayes' experiments found that wild frogs who live in pristine waters are easily able to fight off common infections, while wild frogs who live in waters containing agricultural runoff die at astonishing rates from the same exposure to disease. Distinguished researchers around the world have pointed at all sorts of explanations for the frog decline, deformities and hermaphrodism: climate change, habitat destruction, parasites, pesticides, and more. The sad answer may be that there is no smoking gun, but that an alphabet soup of environmental changes have over-burdened the frogs' immune systems to the point of destruction. Parasites and infections that formerly posed little or no threat to amphibian populations become deadly.

Biologists like to call frogs a "sentinel species," because they are so sensitive to their environments and serve as indicators for problems that can grow to affect other species as well. I hope we're paying attention.

Mosquito misters: solace or toxic rip-off?

At Toxic Free NC we get a lot of questions about how to handle pest problems without resorting to poisons. One of the products that seems to generate the most calls and emails lately is the backyard mosquito misting system, marketed under various trade names such as MosquitoNix, Mister Mosquito and others.

With a price tag in the thousands and soothing advertisements that offer freedom from mosquitoes using "natural botanicals," the mosquito mister is quickly becoming this season's Gucci handbag for homeowners. The question we keep getting is:

• Do they work?

...and a close second, from some of our long-time supporters:

• How do I convince my neighbors not to buy this poison-mister?

Both good questions. Let's start with the 'do they work' question. A recent bulletin from NCSU entomologists Charles Apperson and Mike Waldvogel states: "We have not seen any scientific studies regarding the true efficacy of these systems in controlling mosquitoes." Here are a few reasons why the misters won't work well in North Carolina:

• The systems don't prevent mosquitoes. They could kill mosquitoes who happen to be flying by when the mist is released. However, once the mist disperses, mosquitoes can fly back into the area safely.
• Actively killing adult mosquitoes is most conducive to human comfort during the time and in the area where humans are present. Clearly, "when humans are present" is not the appropriate time and place to be applying a fine insecticide mist.
• The system is timed to release a cloud of insecticide in the morning and again in the evening. Our most active mosquito species, the Asian Tiger mosquito, is active all day long, so the system would miss the vast majority of our nastiest mosquito pest's activity.
• Futhermore, spraying the same insecticide over and over, day-in and day-out, is a good way to experiment with inducing insecticide resistance in your local mosquito population. A system that might have provided temporary relief in the beginning would lose effectiveness over time.

Now, on to the implied "are they safe?" part of question #2. The "natural botanical" you keep hearing about in the MosquitoNix commerical is pyrethrin. While pyrethrin is derived from chrysanthemums, that doesn't make it benign. Pyrethrin is also just one of the ingredients in the insecticide formulation, which also includes chemical synergists, propellants, and other "inert" ingredients. Pyrethrin is a broad-spectrum insecticide that will also kill any other flying insects that happen to be in the path of the mosquito mist -- including butterflies, bees, dragonflies... get the idea? It's not a mosquito seek-and-destroy weapon.

A few weeks ago at a backyard cookout, I witnessed an asthmatic child have a frightening wheezing episode after he inhaled the mosquito repellent mist that an adult was applying to herself nearby. Inhaling a fine mist - even one that contains "natural botanicals" - can be dangerous, especially for children.

If you ask an entomologist how to prevent mosquitoes in your backyard, they will undoubtedly give you the tried-and-true methods: remove standing water, wear long pants and sleeves when you can, choose a safe insect repellent if you're outdoors when mosquitoes are active, and for areas with standing water that can't be drained, use mosquito dunks made from Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis) to prevent larvae from becoming adults. More on mosquito prevention.

In summary: mosquito misters seem to be a really expensive way to kill a handful of random flying insects twice a day. If you want to avoid mosquito bites, you don't have to spend a lot of money or use a lot of chemicals - just some common sense.

Blue frogs

Though not actually blue in color (unless they're one of these guys), frogs everywhere are apt to be feeling a bit blue upon hearing last week's news that three widely used organophosphate pesticides (or "OPs") have been found to be even more toxic to frogs than was previously thought.

In a study published last week in the journal Environmental Pollution, scientists at the University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale and the U.S. Geological Survey report that the breakdown products of insecticides diazinon, chlorpyrifos, and malathion are far more toxic to certain native California species of amphibians than the original pesticide chemicals, which are already highly toxic. In other words, these highly poisonous chemicals get even more poisonous to frogs after they enter the body and begin to be digested, or after they've been hanging around in the environment for a while and begin to degrade - 10 times more toxic in the case of diazinon, and 100 times more toxic in the cases of chlorpyrifos and malathion.

Frogs may be a "canary in the coal mine" for pesticides because of their moist, permeable skin, but according to one of the lead researchers on this study, Dr. Gary Fellers, these findings do not bode well for other species, including birds, mammals and humans.

OPs are widely implicated in the declines of several amphibian species in the California Central Valley and in downwind mountain areas that are prone to pesticide drift. U.C. Berkeley scientist Tyrone Hayes has also found that the nation's #2 most popular herbicide, atrazine, can cause hermaphrodism and other serious health effects in male frogs, even at very low levels.

These findings implicate pesticide contamination in a widespread decline in amphibian populations across the country, and even worldwide.

People must heed the warning of these green (and increasingly blue!) canaries in the proverbial coal mine, since we depend on the same water that frogs do, and a growing body of scientific evidence indicates that we are also being affected. Consider the recent finding from a researcher at Indiana University School of Medicine that rates of premature birth in humans are highest each year during the same months that pesticide and fertilizer levels spike in surface water, and lowest in the months when pesticide and fertilizer levels are lowest (link). Or, the finding that that children conceived in Indiana during the months of high pesticide use score lower on standardized tests than children conceived in months with low pesticide use (link).

While municipal drinking water treatment systems kill bacteria that could threaten human health, they seldom remove chemical contaminants - including pesticides and their break down products. Filtering your tap water to remove some impurities is a quick fix, but it is urgent that people act now to keep pesticides out of our waterways. For starters, please support farmers that don't use pesticides by buying locally-grown organic foods whenever you can, and sign up for PESTed's Action Alerts to stay in the loop about pesticide issues in North Carolina, and what you can do to make a difference.