Atrazine has been banned in Europe under the precautionary principle for good reason. But Australia and the USA both rely on the obvious self vested interests of industry to prove it is harmful before giving effect to a ban. 

Atrazine has already been linked to prostate and breast cancer and is suspected of causing sexual abnormalities in frogs and fish. It has now been found to alter hormonal signaling in human cells, scientists from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) report:

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/atrazine_herbicide_disrupts_human_hormone_activity_study

and

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=06-P13-00016&segmentID=1

The issue at stake is the adverse impacts caused by the contamination of air, soil and water, crops, animals and people by toxic chemicals (in this case atrazine) that are designed specifically to harm living cells. These chemicals can never be described as safe.

These pesticides are biologically active at levels usually below detection levels and their effects are often additive – the mixture effect.

That the adverse effects on humans and other animals can be long lasting, produce effects years after exposure and can contribute to many diverse illnesses, diseases and cancers is of concern to us all.

Currently there seems to be no regulator, industry or pesticide user awareness of mixture or very low dose effects.
Those especially vulnerable to pesticides are foetuses, infants and children, and those genetically susceptible.

All life needs water; water is becoming generally scarcer and more polluted as pesticide use continues year after year and concentration effects begin to take effect.

The need and ability to source safe and non-polluted water will continue to gain importance. Holistic and protective approaches to water catchments are essential if water pollution is to be prevented.

Pesticide use cannot be allowed to occur in a way that may pollute water or non-target areas.

Enforceable regulations that put the onus of safe and non-polluting practices onto regulators and pesticide users are long overdue.

Any other approach by the regulator is unacceptable to water users.

At present consumers bear the cost and consequences of pesticide pollution.

The determination of enforceable regulations by the regulator must be fair and just to all consumers and water users. 

Dr Alison Bleaney
sec BOD Catchment Risk Group

Malcolm,
You repeat a lie - please see my comment of 17/5/08 on this site. Atrazine has not been banned in Europe. It was restricted for reasons that did not relate to toxicity, only that to ALL chemicals for which a drinking guideline value had not been determined, a value of 0.1 ppb was assigned. The EU expert committee I referred to recommended that the restrictions on atrazine be removed, but that was politically unacceptable because the perception had been created that there was a problem.

Why do you not identify yourself fully? Use of pseudonymns or partial names is to my mind weak. I am aware that your e-mail address is accessible, but that is no excuse for concealing identities.

Barry Tomkins

For general information:

The triazines and cancer

The World Health Organization - International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) state unequivocally that there is no credible evidence that atrazine or simazine are human carcinogens (IARC 1999).

Before 1999, these chemicals were considered by the IARC to be possible human carcinogens on the basis of laboratory tests conducted on rats. High doses of atrazine given to the female(s) of one particular strain of test rat (Sprague-Dawley rats – a large white rat) caused an increased incidence of a specific female mammarian cancer. In one experiment a similar result was obtained with simazine.

The biological mechanism behind this has been determined, and, according to Eldridgea, J.C et al. (1999) it cannot occur in humans because human physiology is quite different.

Eldridgea, J.C, Wetzel, L.T., Tyrey, L. . 1999.  Estrous cycle patterns of Sprague –Dawley rats during acute and chronic atrazine administration.  Reproductive Toxicology Volume 13 Issue 6.

The US Environment Protection Agency (US EPA) could not conclude the cancer risk associated with atrazine from available data.  In 2003 the US EPA wrote:

‘Based on the available scientific work on the potential association between atrazine and cancer, the Agency does not at this time find compelling data that would lead the Agency to conclude that potential cancer risk is likely from exposure to atrazine. However, EPA will continue to review new studies on this issue as they become available, and plans to convene another independent Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meeting concerning atrazine and its potential association with carcinogenic effects in light of any new data.’ (US EPA 2003)

Simazine and atrazine were re-classified in 1999 from ‘possible human carcinogens’ (IARC Class 2B) to ‘not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans’ (Class 3).

Barry Tomkins

Simazine and atrazine were re-classified in 1999 from ‘possible human carcinogens’ (IARC Class 2B) to ‘not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans’

This statement alone means we should adopt the precautionary principle and ban the stuff till actual evidence is provided, and not by any organisation that is funded by the manufacturers or has lobbied for the result.

As it is not exactly advisable to conduct these experiments on human beings, maybe we will just have to wait for the autopsy results?

Barry Tomkins is a well known apologist for the use of chemicals in the forest industry. For example:

http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/03/26/FSC_Certified_operations_fast_losing_credibility_in_Australia
and in a letter to the Sunday Age 17/12/04 wrote:

“The alleged spraying of a Tasmanian farm with a “potentially harmful carcinogenic herbicide” by Gunns did not happen, proven by flight lines from the helicopter’s records and the absence of vegetative death on the ground outside the area of the sprayed plantation.

“Atrazine, the herbicide used on surrounding plantations, is not a human carcinogen and after 40 years of use and extensive scientific studies has only been shown to be related to a particular cancer in human rats. The mechanism has been determined and cannot occur in humans”.

For more info on atrazine:

http://atrazinelovers.com

Malcolm,

In rats, actually, NOT human rats! That isn’t nice;

and Gerry Mander (obvious gutless pseudonym):

Have you ever actually read the words of the Precautionary Principle?

I am not an apologist, because no apology for the field research that I do is necessary, nor is one due from the plantation sector which uses just 0.7% in $ terms of the total $ spent on pesticides in Australia annually, and uses it legally.

Perhaps the two of you could peruse the report I co-authored which has been referred to (Forest & Wood Products Australia 2006). But then, facts might confuse you and trouble your belief systems. I prefer to deal with evidence, not beliefs.

Cheers,

Barry Tomkins

Hi there Barry,
I studied your report on a previous occasion… and found it both biased and wanting. However, I did unearth some of the more telling reports, Here are just a couple of salient extracts from an article published in the Washington Post in 2004.

Male tadpoles raised with no atrazine in the water developed normally. But those exposed to atrazine were “demasculinized.” They had smaller larynxes (voice boxes), their testosterone levels were one-tenth of normal levels, and many grew up as hermaphrodites, with a mix of male and female traits. Moreover, the effects appeared with very small exposures—just 0.1 parts per billion, or the equivalent of one drop of atrazine in 5,000 40-gallon barrels of water. That’s one-thirtieth the level currently allowed in U.S. drinking water.
Essentially what Syngenta-funded scientists did “was produce a number of studies that were purposefully flawed and misleading, and that changed the weight of the evidence,” Hayes said.
In June, Tozzi filed his latest Data Quality Act petition.

This time it was directed at the National Toxicology Program. That is a part of the National Institutes of Health that reviews chemicals to see if they cause cancer.

The program had announced in the Federal Register that atrazine was among a long list of chemicals that it was considering for examination. In his petition, Tozzi seized on a few sentences from the program’s description of its chemical review procedures. He claimed that those sentences contained discrepancies that violated the Data Quality Act.

Hormone disruption, it read, cannot be considered a “legitimate regulatory endpoint at this time”—that is, it is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical’s use—because the government had not settled on an officially accepted test for measuring such disruption.

Those words, which effectively rendered moot hundreds of pages of scientific evidence, were adopted by the EPA as a result of a petition filed by a Washington consultant working with atrazine’s primary manufacturer, Syngenta Crop Protection. The petition was filed under the Data Quality Act, a little-known piece of legislation that, under President Bush’s Office of Management and Budget, has become a potent tool for companies seeking to beat back regulation.

Therefore, he wrote, the program should be barred from reviewing the cancer-causing potential of any chemicals. In particular, the petition noted, atrazine.

This extract is from todays paper.

Australian Bureau of Statistics report.

Statistics show that farners spent $1.574 billion controlling weeds in the 2006 - 07 financial year.
The cost of controlling pests came in at $768 million.
Nearly two thirds of expenditure on weed management ($982 million) was spent on herbicides.
More then half the expenditure on pest management ($340 million) was spent on pesticides.

That’s one hell of a lot of Atrizine and Simazine, etc.

No wonder these companies can afford to buy so many politicians

Professor Bernard Stewart stated on his Tasmanian tour that atrazine did not directly cause cancer. 
He did not and would not discuss the effects of endocrine disruption or adverse epigenetic effects attributable to atrazine. Indirect causes of cancer attributable to atrazine has not been excluded.
Lack of data and limited information on atrazine does not provide evidence of safety. 
The discrepancy between CSIRO’s and APVMA’s classification of atrazine as an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) has not as yet been explained by APVMA.

Cont…

...Cont
APVMA’s comment regarding EDCs “evidence of impact to humans from environmental exposure is yet to be established” would seem to suggest that CSIRO and APVMA are waiting for a 100% scientific certainty, rather than taking a precautionary approach as the general public would expect of their regulator. There is a plethora of literature showing the effects of EDCs going back to the 1950s. I am aware of the extent of most of the work done on EDCs and that much of the information initially was obtained over the last two decades on animal research. This has been revalidated and expanded upon in the last five years and much work can now be explained regarding human systems in the light of various human impacts.
I fully support CSIRO and APVMA’s statement “though unnecessary discharge of EDCs to the environment should not occur” and I wait to see how forestry and agriculture will deal ethically with the issues of use of EDCs.
As stated above,
“At present consumers bear the cost and consequences of pesticide pollution.”

Dr Alison Bleaney

It puts Dr Barry Tomkins comments into perspective when a search of the “independent” APVMA’s financial statements for 2007 reveals that $24.39M out of a total revenue of $25.33M (96.3%) was funded by industry contributions:

  http://www.apvma.gov.au/publications/downloads/annreport0607pt6.pdf

“Gerry Mander”,

Very easy to state that you found Braden Jenkin’s and my report biased and wanting, but you make no attempt to justify that ridiculous statement. The industry did not think so, nor did Federal and State Ministers and their departments, or NAFI and A3P etc. The detail is considerable and the modelling done by my co-author was very comprehensive and used authoritative sources and surveys which provided data covering over 92% of the plantation establishment/re-etablishment for 2004. No doubt you read it with your bias already primed!

As to Professor Stewart’s visit, I was advised that the Cancer Council brought him to Tasmania to talk about atrazine and cancer, and Alison Bleaney advertised his visit on this site.

I understand he made similar statements to those I have made about the factors affecting cancer incidence. Given his expertise, I have no doubt he provided a much more complete overview than I could. I also understand that he was vilified because he stated that there was no link between human cancers and atrazine.

Further, I understand that he was ‘sandbagged ’ on the endocrine issue - he did not know the detail and was therefore forced to admit it was ‘possible’.

The Hayes studies have been discredited by many other studies as I indicated earlier. These included independent work done outside of any Syngenta studies.

Alison Bleaney rabbits on about holistic approaches, but is selective in the material she maintains is relevant, rejecting all that does not accord with her belief system where pesticides are concerned, and particularly demonstrates a bias where forestry is concerned. Even in the last entry above she uses ‘forestry and agriculture’ rather than the other way around, which would be more appropriate in terms of the relative importance of market share. Once again, I point out that forestry is ‘small beer’ accounting for 0.7% of the market (in our report). (That will not vary very much because areas harvested and re-established, and new plantation areas are in the same ball-park each year. For example, there are about 1 million hectares of pine plantation in Australia, largely Radiata pine, which provides 90% of the timber framing for construction of houses etc. This estate is harvested on about a 30 year rotation, so that about 30,000 hectare are clearfelled and re-established per year).

Again that means that >99% of the expenditure on pesticides is elsewhere, with agriculture and horticulture comprising the greatest share. That is true in Tasmania just as it is on the mainland. The chemicals complained about are used extensively elsewhere - atrazine in canola, sugar cane, cotton, terbacil as Sinbar Herbicide in fruit orchards, sulfometuron methyl as an industrial herbicide around factories, along roads at rates of 150-600 g/ha active compared to a maximum of 60 g/ha in forestry plantations, metsulfuron methyl for brush weed control including weeds of national importance like blackberry, hexazinone in sugar cane etc. Reading the labels isn’t all that difficult if one wants to know what is legally allowed.

I presume that Alison Bleaney has put all her material before all the relevant authorities in Tasmania and at Federal level including Ministers of Agriculture, Forestry, Water etc etc and the APVMA. If not, why not? And what was the response?

Her credibility has been justifiably questioned over the entirely misleading graph published in the Age a few years ago (to which I have referred on fsc-watch) which prompted a rebuttal from Professor David Hill, Director of the Cancer Council of Victoria. She also was closely associated with the discredited so-called Scammell-Bleaney report. Again I have commented on this elsewhere and I don’t want to waste any more time on it.

Alison Bleaney above talks about the ‘additive effect’ - again without evidence, as if its a given. What is a given is that all of us come into contact with a wide range of chemicals every day, including (just a few examples) additives in food, topical material like soaps, toothpaste, shampoos, perfumery, air-borne pollutants like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter such as bituminous wear off roads in urban areas in particular, prescription and non-prescription medicines/drugs, exudates from plastics, etc etc.

How can one chemical be separated out for an additive or interactive effect??? - at ppb or less levels. Bah, humbug!

Cheers,

Barry Tomkins

#12. Very easy to state that you found Braden Jenkin’s and my report biased and wanting, but you make no attempt to justify that ridiculous statement. The industry did not think so, nor did Federal and State Ministers and their departments, or NAFI and A3P etc.

The fact that these organisations ‘did think so’ is probably the most damning of all the evidence. Industry! State Governments! I ask you? Is that a measure of truth that you apply to your research? The fact that industry thinks it’s great? And the State governments who are in the pockets of this industry also approve? Great recommendations of probity that!

I prefer to believe the Alison Bleaney reports. They have more substance, more references and are actually fighting for US and not the timber industry.

NAFI, who you quote, are the laughing stock with their ridiculous assertions culled straight from the spin of the timber companies. Their letter to Dr Garnaut about sustainability of the industry and how that actually cutting down the old growth trees was a help to saving the environment and the world was an absolute classic. (Previously quoted on this site.)

It matters not where these poisons are sprayed, whether it is on plantations, (now officially an agricultural crop, thus hiding their use in the agricultural figures,) or on the borders of roads and railways; it is the effect on humans that is the point. However, it is a ‘given’ that the increase in the incidence of cancer, hypertension, asthma, MS, diabetes and virtually every other non-viral diease has risen sharply in Tasmania since the advent of the wood-chipping industry and the dramatic increase of the use of these insecticides and herbicides, to such an extent that Tasmania has the worst incidence of any of these diseases, not only in Australia, but for many of them, in the whole world!

Hayes was discredited by Syngenta, the manufacturers of Atrizine. Deliberately distorted experiments to use the controversy created to pervert real science via the American Data Quality Laws, which actually banned cancer research into these chemicals. Subsequent experiments by other independent non-funded laboratories confirmed his findings. It is strange, when Syngenta or other vested interests fund the research, no-one can find anything!

As you publish in many of these industry-funded magazines, it can only reflect on your own probity, especially as no contra-report ever appears in their pages. Selective editing, or paid research?

All the other chemicals you mention were in use long before the steep rise in these debilitating diseases. This has happened since 1997!

Check the AMA reports on the health of Tasmania for confirmation, and then try and tell us there is no link!

Bah, humbug!

Barnaby Drake

Barry - you were the one who re-started the discussion on atrazine.
You may not be aware of CSIRO’s position on endocrine disrupting chemicals so I have posted some of it below.
Yes - Fed and State authorities are aware of my and National Toxic Network’s position on these issues. As reported by The Australian last week the APVMA could not decide whether to re-open or not re-open the review of “atrazine (so what does that tell us about our regulators approach to precaution?) and will decide as more evidence comes to hand and they finalise their own investigations.

Cont ...

... Cont

CSIRO’s (Land and Water website) states:
“Research on the outcomes of contaminants has tended to focus on single chemicals tested under highly controlled conditions. In reality, ecosystems are complex environmental matrices (eg. water, sediments, soil and air) and mixtures are the norm.
The effect of a contaminant when assessed in isolation may be very different to the effect of a mixture. Chemical interactions (due to mixtures) may result in dramatically different fate, effects and risk profiles.”
CSIRO are investigating chemical interactions between contaminants as mixtures (and the implications for their environmental outcomes) – in order to develop theories for sub-lethal effects and models incorporating multi-contaminants, multi-stressor and multi-compartmental systems.
There is now substantial evidence that certain chemicals (e.g. estradiols, nonylphenol, bisphenol A, PCBs and some pesticides) can impact on the health of wildlife, influencing hormonal and reproductive functions. Chemicals that interfere with the normal functioning of endocrine systems are generally referred to as Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs).
The ecological risks associated with EDCs in the Australian environment are not clear. This is largely due to a lack of knowledge about their incidence in the Australian environment and the impact of exposure for our unique native species. CSIRO is developing bioassays and biomarkers for assessing ecotoxicological impacts on native species. They seek to understand stress impacts throughout the system (from the molecular to the population level) for integrated environmental risk assessment.
“Bah Humbug” statements don’t assist me in my scientific deliberations - I’m rather disturbed if they assist you!
But protest away - methinks he doth protest too much!!
Dr Alison Bleaney

So, let the properly constituted regulators get on with their determinations! However, until there is definitive evidence, continuous scaremongering does no good at all. Currently the extensive weight of evidence does not support a case against atrazine. Further, I note that life expectancy in Australia is the second highest in the world, less only than Japan. The media reported this extensively last week. Given some 40-50 years use of a number of herbicides (and other pesticides, also atrazine has been around for about 40 years), there would not appear to have been any substantial effect on human health. The areas where adverse effects on the environment and on human health of atrazine should be the ones where it has been most extensively and intensively used. These include the corn belt(s) of the USA and Europe, and in Australia, the canola growing areas (and sugar cane and cotton, but in those areas there has been a lot more use of other pesticides). If there is extensive evidence of harmful effects from these areas, why isn’t it being cited?

Forestry use in Australia is around 35-45 tonnes active per year of a total market of around 2500 tonnes per year. Yet the focus is on forestry, which uses herbicides only in the first two growing seasons/years of 10-15 year rotations (eucalypt pulpwood) and 30 years (pine sawlog). That is a fact.

The canola areas (1 million hectares) receive applications of atrazine every year and are far more frequented by humans, and livestock.

I do not know how much tap water is consumed per head of population per year (there was a report on bottled water only yesterday in the Age with widely varying figures of 12 to 28 L/head/pa!). The Tasmanian determinations of ppb levels of several herbicides have been in rivers, but has there been extensive testing of reticulated tap water? And if the level was, for example, 1-2 ppb, if the average person drinks about 500-1000 mL/day, he/she will ingest no more than 1-2 micrograms, and most of that is excreted in the first 24 hours, some metabolised. For example, in rats ingested hexazinone is 100% excreted in urine in 72 hours (from radioactive tracer studies) and over 90% goes in 24 hours (The Pesticide Manual).

At least Dr Bleaney is now including in her prognostications a number of non-pesticide chemicals. There is also a debate (articles in Chemistry World, a magazine from the Royal Society of Chemistry) about nano-particulates, including those generated in the burning of eg diesel - the so-called ‘buckyballs’ and nano-tubes.

The problem is that trying to ascertain biological interactions between pairs of different molecules, let alone the hundreds/thousands that we inevitably ingest or inhale, is nigh on impossible. (An informative and readable source about chemicals we use or contact is Professor Ben Selinger’s book ‘Chemistry in the Market Place’). We don’t seem to suffer from the myriad of chemicals given our life expectancies. In fact, the vast majority of chemicals we ingest or inhale appear to act individually and harmlessly and not in concert (synergy) with others.

Dr Bleaney and others only seem to want to attack plantation use of pesticide chemicals. That is a clear bias, and unsustainable morally.

One thing appears rather clear - Tasmanians seem to think that Tasmania is a Very Special Case. Its not - but then, Tasmania has been oversold about its ‘clean & green’ image. The reality is that there is very little difference from the mainland. As another on this site pointed out recently, Tasmania is not even the No. 1 forestry State.

Cheers,

Barry Tomkins

“Dr Bleaney and others only seem to want to attack plantation use of pesticide chemicals.”
If you care to check what I personally have actually written and said, this is a grossly incorrect statement and could be called a lie!

“One thing appears rather clear - Tasmanians seem to think that Tasmania is a Very Special Case. Its not - but then, Tasmania has been oversold about its ‘clean & green’ image. The reality is that there is very little difference from the mainland.” 
Good to hear it stated from a non-rabbid Tasmanian environmentalist.

What now DPIW’s and the Premier’s position on Tasmania’s marketing edge and niche markets selling “clean and green” produce?

The EPA and it’s impartiality / objectivity is even more seriously in question - see article below.
And a “bunker mentality” approach taken by a regulator “..to thwart accountability.”?
Now, where have I heard that before??

EPA tells staff don’t talk to investigators, press

By DINA CAPPIELLO

AP
posted: 54 MINUTES AGO

WASHINGTON -The Environmental Protection Agency is telling its pollution enforcement officials not to talk with congressional investigators, reporters and even the agency’s own inspector general, according to an internal e-mail provided to The Associated Press.
The June 16 message instructs 11 managers in the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the branch of the agency charged with making sure environmental laws are followed, to remind their staff members to keep quiet.
“If you are contacted directly by the IG’s office or GAO requesting information of any kind ... please do not respond to questions or make any statements,” reads the e-mail sent by Robbi Farrell, the division’s chief of staff. Instead, staff members should forward inquiries to a designated EPA representative, the memo says.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility obtained the e-mail and provided it to the AP. The group is a nonprofit alliance of local, state and federal professionals. Its Web site carries the slogan, “Protecting Employees Who Protect Our Environment.”
Jeff Ruch, its executive director, said Monday the e-mail reinforces a “bunker mentality” within EPA under the Bush administration.
“The clear intention behind this move is to chill the cubicles by suppressing any uncontrolled information,” said Ruch.
The EPA, in an official statement, said Monday the e-mail was aimed at making agency responses to the press, EPA’s inspector general and Congress’ General Accountability Office more efficient, consistent and coordinated. The EPA also said officials could still talk to investigators as long as they checked in with the appropriate representatives. About 900 lawyers and technical support staff are employed by the division at EPA headquarters in Washington.
“There is nothing ... that restricts conversation between enforcement staff, the press, GAO and the IG, and the procedure is consistent with existing agency policies,” the statement said. “No one has to get permission or approval to speak with the IG or GAO.”
The e-mail, according to EPA, was a response to a May 2007 audit by the Inspector General’s Office that found the agency had not responded to earlier IG reports on problems with water enforcement and other matters. However, the audit did not make any specific recommendations about communications between staff and the inspector general’s office.
In a statement issued Monday, the Office of Inspector General said it did not approve of the language in the e-mail and was engaged in discussions with enforcement officials to ensure the electronic dispatch would not hinder its access to information.
“All EPA officials and employees are required to cooperate with OIG,” the statement said. “This cooperation includes providing the OIG full and unrestricted access to EPA documents, records, and personnel.”
A spokesman for the congressional GAO said Monday that that agency will deal with access issues as they arise.
The EPA is currently under pressure from several congressional committees to disclose documents relating to its position on global warming and its denial of a petition by California to control greenhouse gases from motor vehicles. Just last week, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson denied a request to appear before two Senate committees to discuss whether the agency’s decisions comply with its staff’s technical and legal recommendations.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who heads the Senate environment committee, said Monday the administrator had turned “the EPA into a secretive, dangerous ally of polluters, instead of a leader in the effort to protect the health and safety of the American people.”
In a letter sent to EPA’s inspector general on Friday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked for a probe into President Bush’s claims of executive privilege over the California documents and other “White House interference” into decisions by the agency.
On Monday, Leahy said, “I hope this e-mail is not akin to the wide range of tactics this administration has used to thwart accountability.”
___
On the Net:
EPA e-mail: http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/08_28_7_gag_order.pdf

It will be interesting to see how the APVMA and DPIW view these articles; will they change their stance on atrazine (simazine or any of the other triazines)use?

World without frogs: combined threats may croak amphibians. New evidence shows that the herbicide atrazine—widely sprayed on crop fields throughout the region—is killing the frogs by helping the parasitic worms that feast on them. Scientific American. 31 October 2008.

Farm chemicals can indirectly hammer frogs. Atrazine, the second-most widely used agricultural pesticide in America, not only increases the likelihood that massive concentrations of parasites will thrive in frog ponds, a new study reports, but also diminishes the ability of larval frogs to fight them—a toxic double whammy. Science News. 30 October 2008.
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/topic.jsp?term=Topic/edcs&title=EDCs