Effeminizing toxin in US food, water supply found produced by China: EPA ignores query

A toxic effeminizing pesticide contaminating US food and drinking water has been recently discovered to be manufactured by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) assets.

Atrazine, one of the most common pesticides used on crops throughout the United States, is designed to confound growth. When applied to agriculture, the chemical enters the weed through the root or leaf, spreads toward new growth and interferes with photosynthesis, killing the plant. Atrazine is also registered for use on turf in residential areas such as homes, daycares, schools, playgrounds, parks, recreational areas, and sports fields.

But aside from being an effective weedkiller, atrazine also causes demasculinization and chemical castration. 

In one peer-reviewed study, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley found that three-quarters of male frogs exposed to atrazine began producing less testosterone, less sperm. They experienced lowered fertility, and many sought to mate with males instead of females. Ten percent of the frogs exposed to atrazine became females producing viable eggs.

“Atrazine-exposed males were both demasculinized (chemically castrated) and completely feminized as adults,” wrote the research.

Tyrone Hayes, the study’s lead researcher, shared the implications of his findings.

“When we grow these guys up, depending on the family, we will get anywhere from 10 to 50 percent females,” Hayes said. “In a population, the genetically male females can decrease or wipe out a population just because they skew sex ratios so badly.”

Other studies found similar results in fish and reptiles, leading the Berkeley researchers to conclude that the effects of atrazine are the same across vertebrates.

“The similarities between these previous findings in fish and in reptiles and the present findings in an amphibian suggest that the demasculinizing effects of atrazine are also not species, genera, family, or even order specific but occur across vertebrate classes,” said the researchers.

Another study found that female rats who were exposed to atrazine developed breast cancer. The EPA’s scientific advisory panel (SAP) concluded that atrazine may also cause cancer in humans, but it may not be apparent until puberty or later.

The “[n]euroendocrine model of carcinogenic action may be relevant to infants and children exposure, but the effects may have a long latency and may not become apparent until puberty or even later,” the SAP concluded.

By contrast, the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that the pesticide is not carcinogenic to humans.

But a peer-reviewed study published this March found that atrazine does, in fact, promote breast cancer development in humans, partly by suppressing immune function.

In 2004, Europe banned atrazine over environmental concerns from water contamination. The European Union continues to manufacture and export atrazine to several countries including Ukraine, Sudan, and Pakistan, according to Greenpeace.

The EPA acknowledges that atrazine poses developmental and reproductive risks to animals and humans, especially children, who spend more time on the ground and frequently place their hands in their mouths. In France, babies whose mothers were exposed to atrazine during pregnancy developed slower than normal. In Texas, babies born to mothers in counties with higher atrazine use were more likely to have birth defects.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also warns of atrazine’s risks to humans, especially in reproductivity. While the agency acknowledges that the toxin’s effects on animals and humans may not be the same, it warns that it can still have harmful effects on the human reproductive system.

“Some of the specific effects observed in animals are not likely to occur in humans because of biological differences between humans and these types of animals. However, atrazine may affect the reproductive system in humans by a different mechanism,” explains a CDC fact sheet.

Still, atrazine is widely used in the United States. About 80 million pounds of atrazine are used in the US every year, primarily on corn and sorghum.

In September, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly announced she would side with farmers in a squabble with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over newly proposed regulations to further reduce the application of atrazine. Farmers said they need more of the pesticide for their crops, but the EPA expressed concern about levels of atrazine contaminating the soil. Soldier Creek, just upward of where it meets the Kansas River in Topeka, has been found to be particularly polluted with the herbicide.

In a 2010 report from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a large environmental group, atrazine was found in 80% of drinking water samples in 153 public water systems. 

“All twenty watersheds sampled in 2007 and 2008 had detectable levels of atrazine, and sixteen had average concentrations above the level that has been shown to harm plants and wildlife,” added the NRDC report.

While the EPA maintains that the levels of atrazine found in food and drinking water are not harmful, the agency stopped monitoring atrazine levels in drinking water in 2018. That year, the EPA concluded that atrazine concentrations were at acceptable levels and continues to rely on those figures. In 2020, the EPA officially abandoned its Atrazine Monitoring Program (AMP).

“While having monitoring data specific to community water systems is useful, given the conclusions of the 2018 draft triazine human health risk assessments, EPA discontinued the requirement for atrazine drinking water monitoring (the AMP),” says the EPA.

The decision has raised concerns, particularly since atrazine manufacturer Syngenta in 2012 paid a $105 million settlement for contaminating thousands of water systems with the pesticide.

Furthemore, while the EPA has insisted for decades that atrazine levels are acceptable, a 2016 study by the agency does not seem so sure.

“EPA levels of concerns for chronic risk are exceeded by as much as 22, 198, and 62 times for birds, mammals, and fish, respectively,” says the study.

The EPA's repeated claims that atrazine levels are below the toxic threshold are largely based on conclusions by its scientific advisory panel, which currently comprises six academics. The SAP is chaired by Robert Chapin, PhD, a former senior research fellow at Pfizer Global Research and Development.

In 2006, the NRDC sued the EPA after the agency failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The thousands of documents that were subsequently released showed that the EPA had been ignoring its own transparency regulations regarding atrazine and its manufacturer Syngenta. 

This was most evident in 2003, when the EPA approved Syngenta’s re-registration request for atrazine. The agency based its approval of atrazine on the recommendations of two advisory committees, both of which contained only EPA and Syngenta representatives. There were no representatives from the public.

That year, the EPA held at least 50 private meetings with Syngenta that were also hidden from the public eye.

Following Tyrone Hayes' findings on atrazine's effect on frogs, Syngenta decided to attack the scientist. Not only did the corporation hire academics to try to discredit Hayes, but documents show that then-Syngenta Communications Manager Sherry Ford had plans to investigate Hayes' wife and paint him as “paranoid schizo and narcissistic”. Another proposal involved purchasing Hayes' name as a search word online.

When Hayes would give lectures or perform speaking engagements, Syngenta operatives would follow him and ask pointed questions to mock him. A Syngenta spokeswoman confirmed that “[a] Syngenta representative does try to attend events where Dr. Hayes is speaking. It’s in our best interest, and farmers’, that we have the opportunity to counter his outrageous accusations.”

According to reports, Syngenta also purchased Google ads discrediting Hayes which would appear when his name was searched.

Syngenta is a large agrichemical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and owned by ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned company owning dozens of international subsidiaries.

One of those subsidiaries is Adama Agricultural Solutions Ltd, an Israeli company which manufactures atrazine and other herbicides and fungicides. It sells the chemicals in about 100 countries and has facilities across the world. In 2017, ChemChina became the sole owner of Adama through its subsidiary, Hubei Sandona Co. Ltd.

One of Adama's key executives is Chen Lichtenstein, an Israeli national who served as the company's president and CEO during its acquisition by ChemChina and continues to sit on its board. He also served as president and CEO of ChemChina's strategic business division, China National Agrochemical Corporation (CNAC). In 2020, Lichtenstein came over to join Syngenta as chief financial officer.

Syngenta is chaired by Li Fanrong, a veteran in the Chinese energy industry who also sits on the board of Sinochem Holdings, another company owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Other executive and supervisory board members also have strong ties to the CCP such as Jiao Jian, the director and president of Sinochem Holdings and Yang Lin, former CFO and current deputy CFO at Sinochem Holdings.

In 2020, Sinochem was one of the corporations designated by the Trump administration as owned by the People’s Liberation Army, the armed wing of the CCP. Due to an executive order signed by President Trump and extended by Joe Biden, American companies and individuals are prohibited from owning shares in companies like Sinochem.

But while Americans are not swimming in China’s pool, China and its atrazine are certainly swimming in theirs. President Trump’s executive order raises questions, therefore, about why the federal government shuns Syngenta for American citizens while working closely with its CCP operatives.

The EPA, Department of Homeland Security, House Foreign Affairs Committee and relevant lawmakers failed to comment.