Atrazine in the water
RootCause Dispatch #12
As you may have guessed from my twitter bio, two of most important but least appreciated health issues that aren’t being addressed are:
the widespread consumption of industrially-refined seed oils
the contamination of the food/water supply with endocrine-disrupting chemicals
Seed oils because they cause or exacerbate practically every state of human disease, especially obesity and metabolic dysfunction (see my recent thread on Seed oils and your Mitochondria).
In fact the whole COVID/SARS-COV-2 thing was initially impactful precisely because of the poor metabolic health of the nation, in no small part thanks to ubiquitous seed oil consumption.
Endocrine disrupting xeno-estrogens because they are insidiously waging a slow, covert war on our species ability to reproduce.
Think of the number of people suffering from infertility, low sperm count, low testosterone, gynecomastia (man boobs), erectile dysfunction, polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, irregular menstruation, precocious puberty, premature ovarian failure, preterm labor, reduced birthweight, undescended testes and hypospadias, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, testicular cancer, prostate cancer– you’ll find credible associations, mechanistic links or component causes in exposure to a range of ubiquitous xeno-estrogen chemicals.
Anyway.
Atrazine herbicide is an endocrine disruptor
Atrazine is a triazine-class herbicide that kills plants ability to photosynthesize. It is a potent endocrine disruptor whose reproductive toxicity has been well known for over two decades.
Its no secret that atrazine plays havoc with the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis in a way that suppresses testosterone and increases circulating levels of estrogens, one mechanism through inducing the enzyme aromatase. Type in ‘atrazine endocrine disruptor’ into PubMed and see for yourself.
Fiat chemicals sprayed on fiat crops
Despite this, in 2020 the USEPA recently re-approved the use of atrazine. It remains the second most sprayed herbicide in the US after glyphosate, which incidentally took over only after the widespread rollout of genetically modified (GMO) glyphosate-resistant round up ready crops.
Despite being banned in Europe, atrazine is also still used in Canada and Australia, where it appears to be shortening their wallabies penises. Not good.
For what? At best 4% estimated crop yield on monocropped corn (depending who you ask), which either be processed into biodiesel (analogy: think of plugging the cable of a 4 plug power board into itself) or become refined into some form of fiat food like high fructose corn syrup.
In fact if we zoom out, we can see the entire industrial agricultural system is using poisons to grow nutritionally-empty crops which make you obese and diabetic. Then the same companies manufacture pharmaceuticals used to treat you when you inevitably fall sick.
Exposing the #MPAC
UC Berkley Professor Tyrone B. Hayes has been sounding the atrazine alarm for the past 15 years. He has been battling the #Medical-Pharmaceutical-Agricultural-Complex in the form of corporate giant Syngenta, which incidentally was formed when Novartis and Astra-Zeneca spun off their agricultural businesses and joined forces in 2000.
Hayes made the astute observation that this corporate merger occurred the very same year that Novartis noted a link between atrazine exposure and estrogen-sensitive breast cancer through up-regulating the enzyme aromatase.
Which was also the same year they discovered the drug letrozole as an aromatase blocker in the treatment of the same cancer. Convenient timing.
Anyway, the regulatory headwinds against banning Atrazine are enormous, this much was obvious when the herbicide was re-authorized by the EPA in 2020 with even more lax regulations regarding its use.
There are some powerful agro-industrial interests (like Syngenta, now under Chinese state-owned corporate control) that will insist atrazine is safe, it provides a valuable economic role, and the minor risks are outweighed by its benefits.
Right.
Societal-changing chemicals
Some of Hayes’s most troubling frog data showed atrazine concentrations of 2.5 parts per billion (under the EPA safe level of 3 ppb) were sufficient to turn 10% of exposed male frogs into functional females. These exposed hermaphrodite males were then able mate with unexposed males and carry viable eggs.
Exposed males not transformed into females were showed predilection for male-male mating and were unable to mate with females even when left alone with them.
Consider for a moment the likely possibility that analogous effects are occurring in humans. You might have an entire generation of sexually feminized men with low testosterone and impaired ability to reproduce.
If there is the smallest possibility that atrazine exposure could cause your son to have undescended testis, hypospasdias or alter his sexual preferences later in life, you wouldn't take a chance.
Yet the EPA and other captured government bodies are asking you to do just that by accepting ‘safe’ exposure levels for a range of endocrine-disrupting and simply toxic chemicals.
Avoiding atrazine
Those who should be most diligent in avoiding this substance are those in rural areas where atrazine is sprayed. In the US this means the Midwest.
The biggest bang for your buck in avoiding atrazine exposure is simply filtering your water. Carbon filtration is sufficient however by using a reverse-osmosis system you will also be removing a host of other nasties including fluoride are simply not for human consumption.
This issue is important for everyone, but perhaps mostly for pregnant women in the first trimester, as well as children and adolescents who are still in a stage of sexual development.
So take home messages:
carbon or reverse osmosis filter your municipal water
stop eating food that contains refined corn, sugarcane or other crops that could be contaminated with atrazine
know your source of your seed, talk to your farmer and verify they aren’t using chemicals like atrazine or glyphosate
advocate for the banning of atrazine
The Rest Is Up To You….
— RootCause MD
February 24, 2022
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Further Reading
Dr Tyrone Hayes Presentation to Harvard, 2015
Atrazine induces complete feminization and chemical castration in male African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis), Hayes et al. PNAS 2010
The Atrazine Saga and its Importance to the Future of Toxicology, Science, and Environmental and Human Health, Rohr Environ Toxicol Chem 2021