Is atrazine safe for consumption?
Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency say Americans are not exposed to unsafe levels of atrazine. They say that current regulations are adequate to protect human health, and that the doses of atrazine coming through people’s taps are safe — even when concentrations jump.
Why is atrazine a concern?
Atrazine is linked to declines of endangered amphibians and of many other endangered species throughout the country. It is an endocrine disruptor that directly affects the sexual development of amphibians by changing their hormone cycle.
What health effect does atrazine have on males?
Put plainly: atrazine shrinks testicles, reduces sperm count, and can even make males grow ovaries.
What foods is atrazine in?
Atrazine is made in the laboratory and does not occur naturally. Atrazine is used on crops such as sugarcane, corn, pineapples, sorghum, and macadamia nuts, and on evergreen tree farms and for evergreen forest regrowth. It has also been used to keep weeds from growing on both highway and railroad rights-of way.
What is the endocrine effect of atrazine?
A potent endocrine disrupter, atrazine interferes with hormonal activity of animals and humans at extremely low doses. Endocrine Disruption: The science on atrazine’s effects on the hormone system continues to grow. It alters the levels of key hormones in rats and can delay puberty.
Is atrazine used in foods?
Atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States, is intentionally applied to crops, especially corn, sugarcane, pineapples, and sorghum. While it is used on many crops, it has not been found in many food samples, and then only at very low levels.
Is atrazine a risk to human health?
Dietary exposure to atrazine is therefore extremely unlikely to result in human health hazard.
Is atrazine persistent?
Atrazine and its metabolites can persist in water and soil for decades. Even more than 18 years after it was banned in Germany, atrazine remains the most abundant pesticide in groundwater samples (LAWA 2003). The results of an atrazine long-term aging and a bioaccessibility study (Jablonowski et al.
How do you avoid atrazine in food?
Here’s how to avoid atrazine:
- Get a drinking water filter certified to remove atrazine.
- Buy organic produce.
- Use EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™, which can help you find the items that have the fewest pesticide residues.
Is atrazine in our food?
Is atrazine used in organic food?
Organic growers don’t use fumigants such as Dichloropropene (the sixth most commonly used pesticide nationally), a probable carcinogen. Nor, as a rule, do organic growers rely on Glyphosate (most common brand: Roundup) or Atrazine, both of which are endocrine disruptors linked to birth defects14.
