I found an excellent, but disturbing story on a chemical that is a weed killer (atrazine). The chemical is being found in drinking water. The problem is that the companies that manufacture this chemical are also the ones who are paying for the studies that the EPA is using to evaluate its safety! Talk about a major conflict of interest!

The vast majority of the studies that the EPA is using to determine whether or not this chemical is dangerous are industry-funded studies that have not been peer-reviewed.  More alarming is the fact that the independent studies that have demonstrated some potentially toxic effects of this chemical are not being included in the EPA’s evaluation process.  Many of these independent studies have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Atrazine is one of the most common herbicides in the United States with approximately 76 million pounds of it being used on farms and other crops.  A lot of this chemical is ending up in rivers, streams and even in drinking water.  It is a hotly contested issue because there are some reports that it may cause hormone problems, reproductive side effects, cancer, and birth defects.  Some studies have shown that the chemical has been found to change female frogs into male frogs (!).  Also, EPA has failed to inform the public that atrazine has been found in drinking water in concentrations above the federal safety limits in four states.

The manufacturers of the chemical have conducted their own studies that ‘prove’ that atrazine is harmless.  But this could be called a colossal ‘conflict of interest’ because they stand to profit from these results.  It would appear that the chemical manufacturers are able to determine that their own product is safe, regardless of the findings of independent researchers.

This is very disturbing, and only makes sense when you understand that the regulators are ‘in bed’ with the manufacturing corporations.  How else could a regulator say that the company is being 100% honest about their findings?  There are big moneyed interests at work here.  Did anyone really believe that a corporation that stands to earn or lose many millions, if not billions of dollars would submit evidence that it has to take a blockbuster herbicide off of the market?  It just doesn’t make sense.

This is just an example of the same type of logic and motivation that goes on in cancer research.  There is no way that these people in these organizations are totally objective when their livelihoods, their status, their profits, and their jobs are at stake!  Nobody wants to put herself out of their job.  These are powerful motivators that would cause most people to find ‘evidence’ to support the continuation of their profits, jobs and careers. It’s just a part of taking care of human self-interest. It’s not that hard to understand.