Skepticism, hermaphroditic frogs, and a lucrative herbicide

gardener · 10-28-2003, 12:11 PM

I resist the label “cynic,” but I am happy to be counted as a member of a merry band of like-minded skeptics. I am highly suspicious of anyone who entreats me to believe x or y, when believing x or y would benefit the person who entreats me.

For those who might be interested in pursuing an interesting case study, I present some items, based on a long story, “The Price of Research,” in the October 31 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Unfortunately the CHE website is password-protected, but I provide some links to other sources at the end of this post.

Factual Assertions # 1: The Swiss company Syngenta manufactures a herbicide called atrazine. Although it’s recently been banned in some European countries, it is widely used in agriculture in the U. S. Some 60 million pounds of the stuff are sprayed annually on American agricultural land, particularly in the Midwest. Some of it runs off into streams and aquifers. Atrazine has been in use worldwide for the past 40 years.

Factual Assertion # 2: Also worldwide, populations of frogs and other amphibians have been in serious decline for several decades.

To be in the news very shortly: the US Environmental Protection Agency will issue a ruling on whether or not to reapprove atrazine for use in American agriculture. The economic stakes are vast, almost astronomical. It is in the interests of Syngenta and several other parties to assert that atrazine is entirely beneficial.

But a research professor at Berkeley, Tyrone Hayes, who is a specialist in amphibians, believes that there is evidence that very, very tiny amounts of atrazine are associated with deleterious laryngeal development of male frogs; he also asserts that much, much tinier amounts of atrazine are associated with hermaphroditic reproductive defects in male frogs, in which they begin producing estrogen, start making eggs. If Hayes is correct in his findings, there may be serious health implications for human beings, although without further research this assertion is merely suggestive or speculative.

Hayes was on a panel of scientists appointed by Syngenta to study the effects of atrazine on amphibians, but the company was less than enthusiastic about some of his findings, he resigned, continued his research, and published some of his research. Hayes is now being attacked by representatives of Syngenta, by Fox News, and by Midwestern corn farmers associations.

Inquiring minds want to know: should we be skeptical about Tyrone Hayes' claims that atrazine has deleterious effects on the sexual development of male frogs, and accept Syngenta's claims that atrazine is basically harmless? Or vice versa? Or some other possibility?

Some links, if you want to look into this issue.

First, a journalistic overview--
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BBC News 15 April 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1930658.stm
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Second, a long, peer-reviewed piece by Hates and a brief account of his work in Nature. You may want to skip the longer piece for now.
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences April 16, 2002
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/8/5476

Nature, October 31, 2002
http://www.nature.com/nsu/021028/021028-7.html

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Then, a press relese from the Natural Resources Defense Council, an activist organization.
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Natural Resources Defense Counsil
http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/natrazine.asp
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And finally, in the interests of "fairness and balance," the Syngenta website, with many links touting atrazine, including something hilarious from Fox News, complete with links to herbal sex aids.
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Syngenta’s website
http://www.syngentacropprotection-us...ex.asp?nav=TTH

Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89913,00.html
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I haven’t run across it yet, but there must somewhere be some speculation that atrazine is connected with a decline in human sperm numbers in the average ejaculation, since Fox wants to blame it on tight underwear instead.

bryanc · 10-29-2003, 01:13 PM

See, now _this_ would be a proper use of the precautionary principle.

Although the evidence is still sparse (frog fertility is vastly different than human fertility, even though both involve sperm and egg), certainly, the governing agencies would be prudent to take a closer look at whether atrazine should be re-certified. For all we know, it could be the next DDT.

But this raises the larger issue of corporate interest and government policy (which is an ever pervasive debate/issue). While the frogs and atrazine are a good case study, we could discuss ad nauseam about other wide-spread issues like Monsanto and GM crops, or pharmaceutical companies and cloning, or Microsoft and spyware.

A similar case (with higher consequences) happened a few years ago when Dr. Olivieri at the Hospital for Sick Kids published data stating that deferiprone (a drug for a blood disorder) was ineffective and possibly toxic. She was funded by Apotex, who developed deferiprone and published her data without their permission, and actively tried to supress the publication. This resulted in two years of court battles, including the abandonment of Dr. Olivieri by her hopsital, which was later rescinded.

So, even in the light of _actual_ evidence (she was studying the drug in a clinical trial with chidren), where there is still space for skepticism, the monster still rears its head.

gardener · 10-29-2003, 03:36 PM

The case involving Dr. Nancy Olivieri, the drug company Apotex, and its product deferiprone, has not as far as I know received much if any attention on this side of the US/Canadian border. Bryan's post is the first time I've heard of Olivieri, but I've looked her up on a couple of search engines.

For backgound of those who might be interested, here’s a link to an opinion piece summarizing this episode.
http://www.mcmaster.ca/mufa/turk.htm

And as regards the principle of caution, here’s an excerpt from a statement by Dr. Olivieri herself.
“The [...] issue to be considered in drug development must be the precautionary principle, which states that where doubt exists, and where human lives and health may be at stake, individuals in authority do not proceed without a reasonable assurance that it is safe to do so. If this is in doubt, ethics dictate that we err on the side of caution. Throughout history, this principle has been stated in many different documents, including The Nuremberg Code, The Declaration of Helsinki, Canadian common law, and The Hippocratic Oath.”

Her entire statement is available at--
http://varsity.utoronto.ca:16080/arc...rotecting.html

In a way, both the Olivieri case and the current Hayes/Syngenta/atrazine controversy involve some of the same issues that came up in another thread, on Pharmanex and its panel of supposedly objective scientists, but with one important difference: with Pharmanex there are no obvious threats to human health involved. Another difference: the Olivieri case involves a prescription drug, one that in the US would be under the jurisdiction of the FDA, while Pharmanex is in the business of selling over-the-counter supplements that are subject to no regulation whatsoever.

But going back to the point about supplements not involving human health, this is not at all accurate. In an earlier post, Bryan pointed out that products for human consumption may contain the neural products [think mad cow disease] that are prohibited in animal foods.

bryanc · 10-29-2003, 04:00 PM

No, no, I didn't say they might contain neural products, but that the legislation was less stringent than those governing animal feed--that there is a regulation about brain matter for animal feed, but no such regulation for food supplements. So theoretically, there _could_ be, since no one's checking for it.

gardener · 10-29-2003, 08:15 PM

Thanks for correcting the representation of what you actually wrote. "May" and "might" are slippery words; "He may have accidentallly discharged his gun" leaves wrote for somebody else discharging it, for him having done it on purpose, and some other possibilities.

"Is" and "do" and other certain words are less slippery. But whenever there is room for doubt, they somehow don't apply.

Kaiser · 10-31-2003, 11:49 PM

Thanks for the info and the links Professor. I'd never even heard of Syngenta until this. I am also very interested in the ADMs and Con-Agras of the world. I read, once, that they control something like 60 or 80% of the world's grain stocks. This is utterly scary purely for the ramifications that that much control could allow.

On a completely non-related subject: Bryan, you can italicize your words instead of doing _this_. You simply put [ i ] and [ /i ] before and after the desired words. Looks much more professional and might even help you get more papers published.