Editor's Note: I wish to thank Steve for
allowing me to publish his work. This title wasn't the original title by the way. This article appeared April 19, 2002
and lays historical foundation to establish the fraudulent science behind
claims of chemicals and endocrine disruption. The EPA is back on the ED
bandwagon and it's important we understand the history of this issue in order
to make sure more "new" science on ED's isn't being made up as was
the "old" science on ED's. Truth is the sublime convergence of
history and reality, unless you're at the EPA, then truth is meaningless. We
need to get that.
In 2005 the
American Council on Science and Health petitioned the EPA - under the
Information Quality Act, which requires the federal government to use the best
science available in making it's judgments - to stop using rodent testing alone
when declaring anything carcinogenic. The EPA responded five months later
saying their assessments on this matter didn't fall under the IQA because these
assessments were not a matter of science, but a matter of EPA policy. If their
policies aren't based on science then on what are they based?
This week’s eco-horror claim is that the most commonly
used herbicide in North America supposedly deforms the sex organs of frogs.
"Male frogs exposed to very low doses of a common
weed killer can develop multiple sex organs, sometimes male and female,
researchers in California have discovered," the Associated Press reported
this week.
A University of California team led by Dr. Tyrone Hayes
reported in the April 16 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
that concentrations of the herbicide atrazine as small as 0.1 part per
billion caused the deformed sex organs.
But let’s hold off on worrying about kissing a frog and getting
a hermaphrodite instead of a prince, and focus for a minute on the scientific
procedures and standards that determine whether research has led to valid
scientific discovery or has simply produced more junk science.
The hallmark of the time-honored scientific method is the
independent replication of experimental results. Hayes’ study is the first to
report such findings and has yet to be replicated. Moreover, the write-up of
his study is woefully inadequate in terms of providing useful information, such
as statistical analysis and data.
To understand the importance of independent replication,
consider the case of a 1996 study published in the journal Science by
Tulane researchers. The researches reported that certain combinations of
chemicals in the environment were potent disrupters of hormonal processes.
Tulane’s one-study-wonder - hailed at the time by the EPA as
"persuasive" and "clean-looking" - was instrumental in
pressuring Congress into passing a law requiring the EPA to test chemicals for
their ability to disrupt hormonal systems.
But six months after the law was enacted, independent
labs from around the world began to report they could not replicate the Tulane
results. A year after the law was enacted, the study was formally withdrawn
from publication.
Last fall, the federal Office of Research Integrity
determined that the lead Tulane researcher committed scientific misconduct by
intentionally falsifying his study’s results and then trying to cover up his
misconduct.
Meanwhile, we have a federal law resulting directly from
what has been determined to be scientific misconduct.
Now for the Hayes study.
As the researchers increased frog larvae’s exposure to
atrazine, supposedly up to 20 percent of the frogs had either multiple sex
organs or had both male and female organs.
The why-should-anyone-care component of this claim is
that atrazine is often a detected contaminant in water supplies, supposedly
sometimes reaching levels as high as 21 ppb in groundwater and 42 ppb in
surface water.
However, atrazine has been used in U.S. agricultural
production for over 40 years. Annual use reaches 60 million pounds. Despite
this substantial use, there has been no prior report of a corresponding
increase in hermaphroditic frogs due to levels of atrazine typically found in
the environment.
And it’s not like no one is looking for frog problems.
Scattered reports of frog deformities - usually involving hind leg problems -
have focused a great deal of attention on frogs since the mid-1990s.
Further, in a 1998 study, University of Illinois
researchers collected frogs from several different sites in Illinois to assess
the effects of environmental contamination on the prevalence of frog
hermaphroditism. Of 341 frogs collected in 1993, 1994, and 1995, 2.7 percent were
hermaphroditic. But there was no statistically significant relationship between
the chemical compounds detected - including atrazine - and frog
hermaphroditism.
So there’s no strong basis for assuming that whatever
happened in Hayes’ laboratory is happening to any significant extent, if at
all, in the real world. I have a feeling that the grim report is more akin to a
Brothers Grimm fairy tale than science.
In August, 1997, the manufacturer of atrazine, Syngenta
Crop Protection, convened a multi-disciplinary panel of scientists to study the
potential effects of atrazine on fish, reptiles and amphibians. Hayes was asked
to join the panel.
Hayes contributed a laboratory study reporting a possible
association between low levels of atrazine exposure and frog development
problems. But the panel of scientists could not validate Hayes’ data and
recommended additional studies. Hayes subsequently left the panel. A follow-up
study could not replicate Hayes’ results.
At this point, we don’t know whether Hayes’ results can
be replicated or not. Hayes claims to have conducted a sophisticated
statistical analysis of his data, but neither his analysis nor his data are
presented in his study. Certainly, his prior conduct casts suspicion over his
claims.
We are simply to take his word for it.
No thanks. I’d rather kiss a frog.
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