Dr Alison Bleaney
APVMA seem dismissive of community input and a post-normal science approach, and reports in their last comment on pg 59 Minister Llewellyn, Department of Primary Industry and Water, as saying in 2006: ‘The broader community can and does have confidence in the tranparency of the program and its role in further understanding the nature and extent of the impact of chemical use in primary industries on Tasmanian water quality.’ That this is the final comments of the APVMA 2008 Atrazine technical report is quite disconcerting.
Subject: 2008 Australian Pesticides andVeterinary Medicines Authority – Atrazine- final review and technical report
http://www.apvma.gov.au/chemrev/downloads/atrazine_finaltech.pdf
APVMA have finalised their review of atrazine (1 May 2008), which has lasted over 10 years.
It has found that at present, science does not present sufficient information or uncertainty to allow the de-registration of atrazine. This is despite their acknowledgement that they have no way of testing in an internationally standardised fashion for endocrine disrupting substances. They are waiting for the US EPA to start this testing (US Congress asked that this be done over 10 years ago.) The EU lists atrazine and simazine as endocrine disruptors and the EU has banned these pesticides.
In this technical review, the community audit written by Break O’Day Catchment Risk Group in 2007, gets some discussion, p 23-26 and last pgs 58-59. APVMA was to have produced this information prior to the community consultative meeting June 2007. It is reasonably dismissive of historical and observational data. It repeats a claim (no data to substantiate this claim) that the crash of pesticide laden helicopter in the upper catchment of the George River, was of minor environmental significance. It describes impacts that have not as yet been investigated, and cannot be, by unfunded community groups with no authority to do so. The question of who should fully investigate environmental impacts and report back to the community, is yet again left unanswered. The APVMA felt they could not do so as they were not given sufficient evidence to determine the cause of the impact. Circuitous arguments abound. APVMA seem dismissive of community input and a post-normal science approach, and reports in their last comment on pg 59 Minister Llewellyn, Department of Primary Industry and Water, as saying in 2006:
‘The broader community can and does have confidence in the tranparency of the program and its role in further understanding the nature and extent of the impact of chemical use in primary industries on Tasmanian water quality.’
That this is the final comments of the APVMA 2008 Atrazine technical report is quite disconcerting.
It is the opinion of the BODCRG that the report lacks coherence, and despite acknowledging many omissions in their scientific data base, still arrives at the conclusion that it is safe to expose humans and ecosystems to atrazine.
It is of interest that since APVMA’s report was published another scientific article (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080507084013.htm) has demonstrated that atrazine alters hormonal signaling in human cells. The UCSF study is the first to identify its full effect on human cells.
In studies with human placental cells in culture, the UCSF scientists found that atrazine increased the activity of a gene associated with abnormal human birth weight when over-expressed in the placenta. Atrazine also targeted a second gene that has been found to be amplified in the uterus of women with unexplained infertility.
“In parallel studies of zebrafish, a widely used animal in development studies, the research team showed that atrazine “feminized” the fish population — increasing the proportion of fish that developed into females.
In water with atrazine concentrations comparable to those found in runoff from agricultural fields, the proportion of female fish increased two-fold.
Environmental factors are known to influence the sex of zebrafish and many other fish and amphibians as they develop.
“These fish are very sensitive to endocrine disrupting chemicals, so one might think of them as ‘sentinels’ to potential developmental dangers in humans,” said Holly Ingraham, PhD, senior author on the study and a UCSF Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology. “These atrazine- sensitive genes are central to normal reproduction and are found in steroid producing tissues. You have to wonder about the long-term effects of exposing the rapidly developing fetus to atrazine or other endocrine disruptors.”
Dr Alison Bleaney.
