EPA relies mainly on industry studies to judge safety of controversial herbicide atrazine

In determining the safety of atrazine and other herbicides sometimes found in drinking water near fields in which they are used, the Environmental Protection Agency has weighed heavily on studies funded by the chemical industry, Daniell Ivory reports for The Huffington Post Investigative Fund. "Many of these industry-funded studies, which largely support atrazine’s safety, have never been published or subjected to an independent scientific peer review," Ivory writes. "Meanwhile, some independent studies documenting potentially harmful effects on animals and humans are not included in the body of research the EPA deems relevant to its safety review."

An estimated 76 million pounds of atrazine are sprayed on corn and other fields in the U.S. each year, and the weed killer "has been the focus of intense scientific debate over its potential to cause cancer, birth defects, and hormonal and reproductive problems," Ivory writes. EPA is re-evaluating the health risks of atrazine, which was banned by the European Union in 2004 due to a lack of evidence to support its safe use. Syngenta, the Swiss manufacturer of atrazine, says it has been used safely for decades and restrictions could prove devastating to farmers who are heavily dependent on it.
 
"At least half of the 6,611 studies the agency is reviewing to help make its decision were conducted by scientists and organizations with a financial stake in atrazine," Ivory writes. Over 80 percent of the studies used by EPA have never been published in a peer-reviewed journal. EPA officials told Ivory that the agency's limited budget forces it to rely heavily on research sponsored by parties with a stake in the outcome, but the agency’s test guidelines, governing how experiments are conducted, provide sufficient safeguards against skewed results.
 
"Companies have a very strong incentive to follow the guidelines," EPA senior policy analyst William Jordan, told Ivory. "We hope and think that we have written the guidelines with enough detail that it would be very difficult for someone to put a thumb on the scale, as it were, to slant the outcome, [or] to make something look safer than it is." Still, California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees environmental regulators, told the Investigative Fund, "it’s critically important that EPA use all of the information at its disposal." (Read more)