
Atrazine in Australian water affects male fertility - sudoaza
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-safe-herbicide-australian-affects-male.html
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alexandercrohde
Summary (though I highly recommend reading this)

1\. Men's sperm counts have gone down by half in the last 30 years in
industrialized countries, nobody has established why. [A]

2\. The environment is full of (>1,400) endocrine-disrupting chemicals that
may be an answer. One such example is Atrazine.

3\. "We examined two doses of ATZ which included the 'safe' level for drinking
water, determined by the Australian government, as well as a 10-fold higher
dose delivered to the mice in drinking water from weaning until 12 weeks of
age,"

4\. "Our results showed significant effects on the reproductive and general
health of male mice." Including reduced sperm count.

5\. Interestingly, "We found a change in gene expression in the liver
following ATZ exposure. Two genes implicated in fat uptake were found to be
over-expressed, an early stage of 'fatty liver disease,"

6\. Lower doses over a long exposure time may potentially do more damage than
a high dose.

7\. This study has been accepted for publication last month. The pair is
continuing to do more research.

\-- [A] - [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-
dropp...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-
western-world/)

~~~
narrator
As countries become more wealthy and educated, they use more endocrine
disrupting chemicals and thus have lower birth rates.

~~~
Dirlewanger
I think that one is a lot tougher to prove causation with, especially because
in the article it says the EU banned Atrazine, yet they all have falling birth
rates as well. I think that one has more to do with higher education and
income.

------
pubby
How can an individual avoid the effects of groundwater contamination? Is
drinking distilled water enough, or does the contamination affect foods?

~~~
lurker_primo
You shouldn't drink distilled water at all. It's bad for you. I don't know if
such a system exists, a machine which would filter out all chemicals which
cause endocrine disruption would help. Alternately, if you are so paranoid,
you can create distilled water and add safe minerals by some method.

------
cyphar
There is a fair amount of bad science about the risks of Atrazine and it's a
shame that they referenced some of it (the negative effects on frogs haven't
been replicated and there is significant evidence that the paper was not
entirely honest about the facts). But of course, I'm not an expert to gauge
the accuracy of this paper.

For those who are interested, it's likely that Alex Jones was referring to
Atrazine with his "turning the frogs gay" rant (what he was referring to is
the paper I mentioned, which claimed to find gonadal deformities in frogs that
were exposed to Atrazine).

I'm not a chemist, but one has done a few videos on the topic of Atrazine[1].

[1]:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=s6NDtIU8liw](https://youtube.com/watch?v=s6NDtIU8liw)

~~~
peisistratos
> the negative effects on frogs haven't been replicated

The liable chemical company responsible for atrazine said they could not
replicate the study.

> Alex Jones

What layman commentators say about a published paper has little bearing.

> a few videos

Looking through their videos they have "The Young Turks are Morons", "You
should not fund Greenpeace", "Kyle Kulinski - Lazy", more anti-Greenpeace
videos. Ok.

The video text says the EPA wanted to repeat Hayes findings. This was not the
process the EPA fostered (incidentally, the EPA is currently run by a coal
industry lobbyist, taking over for another fossil fuel advocate who said he
was the "leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda").

The last YouTube text paragraph is correct - Syngenta, the company which makes
atrazine did experiments and said atrazine was not harmful.

The text also says Hayes "resisted...answering questions about his data".
Syngenta had a formal ethics complaint launched against Hayes at Berkeley, had
his personal life investigated by private investigators (as legally obtained
documents show), tried to get his papers retracted etc.

Also it should be noted - Syngenta/Novartis hired Ecorisk to fund Hayes and
others to look at atrazine. Hayes found these problems, and there was a
subsequent conflict between Hayes and them.

Any how, the OP paper is independent Australian scientists.

~~~
cyphar
> more anti-Greenpeace videos.

Those videos are about how Greenpeace is anti-GMO and how their rhetoric is
harming the developing world. Just because Greenpeace has historically had
many positive causes doesn't mean they aren't dead wrong with their stance on
GMOs. Their attacks against golden rice and scare tactics around GMO seeds
given to third-world nations have undoubtedly killed people.

I also was skeptical about being anti-Greenpeace, but their views on GMOs are
just simply anti-science.

