syngnta

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">overflow 6/14</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this is a tag</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see allo atz tag and syngenta node</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">also atriazine node</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">overview merger update: 8/16</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/one-worlds-largest-pesticide-makers-could-be-bought-chinese-company-heres-what-means">http://www.alternet.org/environment/one-worlds-largest-pesticide-makers-could-be-bought-chinese-company-heres-what-means</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">USAID, SYNGENTA COLLABORATE TO IMPROVE GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">New commitment to enabling access to technology and capacity building will help smallholder farmers in developing countries</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">For Immediate Release</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Thursday, May 9, 2013</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">USAID Press Office</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">202-712-4320</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA—The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Syngenta International AG to support agriculture and food security activities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Under this MOU, USAID and Syngenta will further collaborate in research and development and smallholder capacity building, working with key agriculture and food security partners including scientists, entrepreneurs, policy makers and other donors.  Syngenta and USAID already work together in many countries and will broaden their relationship through this MOU.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">This commitment advances agricultural development and food security goals set by developing country governments and supported by USAID through the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future, which is part of the U.S. contribution to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As announced in May 2012, Syngenta has committed to invest over $500 million over 10 years in Africa. Under the MOU, Syngenta and USAID together will build the capacity of smallholder farmers to adopt and safely use technologies that increase their yields through training, demonstrations and other approaches.  With USAID, Syngenta will work in specific New Alliance countries and explore ways to increase growers’ use of technologies in crops such as potatoes and will expand smallholder access to tools such as crop insurance and seed treatment</font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/usaid-syngenta-collaborate-improve-global-food-security" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/usaid-syngenta-collaborate-improve-global-food-security</font></a></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">pbs news 9/18?/14 on golden rice; syngenta released to OS b/c no way to make $?</font></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></font>

<b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emergency exemption UK</font></b>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/europe-votes-2-year-ban-pesticides-suspected-bee-deaths.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 183, 243); background: transparent;">Europe approved a 2-year precautionary ban on neonicotinoid use for flowering crops</a>, bee advocates cheered. With evidence mounting that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/no-1-pesticide-killing-honeybees.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 183, 243); background: transparent;">neonicotinoid exposure is linked to unusually high numbers of bee deaths</a>, the hope was that a two year ban could allow bee numbers to recover, and buy time for more research regarding whether permanent regulation is necessary.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whether that will happen remains to be seen. As The Guardian reports, backed by the UK government’s Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP), agrochemical giant<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/25/syngenta-exemption-neonicotinoid-insecticide-ban-oilseed-rape" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 183, 243); background: transparent;">Syngenta is applying on behalf of British farmers for an emergency exemption for limited use of neonicotinoids</a>:</font></p>

<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Syngenta argues that seed treatments with neonicotinoids are needed to protect rape sown by mid-August from aphid damage and crops in areas where flea beetle pressure is historically high. It says there are no available alternatives. The exemption would allow up to 186,000 hectares of oilseed rape – 30% of the total crop area – to be planted with seeds treated with the insecticide. Bayer, another major neonicotinoid manufacturer, is not applying for an exemption.</font></p>

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<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: rgb(175, 209, 187);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As is so often the case with matters of science, the Guardian quotes researchers who back Syngenta’s claims that no viable alternatives currently exist, and others who suggest that this is nonsense, and simply a way to undermine a ban that the government, Syngenta and farmers’ unions so bitterly opposed anyway.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an online discussion about the issue also hosted by The Guardian, Karl Mathieson explored<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/26/do-farmers-really-need-bee-harming-insecticides-neonicotinoids" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 183, 243); background: transparent;">whether farmers really do have no alternative to neonicotinoids readily available to them</a>. Head over to The Guardian for a full rundown of the discussion, but here are a few pertinent points:</font>

<div style="margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: disc; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: rgb(175, 209, 187);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Julian Little, a spokesperson for Bayer (which is not applying for an exemption), claims that the ban will lead to increased uses of pyrethroid sprays instead.</font></div>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lin Field, President of the Royal Entomological Society, says that neonicotinoids are currently necessary for treating aphids and flea beetles, but then goes on to admit that her claims are influenced heavily by data that is in the hands of the companies that make these chemicals—data which they are often unwilling to share.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Dave Goulson of the University of Sussex argues that the neonic ban is far from “knee jerk”, that years of studies have shown they pose an unacceptable risk, and then makes the case that there is grossly inadequate funding for biological or cultural controls because “you cannot patent a crop rotation system”.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s this last point, I suspect, that’s most pertinent. Whether or not a farming system based on large, chemically dependent monocultures will suffer losses when those chemicals are removed feels a little like suggesting a junky should keep using because withdrawal is really unpleasant.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We already know that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/europe-doesnt-have-enough-honeybees-pollinate-its-crops.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 183, 243); background: transparent;">we don’t have enough bees to pollinate our crops</a>. We’ve seen plenty of evidence that<a href="http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/small-scale-sustainable-agriculture-can-double-developing-nations-food-production-in-10-years-un.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 183, 243); background: transparent;">small-scale agroecological operations can outperform chemically-dependent big farms</a>. And even<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/5-videos.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 183, 243); background: transparent;">the conventional farming industry is showing increased interest in feeding the soil</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and focusing on the overall health of the system, rather than just looking for a chemical quick fix.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The biggest lesson from all this is that we need truly resilient agriculture.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If farmers can’t survive a temporary ban on one chemical, they need to rethink their system. If there’s one thing we know from history: shit happens. That shit might take the form of economic collapse, or wars, or civil unrest, or natural disasters, or resource depletion, or climate change, or pesticide resistance. What would these farmers do if these chemicals became unavailable or ineffective?</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Never put your eggs in one basket. And grow some other food in case your eggs go bad.</font>

<div>

<div class="byline living"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><a href="http://alternet.org/" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">AlterNet</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span></span></span></span> / <em>By</em> <em><a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/kamil-ahsan" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Kamil Ahsan</a> <span class="print-footnote">[2]</span></em></font></div>

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How a Big Agribusiness Firm Infiltrated the EPA and Made a Mockery of Science</font></h1>

</div>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Earlier this year, in an <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/10/140210fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=all" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">exposé</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span> in <em>The New Yorker</em>, Rachel Aviv detailed the story of Syngenta, an agribusiness firm that was sued by the community water systems of six states in a class-action lawsuit over the firm’s herbicide atrazine.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Atrazine is the second most commonly used herbicide in the US and is used on more than 50% of all corn crops. It is one of Syngenta’s most profitable chemicals with sales at over $3 million a year. Banned in the EU, atrazine remains on the market in the US despite scores of scientific publications demonstrating its role in abnormal sexual development. Almost insoluble in water, atrazine contaminates drinking water supplies at 30 times the concentration demonstrated to cause <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111128121549.htm" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">severe sexual abnormalities in animal models</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span>. It is <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2011/11/tyrone-hayes-atrazine-syngenta-feud-frog-endangered" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">estimated</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span> that 30 million Americans are exposed to dangerous levels of atrazine.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recently unsealed court documents from the lawsuit have <a href="http://100r.org/2013/06/pest-control-syngentas-secret-campaign-to-discredit-atrazines-critics/" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">disclosed</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span> how Syngenta launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to disrepute and suppress scientific research, and influence the US Environmental Protection Agency to prevent a ban on atrazine.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tyrone Hayes, a professor of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley has demonstrated in his research that atrazine leads to health problems, reproductive issues and birth defects. Hayes is a vocal proponent of legislative action to ban the dissemination of atrazine in water supplies. The cour documents showed that Syngenta specifically attacked Hayes’ work with its smear campaign.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to smear campaigns, Syngenta hired a private detective agency to look into the personal backgrounds of scientists on an advisory panel at the EPA, the judge presiding over the lawsuit, and Hayes. The documents also <a href="http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/776820/how_global_chemical_giant_syngenta_paid_third_party_pundits_spin_the%22news%22_on_atrazine" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">reveal</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span> a host of third-party organizations and independent "experts" who were on Syngenta’s payroll and supplied with Syngenta’s data in order to make public statements or write op-ed pieces in support of atrazine. Often, these experts were supplied directly with material that company employees edited or wrote.</font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Syngenta’s Coverup</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It all started in 1997 when Hayes was employed by Syngenta to study atrazine, which was under review by the EPA. Hayes’ experimental research on the developmental growth of frogs began to <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2011/11/tyrone-hayes-atrazine-syngenta-feud-frog-endangered" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">reveal</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span> that even at levels of atrazine as low as 0.1 parts per billion (ppb), the chemical was capable of causing males to develop as hermaphrodites. Some males developed female organs and were even capable of mating with normal males and producing eggs. As reported in top peer-reviewed journals such as <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/02/12/0909519107.abstract" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">PNAS</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span> and <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v419/n6910/full/419895a.html" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">Nature</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span>, at exposure to <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/99/8/5476" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">0.1 ppb</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span> atrazine the frogs showed extremely reduced levels of testosterone and feminized voice boxes.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Hayes amassed data, Syngenta downplayed his results, citing problems with statistics or asking him to repeat studies, often nitpicking or questioning his credibility or scientific skills.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2000, Hayes resigned from the panel. He continued to speak at conferences, publicizing his ongoing research in the lab. Meanwhile, Syngenta employees began to show up at conferences to publicly besmirch his data. Sporadically, the campaign turned into threats of violence. In a <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/21/silencing_the_scientist_tyrone_hayes_on" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">Democracy Now</a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span> interview with Amy Goodman, Hayes said:</font></p>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Tim Pastoor, for example, before I would give a talk, would literally threaten, whisper in my ear that he could have me lynched, or he said he would send some of his 'good ol’ boys to show me what it’s like to be gay,’ or at one point he threatened my wife and my daughter with sexual violence.”</font></p>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shockingly, even though Syngenta <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-25/syngenta-pays-105-million-to-settle-herbicide-lawsuits.html" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">settled the lawsuit for $105 million</a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span> in late 2012 after eight years of litigation, it still maintains that amount of atrazine present in the water is much lower than would be required to cause damage. In an <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2014/03/10/did-the-new-yorker-botch-puff-piece-on-frog-scientist-tyrone-hayes-turning-rogue-into-beleaguered-hero/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">article</a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> in Forbes published a week after the New Yorker story, Jon Entine criticized Hayes and claimed that “after numerous follow up studies by the EPA and a score of scientists… evidence of endocrine related problems Hayes claimed to have identified… are nowhere to be found.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is a patently false assertion. A mere scientific literature search shows dozens of peer-reviewed articles showing atrazine-induced defects in animal models. A number of papers on <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17610964" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">salmon</a> <span class="print-footnote">[14]</span> and <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0002117" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">fish</a> <span class="print-footnote">[15]</span> find similar results to those in frog: fish <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100519131126.htm" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">exposed to atrazine</a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span> showed major reproductive abnormalities in both males and females, low sperm counts and low testosterone levels in males. Similar defects have been observed in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364509" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">reptiles</a><span class="print-footnote">[17]</span>. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20045047" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">Research in rats</a> <span class="print-footnote">[18]</span> has demonstrated decreased fertility, effects on sperm count, increased prostrate disease in males and poor mammary development. A <a href="http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/11/28/Atrazine-reproductive-issues-reviewed/UPI-80111322537237/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">collaborative</a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span> effort of an international team of scientists confirmed these studies by <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076011000665" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">demonstrating</a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span> feminization of male gonads across vertebrate species.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All signs point toward the same being true for <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080507084013.htm" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">humans</a> <span class="print-footnote">[21]</span>. Said Hayes:</font></p>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“A number of epidemiological studies in humans have associated atrazine with impaired reproduction and a decline in sperm count and fertility. Another <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2002-06-02/news/0206020009_1_atrazine-prostate-cancer-cancer-in-humans/2" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">study</a> <span class="print-footnote">[22]</span> looking at increased prostrate disease in <a href="http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap/meetings/2003/july/atrazineexposure.pdf" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">workers who are exposed to atrazine</a> <span class="print-footnote">[23]</span> in the production plant in <a href="http://www.pesticide.org/get-the-facts/pesticide-factsheets/factsheets/atrazineprostatecancer" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">St. Gabriel, Louisiana</a> <span class="print-footnote">[24]</span>. A number of studies now show birth defects in humans exposed to atrazine: <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100205081805.htm" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">gastroschisis</a> <span class="print-footnote">[25]</span> where the intestines are on the outside of the baby when it’s born, <a href="http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(12)01542-9/abstract" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">choanal atresia</a> <span class="print-footnote">[26]</span>, an effect where the oral cavity and the nasal cavity close up. Most recently, there’s been <a href="http://oem.bmj.com/content/62/6/400.abstract" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">work</a> <span class="print-footnote">[27]</span> showing atrazine associating with three different types of genital abnormalities in males.”</font></p>

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<p><strong><font color="#ff0000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corruption Within the EPA</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Interestingly, the scientific advisory panel to the EPA recognizes this wealth of scientific data. In a <a href="http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap/meetings/2012/june/061212minutes.pdf" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">memo</a> <span class="print-footnote">[28]</span> from the 2012 review the advisory panel repeatedly calls attention to the biased methodology employed by the EPA. <b>In fact, the advisory panel disagreed with almost every conclusion the EPA made</b>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hayes explained: “The panel was only making recommendations, they don’t make decisions and so the EPA doesn’t need to listen to them. This really undermines the role of the scientific advisory panel.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Syngenta was closely involved with the EPA’s decision. The EPA mainly considered just one study that found inconclusive effects of atrazine. This was the sole premise for the EPA’s decision. It was based on the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2639758/" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">research</a> <span class="print-footnote">[29]</span> of a group led by Kloas Werner. Said Hayes:</font></p>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<b>Kloas Werner was originally on the EPA scientific advisory panel that I presented my data to. He at that time was <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">hired by Syngenta</span> and subsequent to being on the panel he conducted a study in collaboration with the EPA and Syngenta and reported back to the panel that he was on. The panel’s conclusion was that more work needed to be done, and then he presented back to that panel. Essentially, his previous decision helped him get the money for his study. Furthermore, they selected a strain of frogs that don’t respond even to estrogen, which was acknowledged by the advisory panel which reviewed their work.”</b></font></p>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Syngenta wasn’t satisfied with bad science and corruption within the EPA. As Syngenta was hiring Werner, a scientific advisory panel member who could sway the EPA review process, it also<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> held scores of closed-door meetings with panel members. As the documents reveal, Syngenta also <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/10/140210fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=all" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">hired a communications consultancy</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span>, the White House Writers’ Group, to set up meetings with members of Congress and Washington bigwigs to discuss upcoming EPA reviews.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The information about Syngenta’s misdeeds has had little to no effect. The fiction that Hayes is a scientific hack continues to pervade the work of pro-Syngenta writers like Entine. These columnists, who write from corporation-apologist perspectives, bolster the fiction by glossing over critiques of the EPA and pretending like its conclusions represent uncontroversial scientific consensus.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Time and time again, these "third-party allies" of Syngenta hyperbolically talk about the <a href="http://academicsreview.org/2014/03/turning-science-into-a-circus-the-new-yorker-rachel-aviv-and-tyrone-hayes/" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">"scientific method</a> <span class="print-footnote">[30]</span>," and suggest that science is science, regardless of the angle of the investigator (none have much to say about Werner’s estrogen-insensitive frogs). For them, it seems, there is no conceivable way Syngenta employed techniques that would furnish them with results to protect its multimillion-dollar profits.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In other words, for them, "conflict of interest" means nothing. Scientific publishing is uncompromising about this: journals require the disclosure of conflicts of interest in publications. Obviously, political and financial incentives are sufficient criteria to change scientific results because they deeply influence the way experimenters do science.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unsurprisingly, the Kloas paper failed to declare any conflict of interest.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“How can you declare no conflict of interest when clearly the manufacturer benefits from the conclusions drawn by that paper as well as benefits from the decisions made by the EPA advisory panel?” Hayes said. “Especially when the member was both on the panel and was paid by Syngenta.”</font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporation v. Science</font></strong>

<b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Syngenta frequently alleges that Hayes never made his data on atrazine publicly available, a damning indictment that makes it seem like his data could have been fabricated. Hayes said this is not the case.  </font></b>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“The work that I did for Syngenta, Syngenta owns all that raw data,</b>” he said. “This includes the generated raw data, the transcribed typed data, and really everything. The EPA actually visited my lab. Members of the EPA actually were in my laboratory, they observed all of our processes and data collection. Mary Frankenberry, a statistician, actually analyzed the data herself.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Syngenta and its supporters also rely heavily on the vitriol that Hayes hardly seems like a disinterested, objective scientist. Rich criticism from a company that hires people to obtain the scientific results it wants.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hayes has spoken widely, set up a website <a href="http://atrazinelovers.com/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">AtrazineLovers.com</a> <span class="print-footnote">[31]</span> <wbr />and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MxrH4lN0-A" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">rapped</a> <span class="print-footnote">[32]</span> about Syngenta’s powerful lobbying to keep atrazine on the market. There is, however, a fundamental distinction between a company lobbying to get its favored scientific result, and a scientist who vocally defends his scientific results. Hayes’ response isn’t surprising or unusual. Scientists often claim ownership over their results and will doggedly defend them at conferences.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The actions of big corporations like Syngenta, especially when dealing with highly profitable products, reveal a broader truth about the nature of corporate power. There is a dangerous trend in which corporate fiat is used to call scientific research into question and sway governmental policy. This trend puts millions of lives at risk as hazardous products avoid regulation and remain on the market.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One wonders why the burden isn’t on Syngenta for proving without a doubt that atrazine has no effects before plying the entire population with a highly dangerous chemical. Even if it wasn’t a near-certainty that atrazine causes birth defects, why wouldn’t we require regulatory bodies such as the EPA to err on the side of caution?</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today, atrazine remains legal and in the water supplies of millions of Americans, despite evidence from scores of labs outside Tyrone Hayes’ showing it to be hazardous.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> “In the 15 plus years that I’ve had experience with the EPA,  I don’t really have a lot of faith that we’re going to get an objective review that’s really going to focus on environmental health and public health with regards to atrazine, or any other chemical for that matter,” Hayes said.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who can blame him?</font></p>

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<div class="clear"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> <a href="http://www.alternet.org/print/personal-health/how-big-agribusiness-firm-infiltrated-epa-and-made-mockery-science">http://www.alternet.org/print/personal-health/how-big-agribusiness-firm-infiltrated-epa-and-made-mockery-science</a></font></div>

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<div class="field-item odd"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/atrazine" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">atrazine</a> <span class="print-footnote">[41]</span>,</font></div>

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<div class="print-source_url" style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Source URL:</strong> <a href="http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/how-big-agribusiness-firm-infiltrated-epa-and-made-mockery-science" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/how-big-agribusiness-firm-infiltrated-epa-and-made-mockery-science</a></font></div>

<p /><div style="text-align: left;"><strong style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">Links:</strong></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[1] http://alternet.org</font></font></font></font></div><div style="text-align: left;">[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kamil-ahsan</div><div style="text-align: left;">[3] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/10/140210fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=all</div><div style="text-align: left;">[4] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111128121549.htm</div><div style="text-align: left;">[5] http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2011/11/tyrone-hayes-atrazine-syngenta-feud-frog-endangered</div><div style="text-align: left;">[6] http://100r.org/2013/06/pest-control-syngentas-secret-campaign-to-discredit-atrazines-critics/</div><div style="text-align: left;">[7] http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/776820/how_global_chemical_giant_syngenta_paid_third_party_pundits_spin_the_%22news%22_on_atrazine</div><div style="text-align: left;">[8] http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/02/12/0909519107.abstract</div><div style="text-align: left;">[9] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v419/n6910/full/419895a.html</div><div style="text-align: left;">[10] http://www.pnas.org/content/99/8/5476</div><div style="text-align: left;">[11] http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/21/silencing_the_scientist_tyrone_hayes_on</div><div style="text-align: left;">[12] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-25/syngenta-pays-105-million-to-settle-herbicide-lawsuits.html</div><div style="text-align: left;">[13] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2014/03/10/did-the-new-yorker-botch-puff-piece-on-frog-scientist-tyrone-hayes-turning-rogue-into-beleaguered-hero/</div><div style="text-align: left;">[14] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17610964</div><div style="text-align: left;">[15] http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0002117</div><div style="text-align: left;">[16] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100519131126.htm</div><div style="text-align: left;">[17] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364509</div><div style="text-align: left;">[18] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20045047</div><div style="text-align: left;">[19] http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/11/28/Atrazine-reproductive-issues-reviewed/UPI-80111322537237/</div><div style="text-align: left;">[20] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076011000665</div><div style="text-align: left;">[21] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080507084013.htm</div><div style="text-align: left;">[22] http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2002-06-02/news/0206020009_1_atrazine-prostate-cancer-cancer-in-humans/2</div><div style="text-align: left;">[23] http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap/meetings/2003/july/atrazineexposure.pdf</div><div style="text-align: left;">[24] http://www.pesticide.org/get-the-facts/pesticide-factsheets/factsheets/atrazineprostatecancer</div><div style="text-align: left;">[25] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100205081805.htm</div><div style="text-align: left;">[26] http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(12)01542-9/abstract</div><div style="text-align: left;">[27] http://oem.bmj.com/content/62/6/400.abstract</div><div style="text-align: left;">[28] http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap/meetings/2012/june/061212minutes.pdf</div><div style="text-align: left;">[29] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2639758/</div><div style="text-align: left;">[30] http://academicsreview.org/2014/03/turning-science-into-a-circus-the-new-yorker-rachel-aviv-and-tyrone-hayes/</div><div style="text-align: left;">[31] http://atrazinelovers.com/</div><div style="text-align: left;">[32] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MxrH4lN0-A</div><div style="text-align: left;">[33] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on How a Big Agribusiness Firm Infiltrated the EPA and Made a Mockery of Science</div><div style="text-align: left;">[34] http://www.alternet.org/tags/syngenta</div><div style="text-align: left;">[35] http://www.alternet.org/tags/agribusiness</div><div style="text-align: left;">[36] http://www.alternet.org/tags/big-ag</div><div style="text-align: left;">[37] http://www.alternet.org/tags/epa</div><div style="text-align: left;">[38] http://www.alternet.org/tags/environmental-0</div><div style="text-align: left;">[39] http://www.alternet.org/tags/environment-0</div><div style="text-align: left;">[40] http://www.alternet.org/tags/water-0</div><div style="text-align: left;">[41] http://www.alternet.org/tags/atrazine</div><div style="text-align: left;">[42] http://www.alternet.org/tags/chemical-0</div><div style="text-align: left;">[43] http://www.alternet.org/tags/pollution-0</div><div style="text-align: left;">[44] http://www.alternet.org/tags/water-supply-0</div><div style="text-align: left;">[45] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B</div>

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