Atrazine is toxic !!!

I noticed a recent study out of Berkley in California concluded that the commonly used herbicide in Canada and the US on corn crops, Atrazine, disrupts hormones in frogs and causes chemical castration in some male frogs. For the aforementioned reasons, Atrazine is banned in Europe.

There have been extinctions and population decimation's in amphibian populations throughout North America, while the quality and quantity of sperm amongst humans has been on decline.

Are these just coincidences? I hardly think so. We are dependent on the technology of chemicals and chemistry for everything to keeping the insides of our house smelling like a spring meadow, to keeping insects from consuming the crops that become our breads and frozen vegetables.

The federal government of Canada, to the best of my knowledge, wedged open the homo toxicus doors even wider by allowing the chemical industries to get new chemicals approved like herbicides and insecticides on the basis of 'acceptable risk'. In a nutshell, small amounts of chemicals that are deemed not to be all that much harmful to human beings are alright.

I personally find this notion to be ridiculous. If something is not proven to be safe, then it should not be allowed on the market! Does anyone remember the faux pas of DDT, Thalidomide, or Asbestos?

Products that were once thought to be beneficial were discovered to be harmful and were banned, though much to my personal disgust, DDT is still being sold cheaply to third world countries while a little talked about embarrassment is the fact that Canada is still exporting Asbestos to countries like India.

A warning to politicians on Parliment Hill: A maelstrom of public backlash is coming if you continue to peddle policies that cater to the whims of big business profits over public health.

I for one will not vote for any political party in the future that either does nothing to regulate the pollutants that are put in the air, ground, and water. Neither will I vote for any political party that panders to the cash lobbyists of corporations and industry.

The company that is the main purveyor of Atrazine, Syngenta, had their scientist, of course, dismiss the Berkley findings as 'fundamentally flawed.' Pardon my sardonic and cynical yawn!

Of course a company is going to defend their product! If my livelihood or ability to buy a new Porsche is being threatened by an external study or policy implementation I would be up in arms too.

We as citizens need to send a message to the chemical industry about the reckless endangerment they are engaging in. But don't worry if the current crop of politicians both in Canada and the US don't do anything, eventually what goes around comes around, and the reckless endangerment of business and industry today, become the lawsuits and litigation of the future.