I ran across this article on CNN today. Maybe you saw it too. After reading it, I did a little searching on atrazine and was not all that pleased with what I read. Yeah, so what else is new?! Are pesticides affecting humans? Are pesticides to blame for infertility and other issues? I read so many articles linking pesticides and chemicals to defects and such that I just don't question it anymore. We need to remove the chemicals from our lives or at least study them more before they become so widely used.
Atrazine is a widely used herbicide in the US, mostly for corn, sorghum and sugarcane.
In 2004, the European Union banned atrazine due to it's groundwater contamination.
In 2006, the U.S. Geological Survey found atrazine in 75 percent of stream water and 40 percent of groundwater samples from areas tested between 1992 and 2001.
In 2002, a study found that atrazine was causing male frogs to develop female parts. These frogs were then able to reproduce as females.
Now, a group in Washington state is linking atrazine to birth defects.
It saddens me that the EPA refuses to see the signs. They just ignore the studies and let these things continue to exist and affect us all. This is just one more reason to go as organic as I possibly can for my family.