Response from Collins T. Hayes has advocated that the Syngenta herbicide, atrazine, should be banned in the U.S. His position is based on his own studies of atrazine’s EDC effects on frogs and his assessment of work from other labs. Hayes actually started his atrazine research under commission from a Syngenta predecessor. When the sponsor hindered publication of his negative findings, he sought alternative funding and repeated, published, and expanded the work (1). K. R. Solomon has criticized my Viewpoint for featuring Hayes’s advocacy. According to the acknowledgment statement in the paper cited in his letter, Solomon is a member of a Syngenta-funded team studying atrazine. In this cited review, he and his coauthors dispute the quality of what appears to be any and all studies that claim adverse atrazine effects. Hayes has published a critique of the Solomon group’s studies (2). Clearly with atrazine, there is ongoing scientific controversy. I support Hayes’s advocacy in this climate of disagreement. Tenure in U.S. universities was instituted precisely to protect the right of academics to address controversial issues. Solomon tells us that “Society has responded to matters of great urgency” over ozone depletion and global climate change, because “the
responses were supported by good science... robust, replicated, based on multiple observations, and even recognized by the Nobel Committee.” But this analysis trivializes the dynamics of how our civilization has been dealing with matters of great urgency. In both areas, scientists who sounded the alarm have been subjected to fierce criticism. Vested interests have aggressively defended the status quo they benefit from when science has indicated a need for sustainabilityoriented change. BPA, mentioned by Solomon, is also a major industrial chemical where there is controversy over its endocrine activity. BPA is the contemporary poster child for unscientific trade association tactics (3), which remind one of 20th-century lead industry practices. Solomon did not mention phthalates, which I also highlighted. Human evidence of EDC impairments helped to produce a 2008 federal law mandating the near elimination (e0.1%) of phthalates from children’s items to age 12 (4). Green chemistry aims to help build a sustainable technology base. Solomon’s assertion that it “needs to be based on good science” is a gratuitous statement of the obvious. It is also obvious that green chemists must prioritize work on the most hazardous sub-
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stances. Since EDCs can disrupt cellular development at environmentally relevant concentrations to impair living things, including humans, EDCs qualify as extremely hazardous substances. We green chemists will fail in our “laudable aims” if we do not learn how to reduce and eliminate EDCs. TERRENCE J. COLLINS* Carnegie Mellon University
[email protected] (1) Blumenstyk, G. The price of research: a Berkeley scientist says a corporate sponsor tried to bury his unwelcome findings and then buy his silence. Chron. High. Educ. Oct. 31, 2003, A26; http://chronicle.com/ free/v50/i10/10a02601.htm. (2) Hayes, T. There is no denying this: defusing the confusion about atrazine. BioScience 2004, 54, 1138–1154; www.bioone.org/doi/ abs/10.1641/0006-3568(2004)054% 5B1138%3ATINDTD%5D2.0.CO%3B2. (3) Case, D. The Real Story behind Bisphenol A. Fast Company Jan 23, 2009, www.fastcompany.com/ magazine/132/the-real-story-on-bpa. html?page)0%2C2. (4) Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Public Law 110314, 2008, Section 108; www.cpsc.gov/cpsia.Pdf. Environmental Science & Technology edits all Letters for length, punctuation, and clarification of references. Authors approve of changes prior to publication.
ES900729K
10.1021/es900729k
2009 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 04/29/2009
