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Tap water contaminant ‘castrates’ frogs

Posted by: Maven on March 2, 2010 at 7:18 am

From the USA Today:

“An herbicide that contaminates the tap water consumed by millions of Americans has been found to produce gender-bending effects in male frogs, “chemically castrating” some and turning others into females, a study shows.

Frogs in the experiment were exposed to amounts of the weedkiller atrazine that are comparable to the levels allowed in drinking water by the Environmental Protection Agency, says lead researcher Tyrone Hayes of the University of California-Berkeley.

The study was released Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In Hayes’ earlier studies, atrazine caused male frogs to begin growing eggs in their testes. In this experiment, 10% of the males exposed to atrazine — one of the most commonly used herbicide in the world — actually changed sex; some were able to breed and lay eggs. Nearly all of the other males had low testosterone and sperm levels, which made them unable to reproduce, Hayes says. … “


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March 2, 2010 · Filed Under Water Quality, Wildlife & Endangered Species

Comments

One Response to “Tap water contaminant ‘castrates’ frogs”

  1. WaterSource/WaterBank on March 2nd, 2010 9:18 am

    USA Today passes this off as news ! … ?

    A 2002 study found that exposure to atrazine caused male tadpoles to turn into hermaphrodites – frogs with both male and female sexual characteristics.

    76 million pounds of Atrazine is applied each year to stop pre- and post-emergence broadleaf and grassy weeds in corn, sorghum and sugar cane.

    In 2006 the EPA concluded that the triazine herbicides posed “no harm that would result to the general U.S. population, infants, children or other…consumers.” In 2007 the EPA held “that atrazine does not adversely affect amphibian gonadal development based on a review of laboratory and field studies, including studies submitted by the registrant and studies published in the scientific literature.

    Tyrone Hayes, Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, noted then that all of the studies that failed to conclude that atrazine caused hermaphroditism were plagued by poor experimental controls and were funded by Syngenta, the company that produces the chemical.

    All easily found and verifiable with Wikipedia, the on-line free encyclopedia.

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