Pesticide Giant Likes Money More Than People

by PAIGE THIONNET

Though agrochemicals look quite different today than they did centuries ago, pesticides are no novel concept. Ancient civilizations applied elemental chemistries to manage unwanted organisms. Although, it wasn’t until World War II that cutting-edge compounds reached unprecedented levels of effectiveness and affordability.

Despite newfound productivity that followed the initial application of new pesticides, outlooks soon became less than promising. Emerging trends in environmental health inspired conversations and concerns that produced discourse like author Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring– the sacred text of anti-pesticide literature. Silent Spring was a catalyst for regulating certain agrochemicals (like DDT) that her research found to be harmful.

Contrary to Carson’s wishes, pesticides are still widely used in the U.S. today– about 1 billion pounds are applied per year– and whether that should be the case is a highly controversial subject. When it comes to regulating the industry, policymakers are up against giants– pesticide companies like Syngenta, Bayer Corp, and Corteva, Inc. make up an industry with a U.S. market size of $16 billion.

In all their power, these pesticide giants have a reputation for silencing researchers who conflict with them. A UC Berkeley scientist with one such story, Professor Tyrone B. Hayes told The New Yorker how his relationship as a researcher for pesticide company Syngenta turned sour as he discovered that the chemical under study, atrazine, had startling effects on the endocrine system of frogs.

An herbicide, atrazine was banned by the European Union in 2003 due to “ubiquitous and unpreventable water contamination.” Meanwhile, the U.S. has continued to use it liberally. Syngenta asked Hayes to conduct research on atrazine, in which he found the chemical to “demasculinize (chemically castrate) and completely feminize” male frogs. Such powerful impacts are alarming considering that atrazine commonly finds its way to human water sources, expanding the chemical’s impacts.

After Hayes cut ties with the company, the release of Syngenta’s internal documents revealed that representatives of the company kept a close watch on him long after they went their separate ways. Representatives of the company had Hayes closely surveilled, looking for any opportunity to discredit him. Syngenta scientists disparaged the quality of his research, and a years- long battle ensued. In fact, the company’s ultimate goal was to ruin his reputation, thereby damaging his credibility and preventing his research from affecting Syngenta’s profits.

In their efforts to discredit Hayes, Syngenta attempted to puppeteer the conversation in favor of their own financial interests, making an unbiased public discourse on pesticides extremely difficult to achieve.

While the Syngenta documents in question were discovered nearly a decade ago, the company continues to fight to keep atrazine legal in the U.S. Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made an attempt to limit atrazine application by restricting application conditions and offering runoff mitigation options such as cover crop, terrace farming, dealt with an onslaught of personal attacks from agrochemical representatives.

The measure would modify a 2020 policy put in place during the Trump administration, requiring mitigation efforts from growers with atrazine concentrations of 3.4 μg/L or more, as opposed to the previous figure of 15. Syngenta clapped back with an article framing the proposed policy as financially and even environmentally damaging. With these arguments, Syngenta crafts a red herring that diverts attention from the biggest problem, atrazine itself.

Between massive PR bandwidth and the ability to completely bulldoze contradictory research efforts, Syngenta possesses the power to sway policy in whatever direction it so chooses. Some call it strategy, but a more appropriate term is manipulation.

Pesticides do have their benefits. They increase yield and prevent infestation of unwanted species. Yet research shows that they are also a significant danger to the health of people and wildlife– with impacts ranging from endocrine disruption (from chemicals like atrazine) to thinning bald eagle eggshells due to DDT.

This issue of the amount versus quality of food being produced creates a difficult question. While the debate about pesticides may be quite nuanced, one thing is certain: pesticide companies themselves should not be the only voices with power in these conversations.

Corporations– whether they’re in pharmaceuticals, fossil fuels, or agriculture– deserve to be held accountable for their actions. Public awareness of how corporate-backed lobbies may influence policy outcomes is essential, but just as necessary are advocates for scientists that provide a different voice. In the face of these weapons of business, researchers are responsible for doing the expository work that keeps them honest (or as close to truthful as possible).

Ultimately, we need to see legislative change. This means policy that prevents large corporations like Syngenta from steering regulations in a direction that suits their interests while largely ignoring public and environmental health.

designed by TIFFANY HO