Backed by 6,000 studies and 50 years of use, atrazine can be used safely.

(PRWEB) January 15, 2010 — For 50 years, sound science has governed U.S. regulatory decisions on atrazine, a well-studied herbicide that farmers rely upon worldwide to produce safe, healthy and abundant crops. Syngenta, as a science-based company, looks forward to a continuing, open and transparent safety review of atrazine by the U.S. EPA in 2010 and expects a positive outcome.

Last week, two environmental activist groups escalated their attacks on Syngenta and atrazine, urging a departure from the EPA’s methodical, science-based approach to regulating crop protection products such as atrazine. Syngenta believes these claims are baseless and wrong.

These activist groups urge the removal of safe, regulated crop protection tools farmers rely on to produce safe and abundant food for the world. It is estimated forty percent of the world’s food supply would not exist without the use of such products.

Committed to the highest ethical standards “Syngenta is committed to promoting and maintaining high standards of corporate responsibility worldwide in an industry that is essential to global agriculture and food production,” said Dr. Tim Pastoor, principal scientist for Syngenta Crop Protection. “The activist report is an irresponsible and defamatory characterization of our company’s efforts to implement high standards of stewardship for the safe, effective and environmentally responsible use of its products. Our people are committed to the highest level of ethical standards in all our business practices.”

Transparent review of the best science EPA’s 12-year evaluation completed in 2006 found atrazine poses “no harm that would result to the general U.S. population, infants, children or other … consumers.”

To reach its conclusion, EPA required that Syngenta initiate studies defined by the EPA and conducted using internationally recognized Good Laboratory Practices.

“Syngenta is required by the EPA to conduct a long list of mandatory high-quality studies under rigorous scrutiny by the agency,” said Pastoor. “Every data point is available to verify the studies were done properly and the science can be verified by EPA scientists. Recently cited studies by activist organizations are not required to adhere to the same standards. The EPA’s recent evaluation reviewed the best science in its regulatory decision, so these activist calls for yet another review of atrazine would only be repeating the work that has been done already.”

Read the rest of this press release here.

Crop protection products play a crucial role in bringing abundant and affordable food to our dinner tables. Forty percent of the world’s food supply would not exist without products like atrazine, a herbicide that helps farmers fight weeds in their corn, sorghum and sugar cane crops.

After 50 years of use, growers have come to rely on atrazine. It is a mainstay of American agriculture. And it is one of the best studied herbicides available today. Safety reviews around the world by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), World Health Organization, Canada, Australia and the UK have all come to the same science-based conclusion—atrazine, as labeled, can and has been used safely.

Atrazine is a critical tool for use in conservation tillage and no-till systems—farming methods that eliminate plowing and/or reduce tillage. Conservation tillage makes cropland much less vulnerable to soil erosion, which is reduced by as much as 90 percent when compared to intensive tillage. When soil erosion is prevented, so is the runoff into our waterways of sediment—identified by EPA as the top pollutant in US streams and rivers.

Farmers would not use a product that puts their own families and communities at risk, and after half a century, who would know better? Today, in part because of atrazine, farmers are able to grow more corn than ever, using environmentally sustainable methods. That means more food to feed a growing population.

Syngenta is a responsible company which takes the stewardship of all our products seriously—and atrazine is no exception. We’ve gone above and beyond the extensive studies required to register this product to ensure its safe and effective use. And as with all crop protection products, wide margins of safety exist with atrazine.

It’s easy to believe fear-provoking claims about our nation’s water when all the data and facts aren’t presented. Let’s be clear - water systems in the U.S. are safe where atrazine is concerned. Over the last three years, no water systems in the U.S. had atrazine levels in their drinking water that exceeded legal limits.

Read the rest of this article here.

None of the 122 community water systems monitored last year in 10 states where atrazine is used most exceeded the federal standards set for atrazine in drinking water or raw water

• The federal lifetime drinking water standard for atrazine is set at 3 parts-per-billion — a level containing a 1,000-fold safety factor
• The EPA concluded that the triazine herbicides – including atrazine – pose “no harm that would result to the U.S. population”

As a popular herbicide in more than 60 countries around the world, atrazine has been carefully studied for years. In 2008, none of the 122 community water systems monitored in 10 states where atrazine is used most exceeded the federal standards set for atrazine in drinking water or raw water.

“Atrazine can be occasionally detected in water at extraordinarily low concentrations (parts per billion ), but these low levels pose no threat to human health. A person could drink thousands of gallons of water containing 3 parts per billion atrazine every day for a lifetime, and still not be affected by atrazine,” said Tim Pastoor, Ph.D., principal scientist for Syngenta.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets very conservative standards for chemicals in drinking water that are protective of human health. In the case of atrazine, EPA adopted a federal lifetime drinking water standard for atrazine is set at 3 parts-per-billion (ppb) — a level containing a 1,000-fold safety factor.

In raw (unprocessed) water, atrazine concentrations also declined significantly between 1994 and 2006 at 103 frequently monitored sites. This is due in large part to the best management practices growers now use with waterways and buffer strips. These practices have done much to protect water quality over the last 15 years.

Syngenta continues to work closely with growers in many watershed projects and in other stewardship programs to ensure that atrazine is used according to EPA guidelines and best management practices.

Atrazine recently underwent a rigorous, up-to-date safety evaluation by the EPA and was re-registered for use in agriculture. In 2006, the EPA looked at all of the triazine herbicides together — atrazine, simazine and propazine — and determined they pose “no harm that would result to the general U.S. population, infants, children or other major identifiable subgroups of consumers.”

Read the rest of this article here.

Carl Weissman 5/29/09

Tell me if this makes sense to you:

—If I buy a diamond, I can own it for as long as I like;

—If I produce a brand name for a product, provided that I trademark it, I can own it for as long as I would like, until and unless it becomes “generic” (like the term “escalator”, which actually started as a brand name);

—If I write a novel, provided that I copyright protect it, I can own it until I die, and my heirs can maintain those rights for 70 years longer; but,

—If I invent a drug, even if I protect that intellectual property to the full extent of U.S. patent law, I can only own it for 20 years from the date I file for a patent on it.

I can own a tangible good forever, I can own a trademark virtually forever, I can own a copyright for my entire life plus 70 years. But property which is more intrinsically a part of me – my idea, my invention, the product of my intellect – I am only allowed to own that for 20 years after I reveal it to the patent office.

Rationally, it seems obvious that all property – whether tangible or intellectual – should be subject to the same rules and laws of ownership. If you can own a gemstone forever, you should be able to own an invention forever. In fact, if a society wishes to impose differential standards for ownership rights to different types of property, wouldn’t it make more sense that preferential treatment be given to those items which are the product of your talent, your creativity, your self, over those things which you earn or purchase based upon that product of your efforts? The logical extension of this argument, in any free society, is that you should be able to own all property, whether purchased or invented, physical or ethereal, for as long as you wish. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, title – all should be perpetual.

Read the rest of this article on drug patent laws here.

The world biofuels industry today issued a sharp rebuke to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its president, Chakib Khelil, today in the pages of the Financial Times.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) July 16, 2008 — The world biofuels industry today issued a sharp rebuke to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its president, Chakib Khelil, today in the pages of the Financial Times. In a full page ad, the biofuel industries of Brazil, Canada, Europe and the United States took the oil cartel to task for outrageous, misleading, and unsubstantiated claims about the role of ethanol in world oil markets. The biofuel trade associations’ ad pointed out the very real competition biofuels is proving to be for oil producers.
“Efforts to obfuscate and mislead the public about biofuels will do nothing to alleviate the energy crisis gripping the world. We realize that biofuels may be reducing your windfall profits. But, perhaps, the time for OPEC to face some competition has finally arrived,” the groups wrote.

Full Press Release