Illustration by Lagan Sebert, Huffington Post Investigative Fund, EPA Image by Harry Hanbury, Crop Duster image courtesy Jenni Jone via FlickrCross-posted from the Huffington Post Investigative Fund
Companies with a financial interest in a weed-killer sometimes found in drinking water paid for thousands of studies federal regulators are using to assess the herbicide’s health risks, records of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show. Many of these industry-funded studies, which largely support atrazine’s safety, have never been published or subjected to an independent scientific peer review.
Meanwhile, some independent studies documenting potentially harmful effects on animals and humans are not included in the body of research the EPA deems relevant to its safety review, the Huffington Post Investigative Fund has found. These studies include many that have been published in respected scientific journals.
Even so, the EPA says that it would be “very difficult for someone to put a thumb on the scale” to slant the outcome.
Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S. An estimated 76 million... Read more
