Atrazine: What’s in Your Water?

Atrazine is the second most widely used herbicide in the US (glyphosate is #1). It’s used on corn, sugar cane, and sorghum in the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast but it is also used across the national on golf courses, Christmas tree farms, and in residential landscaping.

Runoff washes the chemical into streams, rivers, and groundwater and as a result, atrazine is one of the most common pollutants found in American waters today. That includes drinking water!

According to Environmental Working Group’s Tap Water Database, atrazine was detected in 2,075 water utilities across 34 states serving 44 million people (2015-2017). The states that had the highest population of people with contaminated water: Texas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Missouri, Ohio, Kansas, Indiana, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. The highest levels of contamination were found in Kansas.

The federal legal limit for atrazine in water is 3 ppb. Many scientists have stated that this limit does not protect against harm to the reproductive system, harm to the developing fetus, or risk for hormone disruption.

Atrazine is “a hundred times worse than glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, because it’s an endocrine disruptor,” said Nathan Donley, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, which has called for a complete ban of the chemical. Atrazine has been banned in the European Union for 17 years and is banned today in a total of 60 countries.

Health Effects of Atrazine

The health effects of atrazine are widespread. And atrazine is eliminated in urine with half-life of 24-31 hrs., so continuous exposure from drinking water is most damaging.[1]

Research points to the following health effects, so far:

• suppressed luteinizing hormone production-increasing aromatase production and disrupting ovarian function

• associated with increased risk of preterm birth (in Kentucky and four Midwestern states)[2]

• and low birth weight (in Ohio communities)[3]

• thyroid, ovarian, and other cancers (animal models)

• birth defects

• rheumatoid arthritis (related to lifetime use)[4]

• breast cancer in women and animal models[5][6]

• non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma risk based on levels of atrazine and nitrate in drinking water[7]

• non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in male farmers[8]

Populations with the highest risk of exposure are farmers, golf course applicators, Christmas tree farm workers, pregnant women and their fetuses, and residents living near golf courses, farms, or Christmas tree farms.

Lab Testing

Urine atrazine and atrazine mercapturate testing is available through GenovaDiagnostics Laboratory. Both atrazine and atrazine mercapturate (metabolite) are necessary for complete assessment. Several labs also offer low-cost testing for tap water although many of them are qualitative rather than quantitative.

Learn More

To learn more about the latest research and health effects of atrazine, attend the upcoming Environmental Health Symposium, April 3-5, 2020. Dr. Tyrone Hayes the global expert on atrazine, is a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California Berkeley and has been researching the toxicity of atrazine since 1998. Dr. Hayes is well known for his research published on atrazine and its effect as an endocrine disruptor in amphibians.

He has become a globally recognized scientist for standing up to Syngenta, manufacturer of atrazine, who initially hired Hayes to do atrazine toxicity research. He will speak on “Atrazine: Lessons about Human Toxicity” at the conference. Dr Hayes’ research provided documentation for two successful class-action suits brought by 23 Midwestern cities and towns that accused Syngenta of “concealing atrazine’s true dangerous nature” and contaminating their drinking water.Dr. Hayes has also spoken at Mayo Clinic Grand Rounds about the implication of his research for humans.

References

[1] Gilman SD, Gee SJ, Hammock BD, Vogel JS, Haack K, Buchholz BA, Freeman SP, Wester RC, Hui X, Maibach HI. Analytical performance of accelerator mass spectrometry and liquid scintillation counting for detection of 14C-labeled atrazine metabolites in human urine. Anal Chem. 1998 Aug 15;70(16):3463-9. PubMedPMID: 9726169.

[2] Stayner LT, Almberg K, Jones R, Graber J, Pedersen M, Turyk M. Atrazine and nitrate in drinking water and the risk of preterm delivery and low birth weight in four Midwestern states. Environ Res. 2017;152:294–303. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2016.10.022

[3] Almberg KS, Turyk ME, Jones RM, Rankin K, Freels S, Stayner LT. Atrazine Contamination of Drinking Water and Adverse Birth Outcomes in Community Water Systems with Elevated Atrazine in Ohio, 2006⁻2008. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018;15(9):1889. Published 2018 Aug 31. doi:10.3390/ijerph15091889

[4] Meyer A, Sandler DP, Beane Freeman LE, Hofmann JN, Parks CG. Pesticide Exposure and Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis among Licensed Male PesticideApplicators in the Agricultural Health Study. Environ Health Perspect. 2017 Jul 14;125(7):077010. doi: 10.1289/EHP1013. PubMed PMID: 28718769; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5744649.

[5] Kettles MK, Browning SR, Prince TS, Horstman SW. Triazine herbicide exposureand breast cancer incidence: an ecologic study of Kentucky counties. Environ Health Perspect. 1997 Nov;105(11):1222-7. PubMed PMID: 9370519; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1470339.

[6] Gray JM, Rasanayagam S, Engel C, Rizzo J. State of the evidence 2017: an update on the connection between breast cancer and the environment. Environ Health. 2017 Sep 2;16(1):94. doi:10.1186/s12940-017-0287-4. Review. PubMed PMID: 28865460; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5581466.

[7] Rhoades MG, Meza JL, Beseler CL, Shea PJ, Kahle A, Vose JM, Eskridge KM, Spalding RF. Atrazine and nitrate in public drinking water supplies and non-hodgkin lymphoma in Nebraska, USA. EnvironHealth Insights. 2013;7:15-27. doi: 10.4137/EHI.S10629. Epub 2013 Mar 3. PubMed PMID: 23515852; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3595994.

[8] Meyer A, Sandler DP, Beane Freeman LE, Hofmann JN, Parks CG. Pesticide Exposure and Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis among Licensed Male Pesticide Applicators in the Agricultural Health Study. Environ Health Perspect. 2017 Jul 14;125(7):077010. doi: 10.1289/EHP1013. PubMed PMID: 28718769; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5744649.