Herbicide is safe, study is wasteful

Beginning Nov. 3, the Environmental Protection Agency again began studying the safety of the economical and reliable farm herbicide, atrazine. While a small group of activists argues that traces of atrazine in our streams pose a health hazard, numerous studies report otherwise.

With nearly 6,000 EPA studies, every EPA administrator since the agency began has certified atrazine's safety.

In a recent report, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer placed atrazine in the same cancer-risk category as tea. Atrazine is used by more than 60 countries, and no country has ever discontinued its use based on health concerns.

Considering the huge margin of safety, EPA built into the allowable level of atrazine in water, it's been suggested that you would drown drinking enough water to be harmed by atrazine.

Nevertheless, the EPA announced another review because “articles in the media” were critical of the agency's oversights. That would be the same EPA the media and agenda activists quote whenever it suits them.

The activists' protest of atrazine is not rooted in a concern for our health. If it were, a long list of common substances such as table salt, aspirin and tea would be targeted for removal because they, too, can cause cancer if consumed in unrealistic amounts.

In these difficult economic times, it doesn't make sense to increase the cost of food production on a scare campaign with no substance.

Curt Zingula

President

Environmental

resource chair

Linn County Farm Bureau

Marion