Greens want ban on pesticides – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Greens want ban on pesticides
There has been community concern for years about chemical spraying in Tasmania.
The Australian Greens say they’ll move in the Senate for a nationwide ban on the triazine group of pesticides.
Last night’s Australian Story on ABC TV highlighted a campaign by Tasmanian doctor Alison Bleaney to have the chemicals atrazine and simazine banned.
Dr Bleaney believes there’s a link between chemical spraying in Tasmanian forests and cancer rates on the state’s east coast.
The Greens Senator Christine Milne says the Tasmanian government’s own monitoring shows the chemicals have been found in east coast tap water, and that they last longer in the state’s cooler climate.
She says the state government’s inaction has prompted the federal push.
“There is no political will in Tasmania to address this issue,” she said.
Tasmania’s Premier David Bartlett says there is no evidence that levels of the pesticides in the state’s water catchments are harmful.
Pundit’s comment:
GM canola is an alternative to TT or triazine tolerant canola widely grown in Southern Australia. GM glyphosate tolerant canola now provides an option that will reduce triazine use in all those Australian states that allow GM canola (but sadly not yet Tasmania or South Australia).
Update:
Atrazine in the news again.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Mar 1. [Epub ahead of print]
Atrazine induces complete feminization and chemical castration in male African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis).
Hayes TB, Khoury V, Narayan A, Nazir M, Park A, Brown T, Adame L, Chan E, Buchholz D, Stueve T, Gallipeau S.
The herbicide atrazine is one of the most commonly applied pesticides in the world. As a result, atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide contaminant of ground, surface, and drinking water. Atrazine is also a potent endocrine disruptor that is active at low, ecologically relevant concentrations. Previous studies showed that atrazine adversely affects amphibian larval development. The present study demonstrates the reproductive consequences of atrazine exposure in adult amphibians. Atrazine-exposed males were both demasculinized (chemically castrated) and completely feminized as adults. Ten percent of the exposed genetic males developed into functional females that copulated with unexposed males and produced viable eggs. Atrazine-exposed males suffered from depressed testosterone, decreased breeding gland size, demasculinized/feminized laryngeal development, suppressed mating behavior, reduced spermatogenesis, and decreased fertility. These data are consistent with effects of atrazine observed in other vertebrate classes. The present findings exemplify the role that atrazine and other endocrine-disrupting pesticides likely play in global amphibian declines.
PMID: 20194757
Laboratory for Integrative Studies in Amphibian Biology, Department of Integrative Biology, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Energy and Resources Group, Group in Endocrinology, and Molecular Toxicology Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140.
