Talk:Atrazine

Atrazine in Europe

I am puzzled by the statements on the situation in Europe because they seem to contradict the information present in the German Wikipedia article on atrazine (I provide both the German text and the translation in case someone wants to doule-check the translation).

Original text: Da Atrazin und dessen Hauptabbauprodukt Desethylatrazin auch ins Grundwasser gelangen und damit dann auch im Trinkwasser nachgewiesen werden kann, ist die Anwendung von Atrazin seit 1. März 1991 in Deutschland und seit 1995 in Österreich verboten.

Translation: Because athrazine and his main degradation product desethylatrazine may also reach the groundwater and therefore can be detected in the drinking water, the application of athrazine is prohibited in Germany since the first of march 1991 in Germany and in Austria since 1995.

One of the reasons for this prohibition was an incident of october/november 1986 that I can vividly recall because it so to say passed by my home. I live in Bonn (at that time capital of West Germany) located about 20 kilometers from Cologne on the river Rhine. This is what happened:

Original text: Am 31. Oktober 1986 gelangten etwa 400 Liter Atrazin über die Abwässer der Firma Ciba-Geigy in den Rhein, was zusammen mit einem weiteren Chemieunfall der Firma Sandoz bei Basel einen Tag später ein Fischsterben im Rhein auslöste.

Translation: On the thirty-first of october 1986 about 400 liters of atrazine reached the river Rhine in the wastwater of the Ciba-Geigy company. Together with another chemical accident at the Sandoz company in Basel it caused a fish kills in the Rhine.

The incident also influcenced the drinking water supply along the Rhine because much of the drinking water in this region is bank filtrate.

One additional remark: If the description turns out to be correct something else needs to be corrected: No country has ever discontinued atrazine use for health or environmental safety reasons, including the European Union, and is used in more than 80 countries worldwide.

This is not correct because the European Union is not a country but a supranational and intergovernmental union of twenty-seven states.

If the statements in the German WP are in one way or another incorrect please provide sources. I'll then edit that article. -- [[User:Jsde|Jsde] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jsde (talk • contribs) 21:25, 5 May 2007‎ (UTC)

Needs a description of who Hayes is and relevance to section

The name Hayes pops up in the controvery section without a description of who he is and how his work is relevant. I am sure he is important in the section, but the section doesn't say how. Someone who knows should fix this so that it scans properly.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Primacag (talk • contribs) 12:33, 24 August 2008‎ (UTC)

New Section on Recently Released Data

The data just released http://www.socrata.com/government/2008-Results-Atrazine-Monitoring-Program-for-Commu/5mw6-aae5 from the Huffington post could justify a new section. It shows the levels of Atrazine in drinking water in over 100 watersheds in the US. Some of the levels are quite high. Links could be added for the geocoded data from GeoCommons - Data: http://finder.geocommons.com/search?query=atrazine and maps http://maker.geocommons.com/maps/7808. Perhaps someone with better knowledge on the subject could create this section.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Esciar (talk • contribs) 11:30, 23 September 2009‎ (UTC)

Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: Herbicide atrazine spurs reproductive problems in many creatures

As reported by Phyorg.com. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-herbicide-atrazine-spurs-reproductive-problems.html .— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.129.234.195 (talk • contribs) 14:49, 28 November 2011‎ (UTC)

Mealworm study

Just a heads up that I removed this source and its content from the fish and insects section [1].

Normally I'm very borderline tending towards not using primary sources in these topics, but this one has some very odd findings that really need interpretation from other expert sources. The previous version showed that females selected beetles with intermediate exposure of atrazine and that this was a reduction in fitness. The opposite could be said too though as females could be choosing the intermediate males for increased fitness (i.e., most likely to have some resistance trait at that exposure level). Definitely an interesting study, so I'm sure folks will be commenting on it in review type articles soon, so I'm just listing the source here as a a reminder to check on it and see what's been citing in awhile down the road. Otherwise, it's a little early to try to assess any weight for this study for it's various claims, especially on the American Burying Beetle ideas. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:27, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Reviews for effects on fish and amphibians

I'm out for the night, but I just came across three different reviews on the topic. They should be good for replacing the primary sources currently used in relevant sections of the article. I'll see about reading over them and incorporating them, but that may not be until the weekend. Here they are for anyone interested:

1. A Qualitative Meta-Analysis Reveals Consistent Effects of Atrazine on Freshwater Fish and Amphibians [2]
2. Effects of Atrazine in Fish, Amphibians, and Reptiles: An Analysis Based on Quantitative Weight of Evidence: [3]
3. Effects of Atrazine on Fish, Amphibians, and Aquatic Reptiles: A Critical Review [4]

The last one appears to be behind a paywall, so I'll summarize that one first so that's done. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:39, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks! Formerly 98 (talk) 04:46, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Those reviews look good. MLPainless (talk) 09:18, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Just finished reviewing and it looks like we have a treasure trove for content here. Just posting some general findings for each study for summary:

1. Main finding:"As in past reviews, we found little evidence that atrazine consistently causes direct mortality of freshwater vertebrates at ecologically relevant concentrations, but there is evidence that atrazine might have adverse indirect ecological effects."

• "Here we reveal that, for freshwater verte­brates, atrazine consistently reduced growth rates, had variable effects on timing of metamorphosis that were often nonmonotonic,elevated locomotor activity, and reduced antipredator behaviors. Amphibian and fish immunity was reliably reduced by ecologically relevant concentrations of atrazine,and this was regularly accompanied by elevated infections. Atrazine exposure induced diverse morphologic gonadal abnormalities in fish and amphibians and was associated with altered gonadal function, such as modified sex hormone production. This suggests that atrazine should be considered an endocrine disrupting chemical."

2. Main finding:"Atrazine might affect biomarker-type responses, such as expression of genes and/ or associated proteins, concentrations of hormones, and biochemical processes (e.g. induction of detoxification responses), at concentrations sometimes found in the environment. However, these effects were not translated to adverse outcomes in terms of apical endpoints." (i.e., effects in lab with molecular/biochemistry assays, but not at organism level). See Fig. 36 & 37 on pp. 55-56 for really interesting summary graphs.

• Simplified quote in summary: "Atrazine does not adversely affect fish, amphibians, and reptiles at concentrations that are present in surface waters."

3. Main finding: "Based on a weight of evidence analysis of all of the data, the central theory that environmentally relevant concentrations of atrazine affect reproduction and/or reproductive development in fish, amphibians, and reptiles is not supported by the vast majority of observations." We conclude that environmentally relevant concentrations of atrazine do not affect amphibian growth, sexual development, reproduction, and survival. Although fewer data are available, the same conclusions apply to fish and reptiles."

• Background:Estradiol can cause sex reversal in genetic males, with males developing ovaries instead of testes. In some cases, estradiol-exposed animals can exhibit gonads that are intermediate in appearance between testes and ovaries (testicular ovarian follicles). Finding: There is no temporal evidence of any association between atrazine and reproductive effects as indicated by the presence of testicular ovarian follicles in frogs. (i.e., TOFs occurred in similar levels before atrazine was on the market).
• No evidence of atrazine concentration effect on a number of reproductive and developmental endpoints.
• On the Hayes controversy: "With rare exceptions, the only studies that report adverse effects on amphibian development and reproduction are those from the Hayes laboratory." Only effects found were at concentrations not found in the environment.
• "There is no evidence that atrazine itself (or its metabolites) act directly at hormone receptors."

Looking over the three, they all all review pretty much the same studies. It appears the first one reached different conclusions because it included studies the other two excluded because the excluded studies had poor study design, low sample size, etc. They comment on their selection criteria a bit too, so I'm going to reread that and see if there's more to pull from there. I'll look into putting together some content based on these reviews in a bit. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:48, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Study funding

Just wanted to give a heads up on this recent revert of mine. [5] In the whole Tyrone Hayes controversy, study funding has been brought up sometimes. While most folks familiar with science may know that being funded by a company does not mean they had a say in study design, writing the paper, etc., not all readers are going to know that. It's a common trope where people dismiss an independent study funded by a company because they aren't aware of the detail I re-added in my edit. Now that's just me talking as a scientist, but taking that hat off any putting my Wikipedia hat on, we do have that COI claim come up in Tyrone Hayes/atrazine related sources. In this single case, the source specifically stating the company's involvement or lack of it is actually pretty important. In most other articles though we'd consider declaration/lack of COI statements standard and unneeded. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

It's very unusual to insert that sort of disclaimer into wikipedia. I'm pretty confident it's a poor edit and will not survive.MLPainless (talk) 21:14, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I dunno, maybe it should be more common. I see again and again these phrases "funded by the manufacturer" thrown out to undercut the credibility of industry funded studies. On first pass, I understand that. But I think it is really a little more complicated that that.

• It neglects the fact that COI is everywhere, and is not always financial in nature. What academic gets tenure, notoriety, invitations to appear on NPR television specials, or awards by investigating the effect of a pesticide on amphibian development and writing a paper that says "Didn't find a problem. Its pretty much exactly as the EPA and the manufacturer described it."? If Hayes didn't report shocking and unexpected results on amphibians, would anyone know his name today? I suspect not. Scientists, like journalists, intrinsically have a career and financial interest in reporting interesting, even sensational, results. And of course his emails to company scientists at this point clearly indicate that the conflict has become a personal issue.
• It ignores the fact that "industry funded" usually means the work was done by a third party who has no direct financial interest in the sales of the product. Industry funding may get you a little spin, but its hardly likely to buy you the 1000x difference in No Observed Adverse Effect Levels seen between Haye's results and nearly everyone else's. Those are testable facts, and falsifying research results performed for regulatory purposes on a pesticide product will buy you jail time.

Formerly 98 (talk) 22:53, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree with KingofAces that there is no need to call out non-involvement of Syngenta in the article preparation as a "disclaimer" in the article. The fact that Syngenta paid for the study and that they were not involved in the research or writing the paper both spring from the same source, which is the paper itself. If it is reliable for one statement, it is reliable for both. Formerly 98 (talk) 04:06, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

We (and WP) are not the arbiters of the extent the company was involved in the study. The statement that they had nothing to do with the study, when you consider that this is one of their most profitable products, is essentially a claim, not a verifiable, testable fact, and needs to be couched in some way that shows the wording comes from the source, virtually verbatim. MLPainless (talk) 06:32, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

And can you point to any other article on wikipedia that carries this sort of disclaimer statement? I know of numerous places where the funding sources of studies are stated, but I have never seen this disclaimer inserted to (apparently) add credibility to the findings of the study, just in case readers suspect that the funding source colored the outcomes. Anyone? Why would you want to do this? MLPainless (talk) 06:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

looking at the history article, the disclaimer about the effect of the funding was a direct response to your adding content about the source of the funding, MLPainless. It was a very predictable response to that. That content is directly sourced from the article and is peripheral to its content, just as the content you added was. It is rare in WP to describe the funding of a study as well. Jytdog (talk) 09:35, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, there is another instance in the article mentioning Syngenta's funding of another atrazine-exculpatory study (not added by me), if you'd bothered to look before making your comment. It is, in fact, not rare to mention funding sources for studies, especially when the study in question describes a swathe of independent research as being of "poor quality" (this looks like a clear case of funding bias to me, but I cannot be sure). This google search will reveal hundreds of instances of research funding mentions in wikipedia. MLPainless (talk) 09:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Painless,

I realize this is a contentious issue but let's try to be mutually respectful and leave out the language about "bothering to look before commenting".

To address your point:

I do not often see any of the following in articles here

• Repeating the statement of the author of a company-funded study that the company was not involved in preparing the manuscript
• Assertions by one of the parties in the conflict that "all of the studies supporting the comapany's position involve flawed controls and COI".
• Descriptions of experimental results (as opposed to reviews and more opinion-related articles) as "industry funded", which in this case comes across as a thinly veiled and unsubstantiated suggestion of data fraud.

I think given the inclusion of the latter two points, the inclusion of the first makes for a more balanced story. Lastly I'd say that your addition of scare quotes around the "disclaimer" is WP:OR. The statement comes from a WP:RS and you can't just suggest fraud as a way of discrediting any reliable source that you disagree with. If you have a reliable, third party source that has credibly questioned the truthfulness of the author's statement on this specific paper, that might be different. Formerly 98 (talk) 10:24, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

F98, I've read your comment twice and still do not understand it. Can you be clearer please? MLPainless (talk) 12:11, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that we want to describe this controversy and not take sides in it. The quote from Hayes calling every study that disagrees with his conclusions COI-driven, combined with systematically calling out each Syngenta-funded study as such, is over the top from my POV. Formerly 98 (talk) 13:23, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Also looking at the reviews I mentioned above, Hayes' work may even be on the WP:FRINGE spectrum. I say may because it looks like a potential, but I'd want to do some digging into other sources before really assessing whether that's the case or not. If it is though, comments like work being covered up by big companies, etc. are very common responses of fringe proponents in science, so that's why my red flag is up when thinking about fringe ideas. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not discussing the Hayes section at the moment. I'm discussing the Syngenta review that found many independent studies to be "poor quality". We seem to be talking at cross purposes. MLPainless (talk) 04:25, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

The point was that the calls about funding source appear like they could be coming from a fringe viewpoint. What I was discussing and the discussion of the review you're mentioning are very related. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:36, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I was not thinking of Prof. Hayes when I started discussing the wording around the Syngenta review. Let's not conflate the issues. MLPainless (talk) 04:46, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd reread Formerly's last few posts if you're somehow seeing conflation here. I'm not seeing how you're saying what we were discussing above isn't related. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:43, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, Painless, I feel that this is turning into a tempest in a teapot, as the meta analysis is not the only source to reach this conclusion. If you are that unhappy with the current text, and if other editors agree, I could accept the following replacement.

"Available epidemiological studies of atrazine exposure in pregnancy have important shortcomings that limit their utility for drawing conclusions regarding effects in people. A 2015 systematic review of pregnancy epidemiology studies, funded by atrazine manufacturer Syngenta, concluded that the quality of most studies was poor, that no single category of negative pregnancy outcome was found consistently across studies, and that conclusions regarding a positive link between atrazine exposure and adverse pregnancy outcomes were not warranted. Syngenta was not involved in the design, collection, management, analysis, or interpretation of the data and did not participation in the preparation of the manuscript. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry] (ATSDR) reached similar conclusions, noting that available studies are confounded by exposure to other chemicals. A review by the Minnesota Department of Health stated that currently avaialable studies are insufficient to establish causal relationships between atrazine exposure and pregnancy adverse outcomes due to methodological limitations including poor exposure assessment, the use of aggregate rather than individual measures of exposure, small sample size, limited statistical power for certain outcomes, and inability to control for confounding factors."

However, this strikes me as very long-winded at it takes us to the same place as the original language.

Formerly 98 (talk) 09:49, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, looking at one of the new sources you're suggesting (the ATSDR source), it's pretty good. It states that "Atrazine may affect pregnant women by causing their babies to grow more slowly than normal. Birth defects and liver, kidney, and heart damage has been seen in animals exposed to high levels of atrazine" and "Liver, kidney, and heart damage has been observed in animals exposed to atrazine; we do not know if this would also occur in humans. Atrazine has also been shown to cause changes in blood hormone levels in animals that affected ovulation and the ability to reproduce. These effects are not expected to occur in humans because of specific biological differences between humans and these types of animals". I'd like to see some of that in the article, actually. It also states:

However, the women in these studies were also exposed to other chemicals that may have caused or contributed to these effects. In pregnant animals, exposure to atrazine causes a decrease in fetal growth and birth defects. Exposure to high levels of atrazine during pregnancy caused reduced survival of fetuses. It is unclear whether or at what level of exposure this might occur in humans.

...which is much more direct and sensible than the strenuous efforts the current wp article seems to be making to give the herbicide a clean bill of health in regard to pregnant women. Using some of this language would improve the article immeasurably. So yes, I would support the use of some of these quotes in the section on mammals. The quotes cut through some of the obfuscation that characterizes the current text in the wp page. MLPainless (talk) 01:35, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is making "strenuous efforts to give the herbicide a clean bill of health in regard to pregnant women" at all. I think we're all trying just as hard as you are to make this article present a balanced view of the controversy. We just have different opinions on what represents a reliable source. You are worried about a grant funding a meta analysis; I wonder about the objectivity of a scientist who sends emails to company employees referring to his erection and ejaculate and starts a website called "atrazinelovers.com". Both concerns likely have some merit.

I have no objection to expanding the discussion of effects seen in animals a bit, but believe that such reports are meaningless unless the doses at which the effects were observed are included. Unless you are aware of other reliable secondary sources, there seems to be a reasonable consensus that the epidemiological data suggests important areas for further investigation, but is inconclusive due to the issues I described above.

Overall, I think we all need to remember that

• Wikipedia describes controversies and does not take sides in them, and
• Appropriate weighting is determined by the prevalence of different viewpoints among reliable sources

Given the existence of significant controversy, giving this product "a clean bill of health" or giving the impression that there is consensus that current exposures are harmful would both be NPOV and a disservice to our readers. We need to communiciate the ambiguity.

Please take a look at the FIFRA scientific advisory committee meeting minutes that I linked to in the section below. There are some items there that align with your POV that I think could/should be added, and I'm surprised you do not seem to have looked at that document yet.

Formerly 98 (talk) 02:51, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

FIFRA minutes ... it's an EPA memorandum. Is that even a RS?

• I am not here to impart a POV aspect to the article. I just think inserting sentences like "Syngenta was not involved in the design, collection ..." is a completely unnecessary counterweight to the noting that the company funded the review.
• I'm not sure what the atrazinelovers.com and erection references are all about, and I don't want to know. MLPainless (talk) 04:59, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the FIFRA Scientific Advisory Board would be WP:RS, as it is a secondary source and its presence is Congressionally mandated to provide independent input to EPA decisions.

My point with respect to the other two items you mentioned is that it doesn't make sense to single out a study funded by but not conducted by Syngenta for scrutiny with respect to its accuracy and objectivity. We extensively quote a scientist in this article who sent the emails I described. We can call out the fact that Syngenta funded that meta analysis, but the flip side of that is call out the other articles as "performed by a scientist with a readily apparent personal feud with Syngenta". I really think its best if we don't do either. Formerly 98 (talk) 06:21, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

By saying "Syngenta funded" we are not "singling out" a study for "scrutiny with respect to its accuracy and objectivity". We are simply making readers aware of the funding, which is quite proper and common in wikipedia. And likewise, if this scientist (Hayes) has personal financial gain at stake, then yes, we need to highlight his involvement with the various studies he produced. Does he? MLPainless (talk) 08:53, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

On the first point, I still disagree. Since our positions are not converging, would it make sense to try to agree on language for an RFC? ON the second point, I found a good review from the EPA that declares "a pox on both your houses" and added it to the article. Thanks Formerly 98 (talk) 14:39, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we need an RfC yet, but I do agree that we shouldn't be singling out studies like that. There isn't a reason for describing funding source here (or in most cases really) as funding source isn't particularly relevant to the findings of studies, so that becomes undue weight to focus on it here. It's pretty common for university researchers to get funding from a company to independently evaluate a product and if the company wasn't a little sloppy on their own in-house assessments, the researcher will come back with a publication saying the product just doesn't work, has non-target effects, etc. Focusing on funding source makes it seem important when it's really not. It's only where there is a true conflict of interest that such details become important (such as being involved in study design), but that's the journal's job to assess that, not ours. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:22, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I think the current version of WP:RS allows for pointing out funding sources, particularly when they are from industry. I don't really agree with that, but there it is. The review I just added to the article points out from a regulator's POV where a lot of the non-financial COIs arise, and that article to my mind speaks to why we should not have such a laser like focus on anything that even vaguely looks like it could be interpreted as a financial COI. Its like obsessing about being run over by a red car. You're equally likely to be run over by one that is white, black, or blue. Formerly 98 (talk) 17:13, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

My sentiments exactly. I was going to describe funding source as a red herring (decided just to keep my post short earlier) because it distracts from where you can find actual problems in publishing. In terms of actual edits for this article, it doesn't seem like there's consensus to include the funding source language. Is there anything that would change that at this point, or would it be better to move on to other topics? Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:28, 11 February 2015 (UTC):

My feeling is that the attacks on credibility, claims of harrassment, and other attempts by each side to demonize the other are best ommitted from articles. However, there are many editors who don't agree with my opinion, especially when o m e of the parties to the dispute is a large corporation. I then find myself in the awkward position of adding negative material to create balance as it is easier to defend than removing the negative material already present. My preference is to remove all material questioning the reliability of peer reviewed research except to note the existence of conflicting findings, and to remove all other material about harassment and obscene email. But I doubt we can get consensus for that, so my second choice is to leave it as it is, with balanced shitting on both sides. Formerly 98 (talk) 18:13, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

• "There isn't a reason for describing funding source here" (Kingofaces43). I have to disagree strongly with this. Just let's look at an allied field, medicine.

In Scientific American there's an article called "Bad Medicine, Why Data from Drug Companies is hard to swallow". Some key points: (1) Companies (even the biggest ones) are massaging data to an unbelievable degree to get their drugs approved. This includes excluding data and misrepresenting data. (2) Companies pay the FDA $500,000 for each drug approved. The FDA is therefore approving more and more (useless and sometimes harmful) drugs, even when the studies supporting the drugs are clearly flawed and massaged.

Furthermore, nearly half of all medical school faculty members who serve on boards designed to protect patients enrolled in clinical studies also serve as paid consultants to drug companies and other sectors of the biomedical industry. [6]

And again: "Studies funded by the private sector tend to produce outcomes that are much more aligned with the financial interests of those sectors than studies funded by the government, etc." (Prof. Sheldon Krimsky, Tufts University, author of the upcoming book: Science in the Private Interest)

I'd encourage editors to listen to this: Big-Pharma Funding, Medical Journals, and Bias in Pharmaceutical Studies - "Surprise, surprise — studies where the investigators have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry are usually designed to provide confirmation of a predetermined result — that the drug is effective and side effects are minimal, even when one or both of those things is untrue."

Therefore I don't think you can say that funding is not important, especially when it's been proved so clearly to be important in medicine generally. MLPainless (talk) 23:16, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I am going to end this discussion because we don't agree and it is highly unlikely we are going to. But I'll leave you with a quote from Guido Rasi, former head of the EMA:

"We do not dispute that financial conflicts of interests (CoIs) may render analyses and conclusions “vulnerable to distortion” [1]. However, surrounding the ongoing debate over sponsor-independent analyses is an implicit assumption that “analysis by independent groups” is somehow free from CoIs. We beg to differ. Personal advancement in academia, confirmation of previously defended positions, or simply raising one's own visibility within the scientific community may be powerful motivators. In a publish-or-perish environment, would the finding of an important adverse or favorable drug effect at the p<0.05-level be more helpful to a researcher than not finding any new effects? Will society always be guaranteed that a finding that is reported as “confirmatory” was not the result of multiple exploratory re-runs of a dataset? We submit that analyses by sponsor-independent scientists are not generated in a CoI-free zone and, more often than not, ego trumps money."

Having spent years in academia myself, this quote captures my observations very well. Formerly 98 (talk) 02:44, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll also chime in that if there is truly a COI of any sort, peer reviewers are supposed to be looking for that in a fashion. Anyone with the expertise can technically do that by going through the study's methodology, assumptions, etc. If there is something wrong with the study, it tends to be apparent in the methods and results whether it's financial COI, or most anything else. That's also why I consider funding source a huge red herring. However, we as editors are not considered experts to give that degree of reliable scrutiny, so we need secondary sources to say if the study had some weaknesses in its design. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:50, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

EPA 2009 review

The EPA started a new review in 2009 for re-registration purposes. We quote the Agency n the article stating "the agency’s scientific bases for its regulation of atrazine are robust and ensure prevention of exposure levels that could lead to reproductive effects in humans"

This is taken from a longer paragraph here, where the Agency states "During the July 2011 FIFRA SAP meeting, the Panel commented that – while there are still areas of uncertainty – the agency’s scientific bases for its regulation of atrazine are robust and ensure prevention of exposure levels that could lead to reproductive effects in humans. Reproductive effects are the most sensitive effects observed in atrazine toxicity tests and, as such, our efforts to regulate the pesticide to protect against these effects through drinking water exposure will protect against all other effects that occur at higher levels."

While I do not regard myself as a conspiracy theorist or an Agency critic, I'm not clear that the Agency's description of the FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel's conclusions are strictly accurate. The meeting minutes, found here contain statements along the following lines:

Page 11: "Although there was a consensus among the Panel that it is highly unlikely that the dose of atrazine under discussion (100 mg/kg for 4 days) would have adverse reproductive outcomes, itwas recognized that the outcome of repeated doses, e.g., a second dose occurring 10 days later, was unknown... There was considerable disquiet among the Panel members that despite solid evidence for the mode of action (MOA)for atrazine to attenuate the LH surge, there was a complete lack of knowledge of the underlying neural or molecular mechanisms in the hypothalamus and an absence of direct coupling of LH surge attenuation to Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOP). There was a general consensus that more deta iled experimentation is required...."

Page 14: "the Panel took issue with the statement on page 71 of the EPA Issue Paper that states “the weight of the evidence supports that atrazine is not likely to be carcinogenic in the human population." First of all, there is considerable uncertainty and gaps in the toxicological evidence concerning whether atrazine is a human carcinogen. Second, EPA has not done a comprehensive “weight of the evidence” assessment; instead, the toxicological evidence appears to be used to nullify any positive evidence from the epidemiologic studies. Third, the evidence across cancer sites is mixed, not uniform, with some cancer sites having no evidence for an association whereas other cancer sites having at least suggestive evidence for a causal association."

Page 15: "Many on the Panel believed that the epidemiology data failed to provide compelling evidence that atrazine is not carcinogenic."

Page 16: "The Panel recommended adjusting the conclusion that atrazine is unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans to “inadequate information to assess carcinogenic potential.” This category is appropriate given that an association is unlikely with some cancers, but epidemiologic evidence suggests possible associations with ovarian and thyroid cancers."

Page 16: "The inconsistency of animal mechanistic and toxicological data with results from human epidemiologic data does not mean the risk associations identified in human studies do not reflect reality, even though animal experiments are not available or do not support the epidemiologic findings because animal models do not always apply to humans even when they are available. Notable epidemiologic findings (using the framework established in February 2010) should be given greater weight in risk assessments and should suggest avenues for future mechanistic and toxicological investigations if these are lacking, as is often the case."

I'd appreciate it if some other folks could look at this and offer their opinions on whether I've correctly interpreted these two documents as contradicting each other.

Thanks Formerly 98 (talk) 20:20, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Misattributed quote from Syngenta website

@Gandydancer: good catch on the Syngenta quote. But in removing the quote, you also took all reference to a peer reviewed article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a review by Australia's governmental agency regulating agricultural chemicals, which was not necessary for addressing the problem you identified. I restored these, replaced the faux quote with one from the actual source document, and reduced the breadth of the claim describing the quote. Formerly 98 (talk) 13:16, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

reference issue

Note to Gandydancer and Formerly 98 - there was a reference issue in the article.

• One ref was called "APVMA" and went to http://www.apvma.gov.au/products/review/completed/atrazine.php (which the site redirects to http://apvma.gov.au/node/12371 - I have updated that)
• the other ref was called "apvma" and went to http://www.apvma.gov.au/news_media/chemicals/atrazine.php, a link that is now dead and also is redirected to http://apvma.gov.au/node/12371. I changed the name of this one to apvma2010 and provided the internet archive link to the page, archived at July 4, 2010 which is here https://web.archive.org/web/20100704154517/http://www.apvma.gov.au/news_media/chemicals/atrazine.php. You both will find that the article content sourced to that site is verified.

That was kind of subtle but all understandable and clear - there was no bad faith editing. Jytdog (talk) 13:47, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Atrazine

Hi hi, You reverted my changes to the Atrazine page. I fixed that reference to the primary source, hopefully this appeases you. It seems you are a sort of watchdog for these big agri companies. For me I work in pediatric genetics. We see a lot of congenital defects that can't be explained by genetics, they are not inherited. In fact perhaps only 30% of the cases are genetic, others are likely to be environmental effects. We know so little about epigenetics, in the centuries to come more and more so, but studies like this should be encouraged. They are continuously squashed by these big agri companies, the very makers of the chemical, but these are the children of our species being affected. I am a novice here and willing to learn, let me know how I can strengthen that addition to the page, because I think that study should be included (and there are more coming showing the same about this herbicide!). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Genomizer (talk • contribs) 18:50, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

OK thanks so much for talking and for bringing this here. I take it you have some medical training, so that is helpful. The following may be a bit bizarre to you, so please bear with me. This is an encyclopedia (see WP:NOT (sorry for that, but there are tons of "policies and guidelines" that govern what we do here; they are documents the community has put together over the years, to govern itself. This is place is not a "wild west" at all) But yeah, we are an encylopedia, not a newspaper, not a science textbook. Our mission is to give reliable, neutral information to the public - to present the sum of human knowledge. Grand, i know. almost crazy. Where does that information come from? It cannot be original research - instead, it has to be something that readers and other editors can verify from what we call "reliable sources". For health related content, "reliable sources" are defined in WP:MEDRS - please give that a read.

But I will summarize it, and the reason why we have it.

So.. everything in WP starts with sources. (so essential! garbage in, garbage out, right?) Every policy and guideline we have, urges editors to rely on secondary sources. We are editors here, not authors. We don't write review articles here... instead we read review articles, and we summarize them here - that is what we do as editors. Again, I am assuming you are familiar with the science and the literature.... and if so, you know that the primary literature - the research papers where people publish their experimental data and their conclusions - is littered with papers that are duds. Scientists working in a given field know their literature - they know what papers led nowhere, or were based on false assumptions, and were left behind, and which ones are the rich veins that lead to deeper understanding. And you know which ones everybody is wondering about. Wikipedia editors don't know that - and even if they do - they cannot make decisions about picking that primary source or this one, based on their own authority - that is original research here! So what we use, are secondary sources.

per MEDRS, secondary sources are review articles from the literature, or statements by major medical or scientific bodies.

So .. I reverted your content b/c the content is about health (as you said) but it is based on a primary source, not a secondary one.

happy to discuss. Jytdog (talk) 19:50, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it most bizarre that you think this page is neutral. And I agree about single papers versus review articles, and the retraction rate is certainly high and seems to be increasing. I suppose I was under the assumption the reader would come to their own conclusions based on peer-reviewed published works, and not be forced to read another potentially biased individuals filtered set of 'secondary sources'. The worries come when the review articles are entirely funded by non-objective entities. That said the page stands out because it doesn't seem neutral, all the articles seem to be in the same vein: in support that this chemical is harmless. I just wondered why so much literature showing the dangers of Atrazine are absent. Why do you think that is? I know you often find yourself defending these corporations, and oddly enough, I rather agree that the GMOs you valiantly defend are harmless to humans when ingested, simply broken down to useful AAs. I think the obvious worry there is ecological, but I digress. I only request that you remain objective on this topic, I am not attacking your company, only want to make sure these papers on the dangers of Atrazine are not overlooked, or worse yet, purposefully removed. So I can happily find more sources, and hopefully they meet all the criteria you have linked here. Genomizer (talk) 20:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

What we do is look at the most recent reviews we can find, and craft content based on them. we do try to be neutral (and btw, please do read WP:NPOV - it does not mean "fair and balanced" - it means that we give the most weight (space and prominence) to what we find to be the mainstream views, less weight to 'significant minority opinions", and we basically keep FRINGE views out. We rely on high quality reviews to tell us that. So really - please look at the sourcing. If there are recent, high quality reviews that are not incorporated, or if you find that we cite the best and most recent reviews, but we skew them, please speak up about about the specific content and sourcing where you see that happening. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 20:45, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

People already believe this page to have been hijacked, and it certainly seems biased. I don't see this as an encyclopedia article, more akin to propaganda. But in all seriousness, these defects are life threatening. I truly do worry about the children affected. Can you help me show their side of the story? What if a single mother started filtering her water to remove this poison, what if a single child could be saved such a defect? I suppose I had a small glimmer of hope that the other side of the story could be told, and the evidence is mounting. This argument is more credible since the EPA has re-opened the review of the effects of this chemical on human health, especially highlighting birth defects. Development is so sensitive! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Genomizer (talk • contribs) 21:05, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

yes the ED controversy is intense and i absolutely understand the worried parent thing. for sure. at the same time, as the lead of WP:MEDRS says, what we don't want to do, is be on the front lines of ringing panic-inducing alarms. I really meant what I said above - really i did. if you are aware of recent reviews that we are not using that show that the risks are stronger than this article expresses them as being, or if the reviews that we are using state the risks more strongly than the current content does, please call those out. Specific things. Please. I mean that. We have been doing the best we can but we may have screwed up. We really do try to follow and be true to the most reliable, recent secondary sources. Jytdog (talk) 21:15, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Please find a review that brings out your issues. Without that, it's tough to argue that the article is out of whack. When such reviews surfaced for glyphosate, their content went into the article. The discussion is intense, but it is not futile. Lfstevens (talk) 06:25, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The lead of the article does currently state that atrazine "was banned in the European Union in 2004 because of persistent groundwater contamination", that "studies suggest it is an endocrine disruptor, an agent that may alter the natural hormonal system in animals" and that "EPA's review was criticized, and atrazine's safety remains controversial". If readers wish to make up their own minds, those statements alone should provoke questions about the EPA's reassurances of safety. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:40, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The page is riddled with primary sources and broken links. It is good that the statements PaleCloudedWhite points out are there, but I did notice the EUs decision was based on contamination AND the association with birth defects; the birth defect part purposefully removed or left out. As yet there are no good reviews, the most recent is in 2012 and entirely funded by the manufacturer, so of absolutely no value. I can only keep an eye on the literature, and keep wondering about these kids we see with choanal atresia and stenosis, living here in the heart of the Atrazine contamination. Time will eventually reveal the truth, I only wonder how our population will be affected. Maybe you are just following your rules, but by defending monsters you become monsters yourselves.Genomizer (talk) 17:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

those are very strong words. i understand that you are very passionate about this. Please do keep in mind that we are an encyclopedia; we follow (quite literally) what reliable secondary sources say; we are not out there "in front" on anything. It would be helpful if you could be more specific, but I'll review the sourcing again myself to fix deadlinks, etc. Thanks again, and thanks for the work you do helping people in the real world. Jytdog (talk) 18:19, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

"but I did notice the EUs decision was based on contamination AND the association with birth defects; the birth defect part purposefully removed or left out.... Maybe you are just following your rules, but by defending monsters you become monsters yourselves."

Before you toss around these sorts of accusations, it would be good to familiarize yourself with the facts. The document announcing the European withdrawal of atrazine explicitly states:

"The overall conclusion of this evaluation, based on the information available and the proposed conditions of use, is that: ...the information available is insufficient to satisfy the requirements set out in Annex II and Annex III Directive 91/414/EEC. In particular the available monitoring data were insufficient to demonstrate that in large areas concentrations of the active substance and its breakdown products will not exceed 0.1 µg/l in groundwater. Moreover it cannot be assured that continued use in other areas will permit a satisfactory recovery of groundwater quality where concentrations already exceed 0.1 µg/l in groundwater." As for teratogenicity, it is not mentioned.

Similarly, the Natural Resources Defense Council characterized the European withdrawal of atrazine as follows:

"The European Union has a uniform limit of 0.1 ppb for the residue of any pesticide in drinking and ground water... Based on the inability to keep water contamination below this level, European regulators announced a ban on atrazine use in October 2003,13 one week before the U.S. EPA approved its continued use."

Monsters? Perhaps, but at least ones that know how to read. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI statement} 21:36, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

primary

Gandydancer please don't add science-based content based on primary sources. i reverted this. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 12:34, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Effects on insects are not yet well-studied and there are no reviews. It is my understanding that primary sources may be used if used properly and with care. Please give me a link to info that states otherwise. Thanks. Gandydancer (talk) 12:48, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

this herbicide has been around for ~50 years. it is hard to believe there are no reviews... i'll look some. i started looking at existing refs and found a dead link.. will stay on this - should have something soon. Jytdog (talk) 13:15, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

4 reviews in pubmed Jytdog (talk) 13:21, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm really getting tired of being treated as though I just joined up yesterday or am a student editor...or am just plain stupid. I'm weary of your instructions on how to work as a team or what policy says. Or to use good faith. You reverted my edit six minutes after I entered it - certainly a knee jerk reaction since you obviously did not have time to look into it - with instructions re primary sources as though I would not be aware of our science editing guidelines. Then when I said there are no reviews you came right back with oh there must be. The reviews you have offered are worthless for the insects section. Always saying please and thanks does not make editing with you a pleasant task at all - in fact quite the opposite. I work for free here and would like to find editing more enjoyable and less of an irritation, which as of late seems to happen when you're around. I tried to put off coming back to this article to wait for a time that I could edit with less irritation, but I see that I've come off with a rant regardless. Gandydancer (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

In this instance, I wouldn't consider the findings of primary studies appropriate. Reviews are really needed for toxicological literature for various reasons like assessing study design, weighting the actual findings, etc. Primary sources’ intended audience is other scientists who are expected to judge just that. We can’t do that here as editors. Whether insects are just not well-studied in this topic or just simply aren’t covered in reviews seems to indicate lack of noteworthiness in this topic. I'll do a bit more digging on potential leads on sources (FYI, this topic is entirely outside my little niche) as non-target effects on insects is a big field in entomology. If it's actually noteworthy, this isn't exactly a field where we'd need to be scraping for sources. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:52, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

gandy i am sorry that you think a single study on tox means anything. there is nothing i can do about what you believe. but yes basing tox content on primary sources, is not OK - we have been having this conversation for a long time now.Jytdog (talk) 20:38, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we have been having this conversation for a long time now. I have waited for a week but I have not heard any further from Kingofaces. Looking back I note that Formerly 98 added an old (2004) primary fathead minnow study that contradicted the US Geological study, and on 2/4/15 he "[expanded it] to give equal weight". On that date he also removed the recent beetle study that had been in the article for some time (that he had actually even edited to add some material that was IMO too technical and not helpful for the general reader) noting that it was a primary and we needed to wait for a review. Since I didn't hear even a peep from either of you, I assume that he had your approval for those edits. What gives? I'm all for following the guidelines, but let's do it in a fair and responsible manner. Since when do we add an old 2004 primary study for "balance" to a recent US government agency study and yet delete others that have found that atrazine may have harmful effects? I'm going to mention this sourcing problem on Sarah's talk page since I know that she has a lot of sourcing expertise. Gandydancer (talk) 14:15, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

thanks for pointing those out. i just removed them. this is not a strictly MEDRS discussion (there is no consensus to apply MEDRS to animals) so it is not really relevant to her concern about MEDRS abuse, but take it where ever you like. i am unlikely to respond there. Jytdog (talk) 14:29, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Gandydancer, what exactly were you waiting for me to reply to here that I haven't mentioned above? For the rest of your comment, I've noticed some primary sources that do appear problematic from the standpoint I take with scientific sourcing (the dueling primaries Jytdog removed was one and was a good move I think), but I just didn't plan on bringing them up at that time (limited time and other articles on my to-do list I'd prefer to focus on first). There was enough contentious stuff going on at the time too that I didn't want to wade into more issues, so that's pretty much why I let it be for the time being. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:41, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Gandy, I apologize for the bad edit. I've been (honestly) a little confused about how/if we are using primary sources in this article, and it sounds like I was inconsistent. It was not deliberate. In the aftermath of Jytdog's edits, the article still consists of roughly 30% primary sources. Given the lack of systematic reviews in the subject area, it may be that dualing primary studies is the best we can do here else the article will become thin indeed. For example, I don't think we have secondary sources for any of the Haye's work, and the article clearly would not be complete without mention of that. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI statement} 14:47, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

On reviews, I entirely forgot about this conversation earlier. We do have some reviews to pull from, so it might be worthwhile to give those a look again. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:51, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm glad I am not the only one confused about whether to use primary sources or not, whether WP:MEDRS applies to animals or not. Coincidentally, I have recently written an essay specifically related to primary and secondary sources in biology.Wikipedia talk:Identifying primary and secondary sources for biology articles. It has not even been up for 24 hrs yet, so is well in it's infancy, but it might help us to sort out the primary/secondary issue.DrChrissy ^(talk) 14:58, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Gandy asked me to comment here on this edit based on this 2015 source from the Journal of Insect Physiology. The abstract says: "This study suggests that atrazine exposure affects male reproductive performance in insects and future studies should aim to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the fitness effects of exposure."

I don't know anything about the particular issue and can't judge. Regarding primary sources in general, they're allowed on WP (including in articles needing MEDRS), and for certain issues, particularly in history articles, are the best sources to use so long as you're aware of the pitfalls. When it comes to individual studies in science, the danger is that they're not in any way representative or reproducible, and so what weight to give them is a problem, which is why they're best avoided. This unfortunately has the effect that WP is often out of date, but the alternative is that articles would contain whatever conclusions the authors of single studies had reached. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 03:54, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe this 2011 Journal manuscript helps explain some of the problem? [7] Atsme☯^Consult 22:53, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that elephant has been in the room for several days now and I'm not sure how much longer before that. Gandydancer (talk) 00:27, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Not an elephant, just a Tyrone!. Haye's viewpoint definitely deserves to be in the article, but it is controversial. It should be given appropriate weight, but his conclusions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. We have a secondary source that calls both Hayes and Syngenta's studies "biased". If anything, we need to attribute some of the material in the article in which Haye's conclusions are currently stated in Wikipedia's voice Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|Proud of my new COI} 01:22, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, all that and more...very shady stuff...and no surprise that it would spill over into Wikipedia. Gandydancer (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Gandydancer, not sure if the following will prove helpful in this situation, but it is a post by MastCell regarding this very subject, so I would think it should carry some weight here, too: Mixing primary and 2ndary April 20, 2015 Atsme☯^Consult 18:05, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Eu groundwater

Hi Wuerzele - you fixed a ref with this link in this dif. I found that link too. Can you please tell me where on that page it says anything about the content it is used to support, namely "It was banned in the European Union in 2004 because of persistent groundwater contamination"? I didn't find it there. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 01:38, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I merely undid your removal of sourced content and did not change the sentence that has been here for a long time.the link points to the rule ,which mentions ground water concerns in numerous spots. --Wuerzele (talk) 02:30, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

can you please be more specific as to how the content in the website supports the claim? i really didn't see it. (if what you are saying is that some regulations are cited, i am sure those regulations cite many things, not just groundwater..... right?) thanks. Jytdog (talk) 02:36, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

actually i found the directive where they delisted in march 2004 - it is here. i cited that instead. thanks! Jytdog (talk) 02:55, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

actually, re "i cited that instead": not quite. you inserted the delisting link instead of a third EC ref, and you deleted the European Chemicals Agency Database link I inserted. So neither your comment above, nor your edit summary are accurate.

re "i am sure those regulations cite many things, not just groundwater..... right?" sounds a bit like wp:bait. as someone on the WP: COIN you know all too well that any editor must read a source instead of guessing it. Otherwise, it looks to me like an attempt to distract from the fact that you inserted the new york Times as a reference. The doublestandard being, that you have reverted me, when I used newspaper sources on WP:MEDRS topics like this.

In the next edit you summarized "make lead match body on reason for ban in EU; cite NYT there which is accessible and clear". That is plainly inaccurate. The sentense you inserted "when the EU found that the data provided by the manufacturer was insufficient to show that groundwater and soil contamination would not exceed acceptable limits under the intended uses for atrazine" is not found in the NYT , and it is not "accessible and clear".--Wuerzele (talk) 03:04, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

jytdog did not respond to this.--Wuerzele (talk) 01:35, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog deleted the source of the European Chemicals Agency"European Chemicals Agency, Chemical Information for Atrazine". Retrieved 2015-04-28. that now a second time without discussing why. In conjunction with supplying dishonest edit summaries to Wikipedia fellow editors, we find this particulary disturbing. This appears to be an attempt to suppress a perfectly good source.--Wuerzele (talk) 01:02, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I have said why.

• I initially removed it b/c it was a dead link
• in a series of edits I added a new ref to the directive that actually banned atrazine, and replaced the database link you found, which has no content about the ban, as i described here and here, and used the NYT ref and the new EU directive reference to support the lead. Yes things were a bit jumbled, but it was plenty clear.

Misrepresenting what other editors say or do is a violation of WP:TPG - please stop. Jytdog (talk) 01:10, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

we find wikilawyering, not seeking consensus. we find threatening an editor who speaks the truth shining light on several dishonest edit summaries, not jumbled. how many violated WP rules are that ? you should stop´´ throwing stones sitting in the glasshouse. --Wuerzele (talk) 01:43, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

and now that jytdog is out of reversals fellow editor KINGOFACES is dropping from the sky as usual, reverting me for trivia. what a coincidence ! trying to thwart any changes that may in any way be critical to the product? --Wuerzele (talk) 22:20, 1 May 2015 (UTC)