" why don't we follow the EU, representative of the oldest and wisest Western societies, and apply the precautionary principle to all human activities?". The EU, representative of the wisest Western societies? Romania? Malta? Spain? Portugal? Slovenia? Bulgaria? Italy? Greece? Cyprus?
"the researchers found a strong association between the increased number of birth defects in children of women whose last menstrual period occurred in April, May, June or July and elevated levels of nitrates, atrazine and other pesticides in surface water during the same months"
I am sure the researchers would also have found a strong association between the increased number of birth defects in children of women whose last menstrual period occurred in April, May, June or July and increased consumption of icecream and diet drinks during the same months.

The previous poster highlighted the fact that correlation is no evidence of causation and I wish to highlight this again.

The comparison of the 40 ppb dietary intake with the 2ppb who standard for water is an apples and oranges comparison. These numbers have different uses and with the style of studies for safety of atrazine and other chemicals, the setting of a standard for total dietary intake is the more astute regulatory system.

Caution is also needed in interpreting overseas studies on atrazine mobility in soils. Australian studies have shown far less mobility than have been reported overseas.

The harping on the source of data for regulatory decisions seems to ignore the availability of alternative sources of collaborative data and the risk to a corporation of submitting incorrect data, even inadvertently, of having all there sales suspended with the likely result of the company being bankrupted.

Some intellectual sleight of hand here, when Kellie actually mentions the guideline value for Australia being the same as the EU (which it is), and then proceeding to show how it actually wasn't, even when the WHO guidelines do not mention the "health value" or even a recommended maximum allowable limit.

Th APVMA ahs a FAQ sheet:
http://www.apvma.gov.au/chemrev/downloads/atrazine_faq.pdf

Somewhat different to what Kellie was arguing.

But the most ironic thing in this is that the continued use of Atrazine has been championed by anti-GM campaigners in the face of a demonstrably far less toxic alternative, glyphosate. Julie Newman, a well known anti-GM campaigner, has been quite an advocate of the use of Atrazine.

Hi
This is an important article. It shows the folly of spraying poisons on our food. I am an anti-GM campaigner and I do not support the use of pesticides. The whole development of the current extremely flawed food system explains why some farmers use pesticides to grow broadacre crops. There are other ways to grow crops but farmers need to be supported to change. Currently they are supported to use chemicals.

The folly of this can be shown by reading the site linked to the book "Our Stolen Future" http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/Basics/bookbasics.htm This explains how we are all affected by the addiction to chemicals. Health, behaviour, fertility and intelligence are potentially all affected.
Best wishes
Lillian

Kellie, is reading comprehension not your strong suit? Australia has two guidelines for atrazine for two different purposes. The 0.1 ppb guideline value is to alert water companies to the potential of contamination. The 40 ppb value is what is considered a level of concern for health. Put simply, water with between 0.1 ppb and 40 ppb is not considered of concern for health, but water companies should identify and eliminate sources of contamination. I think this is the precautionary principle applied.

The reason atrazine's registration was withdrawn in the EU is because people in Europe drink ground water. People in Australia, for the most part, don't. Of much more concern in Australia is atrazine in river systems and dams and the APVMA has changed the registration to reduce this risk.

The association between pesticides in surface water and birth defects in the paper cited are very slight. Odds ratios for 11 of 22 birth defects looked at were between 1.006 and 1.027 (an average increase in risk of 0.6% to 2.7%). The other 11 birth defects did not show an association. Of the ones that did, the odds ratio was different to 1.0 in only 4. So for 4 out of 22 birth defects, a greater risk was identified. You would expect 1 of these differences to turn up by chance. The conclusion, there is a weak association between atrazine in surface water and 4 birth defects in the US that might increase the risk of birth defects by less than 3%. Presumably the good news is that as atrazine use in the US has gone down in the last decade, the risks of these birth defects will have declined as well.

Is it relevant to Australia? Probably not. Australia uses much less atrazine than the US, so concentrations in surface water are less.

"This explains how we are all affected by the addiction to chemicals."
I agree completely Lillian: let's get rid of chlorine in our water supplies.