NEWS
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
TYRONE HAYES
ATRAZINE
WARS
Scientist Tyrone Hayes
speaks in Eugene
S
cientist Tyrone Hayes reels off the list of effects
on amphibians, rats and humans that he and
other researchers have linked to the chemical
atrazine. They include breast cancer, prostate
cancer, decreased sperm counts, impaired fertil-
ity, a reduction in masculine features and abortion in
pregnant rats exposed to the chemical, to name a few.
Atrazine is one of the pesticides found in the urine of
dozens of residents, including children, of rural Triangle
Lake, just west of Eugene.
Hayes, who will be coming to University of Oregon,
Eugene as well as Triangle Lake next week to give sev-
eral talks, is an amphibian developmental endocrinolo-
gist, a Harvard grad and a professor in the Department of
Integrative Biology at Berkeley with a long list of publica-
tions in scientific journals. And, thanks to his research, he
is persona non grata to chemical giant Syngenta, atra-
zine’s developer.
Residents of Triangle Lake have long complained
about the effects of aerial pesticide sprays that they say
drift onto their houses and farms and into their water and
their bodies. It wasn’t until 41 of the residents had their
own urine tested by Dana Barr of Emory University —
who found atrazine and 2,4-D, two chemicals commonly
sprayed in forestry applications — that the state began to
investigate.
While the Oregon Health Authority has found that
residents were exposed to these chemicals, according to
the Highway 36 Exposure Investigation’s 2013 public
health assessment, “We are unable to determine if the
levels of atrazine metabolites found in participants’ urine
in the spring of 2011 indicate harm to health. Unlike 2,4-
D, there is no reference value for the atrazine metabolites
tested for in participants’ urine.”
The investigation was also unable to test for other pes-
ticides as the state says it could not find a lab capable of
doing that and was “unable to determine the health effects
of exposure to multiple pesticides at low doses.”
Hayes’ work allows state and federal agencies to better
understand the possible effects on human health by
chemicals such as atrazine. In 1997, Hayes was asked by
Syngenta to conduct experiments on the herbicide atra-
zine, but when his research on frogs began to show that
the chemical causes abnormal sexual development — a
decrease in testosterone, hermaphroditism especially in
males — he says the work was slowed down by a lack of
disbursement of funds.
Hayes tells EW that Syngenta was “not too enthused by
the work,” and it tried to manipulate his data and gag his
research. He then began to conduct his research on atra-
FRIDAY, OCT. 24
City Club of Eugene, “A Second Silent
Spring?” Downtown Athletic Club, noon. $5
nonmembers.
Panel discussion with Elizabeth Reis,
Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies,
“Nature in Doubt: Intersex in a Chemical Era,”
3 pm, 250 Clinical Services Bldg., UO. FREE.
Convocation Keynote Address: “From Silent
Spring to Silent Night: Of Toads and Men” 7 pm,
182 Lillis, UO. FREE
SATURDAY, OCT. 25
“Witness To Action Assembly: Putting
Chemical Trespass On Oregon’s Agenda” bus
tour and assembly, Triangle Lake Grange, box
lunch provided, FREE, advance reservation
required at beyondtoxics.org/TyroneHayes
Hayes’s visit is a joint effort between Beyond
Toxics and the UO Environmental Studies.
zine independently of Syngenta. He says the company
tried to discredit his work, hired other scientists to do
“poorly conducted studies” and “eventually that spiraled
into the company actually threatening me and even mak-
ing threats of violence against my family.”
Hayes had long suspected Syngenta was targeting him.
He says court documents have revealed an orchestrated
multimillion-dollar campaign against him: Syngenta
hacked his email, tried to purchase his name on the inter-
net, hired scientists, pundits and PR people to link him to
scandals, “storybook stuff out of movies.”
A February 2014 piece in The New Yorker delved into
Syngenta’s attacks. The court documents used in the
article came from a class-action lawsuit in the Midwest
that Syngenta settled for $105 million for the costs of fil-
tering atrazine from drinking water, though the company
denies all wrongdoing.
While Syngenta points to studies — some of them
which the company funded — that show atrazine is safe,
other studies such as “Case-Control Study of Maternal
Atrazine Exposure and Male Genital Malformations” in
the American Journal of Medical Genetics show it is
linked to a small penis, hypospadias (the penis opens in
the wrong place) and cryptorchidism (undescended testi-
cles).
Hayes didn’t take Syngenta’s targeting lying down.
One thing he did was send emails to the company using
hip-hop lyrics:
“aww shucks … i’m bouta handle my biz right now
see you bucked … wondering … ‘what it is right
now?’
ya outa’ luck … bouta show you how it is right now
see you’re ****ed … (i didn’t pull out) and ya fulla
my j*z right now!”
Hayes, who is African American, says, “They attacked
me personally, and part of that attack was to try to make
me feel isolated and try to make me feel what many
minorities, professionals and otherwise, feel — this idea
of you don’t belong and of course your work is wrong.
You are not smart enough. You are not good enough.”
That line of attack didn’t work, Hayes says. “The mis-
take they made was I’ve been dealing with this all my life
… this is something that I was over. I’m confident in who I
am and where I am.” He used hip-hop rhymes because “I
could express myself in my own way. … No matter what, my
science was still good, the language of science is the lan-
guage of science, and I can express that however I want.”
The emails “confused them a little bit,” Hayes laughs.
“I think my response was one where they went ‘Whoa
shit, what do we do with this guy now?’”
The residents of Triangle Lake and other rural com-
munities around Oregon have also faced attempts to dis-
credit them or discourage them from getting answers
about the chemicals being sprayed in the area. “I think
solidarity is important, connecting with other groups is
important,” Hayes says. “If you are a smaller group, con-
nect with larger groups.”
He says the type of campaign Syngenta waged against
him is “sometimes a hard thing to believe,” but, according
to Hayes, for Syngenta “this is an attack on their lifestyle
and how they make their money.” Syngenta, the world’s
largest maker of crop chemicals, reported a net profit for
2013 of $1.64 billion. “I think there’s no end to what they
would do,” he adds.
Though he has been outspoken on getting the word out
about the effects of atrazine, Hayes says it does not affect
his objectivity as a scientist. “There are side effects and
you should be informed and aware,” he says, calling his
research an informed opinion.
“You can decide whether or not you want to take
Tylenol,” he says, “but right now you don’t have control
over atrazine in your water.” Making sure people know
about his atrazine research is “not a loss of objectivity, it’s
a sense of responsibility.”
As part of Hayes’ visit to Eugene, he will participate
in a “Witness to Action” bus tour to Triangle Lake with
participants from communities around Oregon affected
by pesticide sprays. ■
eugeneweekly.com • October 23, 2014
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