Another Facebook Image…About Science!

So the newest image on facebook features a quote by Tyrone Hayes, a biologist who fought against the over usage of pesticides and other chemicals that would potentially cause harmful effects to health. The quote is as follows:

“The secret to a happy, successful life of paranoia is to keep careful track of your persecutors.”

Now, I’m doing some reading up on Tyrone Hayes and I found some pretty interesting information about Tyrone, his research, and his advocacy against pesticides.

Taken from Tyrone Hayes Wiki.

“A long running conflict between Hayes and agricultural chemical manufacturer Syngenta was described as “one of the weirdest feuds in the history of science,” by Dashka Slater it in her 2012 profile of Hayes in Mother Jones magazine.

In 2014, New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv reported that Syngenta might have been orchestrating an attack not only on Hayes’ scientific credibility, but on other scientists as well whose studies have shown atrazine to have adverse effects on the environment and/or human and animal health.”

Going further heres some information about Atrazine:

“Atrazine is an herbicide of the triazine class. Atrazine is used to prevent pre- and postemergence broadleaf weeds in crops such as maize (corn) and sugarcane and on turf, such as golf courses and residential lawns. It is one of the most widely used herbicides in US and Australian agriculture. It was banned in the European Union in 2004, when the EU found groundwater levels exceeding the limits set by regulators, and Syngenta could neither show that this could be prevented nor that these levels were safe.

As of 2001, atrazine was the most commonly detected pesticide contaminating drinking water in the United States.42 Studies suggest it is an endocrine disruptor, an agent that can alter the natural hormonal system. In 2006 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had stated that under the Food Quality Protection Act “the risks associated with the pesticide residues pose a reasonable certainty of no harm”, and in 2007, the EPA said that atrazine does not adversely affect amphibian sexual development and that no additional testing was warranted. EPA´s 2009 review concluded that “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.” EPA started a registration review in 2013.

The EPA’s review has been criticized, and the safety of atrazine remains controversial.”

TL;DR
Tyrone Hayes fought against the usage of Atrazine, a pesticide that upon research, he discovered was causing various cancers, and harmed the reproductive systems in frogs and potentially humans. The research has been attempted to be debunked, but the effects of Atrazine are still open for discussion.

Oh and one of the people in the image looks vaguely like me and thanks to @mike, I can’t unsee it and it’s super creeping me out

Discuss?

• This topic was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by  JoeKaye.