HOLLOW WEENIES
EPA Won't Restrict Use of Potentially Harmful Weed Killer

Talk about scary stuff: On Oct. 31, as people across the U.S. were
getting ready to don costumes and pass out Halloween candy, the Bush
administration announced that it would not impose new restrictions on
the commonly used herbicide atrazine, which has been associated with
low sperm counts and prostate cancer in men and sex-organ deformities
in frogs. The European Union recently decided to ban atrazine, but
the U.S. EPA said on Friday that it saw no grounds for restricting
the chemical's use. The agency did announce a new plan for testing a
handful of waterways for atrazine, but that testing will be done by
the primary manufacturer of the chemical, Syngenta, a large
agribusiness company. "Instead of requiring a polluter to stop
polluting, EPA is cutting a deal with the corporation to let them off
the hook," said Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Emily Green, 01 Nov 2003