Let’s take action to ban atrazine!

Did you know that your corn may have been sprayed with atrazine, a pesticide that has been linked to sterility in frogs and could affect your health?

Atrazine is a synthetic herbicide that is among the most widely used pesticides in Quebec, mainly for weed control in corn farming. However, this pesticide is hazardous to the environment, so much so that it has been banned in the European Union since 2004.

Knowing that:

• Atrazine is one of the pesticides most frequently detected in surface waters in Quebec: it has been found in 98% of the samples taken from rivers in corn-growing areas by the ministère du Développement durable, de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques.
• Atrazine has a range of impacts on living organisms:
  • The herbicide is known to affect the endocrine system, which means that it can have an impact on the hormonal balance of an organism, therefore potentially affecting its growth, development and reproduction, for example.
  • Little epidemiological data exists regarding the effects of atrazine on human reproduction and development. However, a study lead by a researcher of the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale of France suggest that maternal exposure to atrazine may have an effect on the weight and head circumference of newborn infants.
  • Children are more vulnerable to atrazine exposure, due to the role that the endocrine system plays in their development.
  • Atrazine has adverse effects on amphibians. For example, a 2010 study at the University of California, Berkeley, found that after exposure to atrazine, 10% of adult male frogs displayed female sexual characteristics and 75% became sterile (chemical castration).

I’m signing to ban atrazine!

I’m taking action and am calling on the provincial government to protect the public and ban the sale and use of atrazine.

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