Friday, February
21, 2014, Democracy Now
Introduction to interview--We speak with scientist
Tyrone Hayes of the University of California , Berkeley ,
who discovered a widely used herbicide may have harmful effects on the
endocrine system. But when he tried to publish the results, the chemical’s
manufacturer launched a campaign to discredit his work. Hayes was first hired
in 1997 by a company, which later became agribusiness giant Syngenta, to study
their product, atrazine, a pesticide that is applied to more than half the corn
crops in the United States, and widely used on golf courses and Christmas tree
farms. When Hayes found results Syngenta did not expect — that atrazine causes
sexual abnormalities in frogs, and could cause the same problems for humans —
it refused to allow him to publish his findings. A new article in The New
Yorker magazine uses court documents from a class action lawsuit against
Syngenta to show how it sought to smear Hayes’ reputation and prevent the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency from banning the profitable chemical, which is
already banned by the European Union.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its
final form.
For the full 50 minute interview video go
to http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/21/silencing_the_scientist_tyrone_hayes_on#
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now we turn to the story of a University of California scientist who discovered that
a popular herbicide may have harmful effects on the endocrine system. Tyrone
Hayes was first hired in 1997 by a company that later became agribusiness giant
Syngenta. They asked him to study their product, atrazine, a pesticide that is
applied to more than half the corn crops in the United States and widely used on
golf courses and Christmas tree farms. But after Hayes found results that the
manufacturer did not expect, that atrazine causes sexual abnormalities in frogs
and could cause the same problems for humans, Syngenta refused to allow him to
publish his work. This was the the start of an epic feud between the scientist
and the corporation.
AMY GOODMAN: Now a new article in The New Yorker magazine uses court
documents from a class action lawsuit against Syngenta to show how it sought to
prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from banning the profitable
chemical, which is already banned by the European Union. To start with, the
company’s public relations team drafted a list of four goals. Reporter Rachel
Aviv writes, quote, "The first was [quote] 'discredit Hayes.' In a
spiral-bound notebook, Syngenta’s communications manager, Sherry Ford, who
referred to Hayes by his initials, wrote that the company could 'prevent citing
of TH data by revealing him as noncredible.' He was a frequent topic of
conversation at company meetings. Syngenta looked for ways to 'exploit Hayes'
faults/problems.’ 'If TH involved in scandal, enviros will drop him,' Ford
wrote."
Well, for more, we’re joined by TH himself. That’s
right, Tyrone Hayes is with us, professor of integrative biology at the University of California ,
Berkeley , joining us from the campus TV station
right now in Berkeley .
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you tell us what
happened to you, how you were originally tied to Syngenta, the research you
did, and what prevented you from originally publishing it?
TYRONE HAYES: Well, here at Berkeley , I was a new assistant professor. I
was already studying the effects of hormones and the effects of chemicals that
interfere with hormones on amphibian development. And I was approached by the
manufacturer and asked to study the effects of atrazine, the herbicide, on
frogs. And after I discovered that it interfered with male development and
caused males to turn into females, to develop eggs, the company tried to
prevent me from publishing and from discussing that work with other scientists
outside of their panel.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What was the process within the
company? As you raised your findings, what was their immediate reaction to what
you had come across?
TYRONE HAYES: Well, initially they seemed sort of
supportive. You know, we designed more studies. We designed more analysis. And
they encouraged me to do more analysis. But as the further analysis just
supported the original finding, they became less interested in moving forward
very quickly, and eventually they moved to asking me to manipulate data or to
misrepresent data, and ultimately they told me I could not publish or could not
talk about the data outside of their closed panel.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Professor Hayes, talk about exactly
what you found. What were the abnormalities you found in frogs, the
gender-bending nature of this drug atrazine?
TYRONE HAYES: Well, initially, we found that the
larynx, or the voice box, in exposed males didn’t grow properly. And this was
an indication that the male hormone testosterone was not being produced at
appropriate levels. And eventually we found that not only were these males
demasculinized, or chemically castrated, but they also were starting to develop
ovaries or starting to develop eggs. And eventually we discovered that these
males didn’t breed properly, that some of the males actually completely turned
into females. So we had genetic males that were laying eggs and reproducing as
females. And now we’re starting to show that some of these males actually show,
I guess what we’d call homosexual behavior. They actually prefer to mate with
other males.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, where did you go with your
research?
TYRONE HAYES: Well, eventually, what happened was the
EPA insisted that—the Environmental Protection Agency insisted that the
manufacturer release me from the confidentiality contract. And we published our
findings in pretty high-ranking journals, such as Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences. We published some work in Nature. We published work in
Environmental Health Perspectives, which is a journal sponsored by the National
Institutes of Health.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And when did you begin to get a sense
that the company was organizing a campaign against you? What were the signs
that you saw post the period when you published your findings?
TYRONE HAYES: Before we published the findings and
before the EPA became involved, the company tried to purchase the data. They
tried to give me a new contract so that they would then control the data and
the experiments. They actually tried to get me to come and visit the company to
get control of those data. And when I refused, I invited them to the
university, I offered to share data, but they wanted to purchase the data. And
then they actually—as mentioned in the New Yorker article, they actually hired
scientists to try to refute the data or to pick apart the data, and eventually
they hired scientists to do experiments that they claim refuted our data.
And then that escalated to the company actually—Tim
Pastoor, in particular, and others from the company—coming to presentations
that—or lectures that I was giving, to make handouts or to stand up and refute
the data, and eventually even led to things like threats of violence. Tim
Pastoor, for example, before I would give a talk, would literally threaten,
whisper in my ear that he could have me lynched, or he would—quote, said he
would "send some of his good ol’ boys to show me what it’s like to be
gay," or at one point he threatened my wife and my daughter with sexual
violence. He would whisper things like, "Your wife’s at home alone right
now. How do you know I haven’t sent somebody there to take care of her? Isn’t
your daughter there?" So, eventually, it really slipped into some, you
know, pretty scary tactics.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what did you do? I mean, you’re
actually—I mean, this is very serious. You could bring criminal charges if
you’re being threatened and stalked in this way.
TYRONE HAYES: Well, initially, I went to my vice
chancellor here at the university. I went to my dean. I went to legal counsel
here at the university. And I was told by legal counsel that—well, I was told,
first of all, by the vice chancellor for research at the time that, "Well,
you published the work. It’s over. So I don’t understand what the problem
is." And I tried to impress upon her, Beth Burnside, at the time that—you
know, that it wasn’t over, that I was really being pursued by the manufacturer.
And eventually, when I spoke with the lawyer here at the University, I was told
that, "Well, I represent the university, and I protect the university from
liability. You’re kind of on your own." And I remember I looked at him,
and I said, "But the very university, from the Latin universitas, is a collection
of scholars, of teachers and students, so who is this entity, the university,
that you represent that doesn’t include me?" But clearly there’s some
entity that doesn’t really include us, the professors and students, and doesn’t
really protect our academic freedom, I think, the way that it should.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about one of your
critics, Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and
Health. When The New York Times ran a critical story about the herbicide as
part of its toxic water series in 2009, she referred to its reporting as,
quote, "all the news that’s fit to scare." This is a clip of Whelan
from an interview on MSNBC.
ELIZABETH WHELAN: I very much disagree with the New
York Times story, which is really raising concerns about a totally bogus risk.
Atrazine has been used for more than 50 years. It’s very, very tightly
regulated. Even the Environmental Protection Agency, which is not known for
soft-pedaling about environmental chemicals, even they say it’s safe.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, it turns out that Syngenta has
been a long-term financial supporter of Whelan’s organization, the American
Council on Science and Health, paying them at least $100,000. Your comments on
her remarks?
TYRONE HAYES: Well, again, they’re paid remarks. And
one of the most disheartening things in this whole process is that many of my
critics—you know, it’s one to be academic, if you come and say, "Well, we
interpreted the data this way, and we want to argue about this point," but
these people really didn’t even have an opinion. These opinions were written by
the manufacturer, and they were paid to put their names on them, to endorse the
opinions of the manufacturer. So, you know, that’s one of the most
disheartening things, that they were really just personalities for sale.
And many of the things that she’s saying there is just
not true. There are—any independent study, from any scientist that’s not funded
by Syngenta, has found similar problems with atrazine, not just my work on
frogs. But I’ve just published a paper with 22 scientists from around the
world, from 12 different countries, who have shown that atrazine causes sexual
problems in mammals, that atrazine causes sexual problems in birds, amphibians,
fish. So it’s not just my work in amphibians.
And also, with regards to the EPA, one of the
scientific advisory panel members on the EPA that was supposed to review
atrazine turns out is paid and works for Syngenta. So the whole process was
tainted. And, in fact, the EPA ignored the scientific advisory panel’s opinion
and actually decided to keep atrazine on the market and not to do any more
studies, when that clearly wasn’t the recommendation of the scientific advisory
panel.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to go back just a second to
your remarks about your university, because obviously there are many questions
about major universities around the country being, in some way or other,
supported financially by the pharmaceutical or the drug industry. But you are
at a prestigious university, one of the top universities in the country, at Berkeley . Do you have
some concerns about how your university responded to your—in your time of need,
and the attack on your academic integrity?
TYRONE HAYES: Well, they’re not just my concerns.
There are many at the university who fear that the university is just becoming
a corporation. You know, we’re a public university that used to get a lot more
support from the state. In my lifetime, tuition was free for students. Tuition
has been rising. And it’s really an effort to monetize things, and that
includes scientific researchers. There’s a lot of pressure on us not just to be
scholars and to teach and to do research, but also to bring in funds that will
support the university. So there’s some sentiment from the university that if
you are raising a concern potentially that might cause the university to lose
support or to lose funders, then you won’t necessarily get the support on the
campus that you need. And we’ve seen this over and over again. A colleague of
mine, Ignacio Chapela, for example, was in a fairly huge battle over the same
company, Novartis, and its influences over scientific research at the
university.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of
Syngenta? First of all, is it a significant presence at the university, at UC
Berkeley? But also, the significance of Syngenta as a pesticide company and all
that it makes, how powerful is it?
TYRONE HAYES: Well, when they were—when I was
originally consulting for the manufacturer, they were Novartis at the time. And
Novartis had a big influence on the campus. There was a major deal on the
campus. I understand a fifth of the biological sciences’ support was coming
from Novartis. And at the time, they both made pesticides, and they made
pharmaceuticals.
One of my big concerns is that, as of the year
2000—prior to the year 2000, Novartis not only made atrazine, which is used on
corn, of course, which is an herbicide, but it also induces an enzyme called
aromatase. It causes you to make too much estrogen. And it’s now been shown
that this herbicide, atrazine, and this mechanism, is potentially involved in
development of breast cancer, for example. Up until 2000, the company also made
a chemical called letrozole, which did exactly the opposite: It blocked aromatase,
it blocked this enzyme, it blocked estrogen production. And this chemical,
letrozole, is the number one treatment for breast cancer. So this company was
simultaneously in 2000 making a chemical that induced estrogen and promoted
breast cancer, and making a chemical that blocked estrogen production and was
being used to treat breast cancer. So there’s a clear conflict of interest
there, a clear problem.
The other problems are that something like 90 percent
of the seeds that we use to produce our food right now are owned by the big six
pesticide companies. So, again, there’s a conflict of interest where the
companies have an interest in, I guess, getting us addicted to the pesticides,
to grow the seeds that they also own. And Syngenta, of course, is one of those
big six, one of the big pesticide or agribusiness companies.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And a New Yorker that delves into your
story also says that you came to find out that the company was also reading
your emails. Could you talk about that?
TYRONE HAYES: Well, I originally—I had some suspicion
that they had hacked into my email. And originally found out—there was a
professor at Minnesota, and I was going there to give a big lecture, and this
professor in the School of Public Health, Deb Dubenofsky, said that she
happened to be standing in line at the airport, flying back to Minnesota, and
just by coincidence she was standing behind somebody who was having a
conversation on his cellphone and who identified himself as an employee of
Syngenta, and he made the statement, "We have access to his email. We know
where he is at all times." So it wasn’t just paranoia on my part. I had
direct evidence that they had access to my email. And at the time, I maintained
a second and a third email that I could keep private, and I actually used that
information, that they had access to my email, to send them information, and
sometimes false information—for example, booking plane tickets through that
email, because then I could sent them to the wrong place, so they wouldn’t
necessarily be there to follow me when I was going to speak in other places.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, Professor Hayes, this is stunning
stuff that came out in this class action suit. The suit wasn’t brought by you,
but the documents that came out that referenced you, Tyrone Hayes, TH, and
trying to discredit you, trying to discredit your family, talk—that was a
lawsuit that involved atrazine contaminating water supplies.
TYRONE HAYES: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: But what was your reaction when you saw
this? You suspected this. You felt you were being followed. You felt you
were—they were trying to discredit you. But now you had the documents.
TYRONE HAYES: Well, you know, it’s funny. You know,
the way the article reads, that I suspected—I mean, I knew. I knew Tim Pastoor.
I knew Sherry Ford. I knew many of the individuals who would follow me around.
I knew who they were. I knew they had access to my email. You know, so, for me,
I knew that these things were happening. This guy would directly come up and
make lewd comments to me and threatening comments to me. But it was the kind of
thing where, you know, it sounded like something out of a movie. I couldn’t go
and tell my colleagues, like, "They’re following me around, and, you know,
they’re hacking into my email"—
AMY GOODMAN: Did you record?
TYRONE HAYES: —because I would look crazy.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you put on a tape recorder?
TYRONE HAYES: You know, what I found—here’s how I’ll
answer that question. What I found out, that it was much more powerful for me
to suggest and have them think that I recorded everything than for them to
actually know what I recorded. And that actually became sort of my protection.
So, when this guy came up and threatened me and threatened my wife, to then go
back and go, "Oh, my god, did he record that or not?" So, it was much
more powerful for me to have them think that. But you can see in their
handwritten notes that they were very concerned that I was recording
conversations. There’s notes that they wanted to trap me, to entice me to sue,
and these kinds of things.
And my reaction now, to see it all in The New Yorker
and for—you know, all this open for the world to see, is—there are two
reactions. One is, I can’t believe they wrote these kinds of things down,
right? That you’re plotting to, you know, investigate me and investigate my
school and investigate my hometown and all these kinds of things, and you wrote
it down. But my other response is, this is quite analogous to, you know, when
you hear these stories of somebody who’s been in jail for murder for 10 years,
and then the DNA evidence gets them out, you know, and you ask them, "Are
you happy?" Well, of course I’m happy, but I’ve also been in jail for 10
years. You know what I mean? So, of course I’m happy now that these documents
have all been revealed, but it’s also been a very difficult time for me for the
last—and for my family, you know, for the last 10 or 15 years, for my students,
as well, for the last 10 or 15 years, to be pursued this way and to be under a
microscope this way and to feel threatened this way for so long.
AMY GOODMAN: As we wrap up, what’s happening with
atrazine today? Where does it stand?
TYRONE HAYES: It’s still on the market. We’re still
studying it. A number of studies are still coming out from around the world.
One recent study has shown that male babies that are exposed in utero to
atrazine, their genitals don’t develop properly. Their penis doesn’t develop
properly, or they get microphallus. There are studies showing that sperm count
goes down when you’re exposed to atrazine. And this is not just laboratory
animals or animals in the wild; this is also humans. We use the same hormones
that animals do for our reproduction. And it’s a big threat to environmental
health and public health.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for
being with us, Tyrone Hayes, a professor of integrative biology at the
University of California, Berkeley, who’s devoted the past 15 years to studying
atrazine, a widely used herbicide made by Syngenta. We’ll link to the article in The New Yorker magazine that
reveals how the company tried to discredit Professor Hayes after his research
showed atrazine causes sexual abnormalities in frogs and could cause the same
problems for humans. The article is called "A Valuable Reputation: After
Tyrone Hayes Said That a Chemical was Harmful, Its Maker Pursued Him."
This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
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