Home page > Environment > Water Issues > EU withdrawns approval for herbicide

EU’s Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health has withdrawn its approval for a potentially harmful and widely-used herbicide atrazine.

This herbicide is produced by Syngenta, a Swiss agrochemicals group.

The 45 year-old herbicide, used to kill weeds around crops, has been implicated by authorities in incidents of ground water contamination, prompting recent bans on its use in several European countries including France.

Exposure to excessive amounts of atrazine can potentially cause heart, lung and kidney trouble as well as cancer, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Last modified on October 6 2003.

Your feedback is valuable to us!

Was this article interesting and relevant for you? Do you have any comments?

2 Forum messages

Our readers have published these comments:

18 March 2005 07:35, by Jay Hoecker, MD

> EU withdrawns approval for herbicide atrazine

Do you have a scientific or medical journal reference for the rate of prostate cancer in farmers?

Reply to this message

18 March 2005 07:50, by Lara Garrido-Herrero, EPHA Staff (Admin)

Dear Sir,

Thank you very much for your interest in our website. Unfortunately we do not have the information you are asking for.

We recommend you to look at specialised medical journals which are wide available on the internet.

Regards.

The EPHA Secretariat

Reply to this message