According to a new report in the New Yorker, agribusiness giant Syngenta waged an underhanded campaign to destroy scientist Tyrone Hayes after his research showed that the company’s lucrative herbicide, atrazine, impeded sexual development in frogs. Atrazine is an extremely popular herbicide and is reportedly applied to more than half the corn in the United States. Corn has become one of the most widely used crops in the United States making its way into numerous products in the consumer market in the form of high fructose corn syrup. Syngenta’s atrazine is the one of the most widely used herbicides in America with around $300 million in annual sales – second only to Monsanto’s glyphosate.

According to documents obtained via a class action lawsuit Syngenta tried to discredit Hayes’ work and prevent him from advancing in his career for fear his work on atrazine would gain greater influence and lead to the firm’s profitable chemical being banned by the EPA. The chemical is already banned in the European Union.

The company documents show that, while Hayes was studying atrazine, Syngenta was studying him, as he had long suspected. Syngenta’s public-relations team had drafted a list of four goals. The […]