Yet again, scientists have looked at populations routinely exposed to the widely used herbicide atrazine, and yet again, they’ve found trouble.

The latest: In a study [1] published by Envionmental Research (summarized here [2]), researchers found evidence that atrazine could be causing menstrual irregularities and low estrogen levels in women, even when it appears in drinking water at levels far below the EPA’s limit of 3 parts per billion.

The study compared women ag-intensive areas of Illinois, where atrazine has been shown to leach into drinking water from farm fields, were significantly more likely to experience menstrual irregularities and low estrogen levels than women in ag-intensive areas of Vermont, where atrazine use is much lower.

The Vermont/Illinois paper comes on the heels of an analysis [3] of the Agricultural Health Study [4]-an ongoing look at people who regularly apply pesticides and their spouses-that found similar trends among women exposed to atrazine; as well as a 2009 study [5]finding that atrazine levels in drinking water tracked with low-weight birth incidences in Indiana.

Meanwhile, as I reported three weeks ago [6], an independent scientific panel convened by the EPA found ‘strong’ evidence linking atrazine to thyroid cancer and ‘suggestive’ evidence linking it to ovarian cancer, also […]