The Swiss company Syngenta (formerly Novartis), the world’s largest agrochemical manufacturer, makes the herbicide atrazine. Atrazine is the most widely-used weed killer in the Corn Belt of America; it is found in over 90 percent of water samples in farming communities, and in at least 23 states. Its use was never allowed in Switzerland, and it was banned by the European Union in 2003. Despite evidence that atrazine can turn male frogs into hermaphrodites, the EPA, after 50 private meetings with Syngenta and with two advisory committees composed of only Syngenta and EPA representatives, decided to keep it on the U.S. market with no new restrictions.

Syngenta interfered with the publication of a hired researcher’s study that had found exposure to atrazine during frogs’ fetal stage, even at levels 30 times lower than currently permitted in water, converted male frogs’ hormones to female, that the frogs had in essence been chemically castrated. New researchers were hired, who found no risk from atrazine at the EPA-allowed levels.