EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. (KMOX)  — Some tiny amphibians could impact a Metro East court case.

As KMOX News has reported, the Holiday Shores Sanitary District is suing the makers of Atrazine to get the common agriculture chemical cleaned out of drinking water.

Now University of California – Berkeley biologist Tyrone Hayes says male frogs exposed to the herbicide started producing the female hormone estrogen, “and the problem that humans should worry about is that the local production of estrogen is very important in breast cancer.  So we have a chemical that potentially promotes the growth of breast cancer.”

Hayes tells KMOX some of the male African clawed frogs exposed to EPA-acceptable levels of atrazine were chemically castrated.  Others turned into egg-laying females.

Manufacturers fighting the Southern Illinois lawsuit to clean Atrazine out of water supplies say the new research on frogs is all wet.  Syngenta is questioning Hayes’ methods, saying they lack transparency. 

“Well, that’s money talking, not science,” says Hayes, who adds his research is triple-checked by the peer review journals that publish it.  “Remember I worked with those guys and I know that they manipulate data and statistics to make things look the way they want it to look.  That’s why I stopped working with them.”

The US EPA is in the process of re-evaluating the safety of Atrazine.  Some agriculture groups fear a loss of the chemical could cut crop yields.