Organic Consumers Association, which funds Denier For Hire cabals like the anti-science group U.S. Right To Know, has baffled the science community once again by just making stuff up. When groups made claims that a larvicide named pyriproxyfen was part of a Monsanto conspiracy to promote Zika to give Monsanto a problem to solve(1), they were dismissed by even Washington Post reporters, so OCA has simply swapped out a new name and is trying again.(2) This time they chose atrazine, a pesticide made by the chemical company Syngenta that is commonly used on corn fields and golf courses.

They have now claimed that microcephaly related to the Zika virus by every scientific study is instead linked to atrazine because atrazine is associated with microcephaly. Who created that spurious association? Anti-science activists like OCA. The product has actually been re-registered numerous times by career scientists at EPA, who can hardly be called fans of corporations. You might ask why, if atrazine is so popular, and causes birth defects, those effects are only showing up now? If you do ask those awkward logic questions you will never get a job at a corporate-funded trade group like OCA.



These kinds of groups often lack for integrity, and they are happy to take advantage of the fear and doubt about science their fundraisers create, but exploiting the tragedy of birth defects to suggest buying organic food will prevent microcephaly is a new low, even for OCA. 

NOTE:

(1) What conspiracy theorists failed to recognize: pyriproxyfen can't impact anything with a backbone, it's not made my Monsanto, and the EPA finds it so safe they increased tolerance of pyriproxyfen residues in or on tea from 0.02 parts per million to 15 ppm.

(2) You name a crazy belief, they promote it.  They are against water fluoridation, vaccines and food irradiation, while for 9/11 conspiracy theories, raw milk, and of course Joseph Mercola, NaturalNews, and Alex Jones.