Keene Equinox

Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Ryan McKernan / Senior Photographer Tyrone Hayes, professor at University of California, Berkeley, addresses students, faculty and community members in the Mabel Brown Room March 25, 2008.

Using published studies - including his own - some humor, and ending with a rhyme, a biologist addressed students, faculty and community members Tuesday night as part of Keene State College's annual Sidore Lecture Series.

"The science - I think we got it solved. The solution - we have to get politically involved. The future is in our hands," said Tyrone Hayes, a professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

The science Hayes explained to over 250 people in the Mabel Brown Room of the L.P. Young Student Center was the results of his research, which focused on the role of pesticides in the physiological and behavior development of amphibians.

Early in his presentation, Hayes showed a photograph of a frog's liver with two testes and two ovaries.

He said industry has put out press releases saying the hermaphrodite trait is normal in frogs, but it is not.

Atrazine, the herbicide that Hayes found to cause the malformation, was mostly used on corn, and has been "denied regulatory approval" in Europe.

Hayes, whose study focus is the endocrine system, continued his presentation by taking the audience through the steps of the research he undertook with University of California students in which eggs were found growing in the testes of male leopard frogs.

"We had no idea if this was a real-world phenomenon," he said.

Hayes said he believed pesticides played a role in the current global decline of amphibians.

"We're not the only lab suggesting pesticides play a role," he said.

While teaching at the university, Hayes said he was also a consultant for Syngenta, which manufactured the herbicide, from 1997-2000. He said the company, which specializes in agricultural chemical production, asked him if the product caused endocrine disruption. His results showed it did, and the company tried to discredit the research.

Hayes said the laboratory work he did with the company had to be redone because it could not be published.

"I figured if the chemical industry didn't want me to do it, it must be the right things to do," he said.

He said studies have also found mammals exposed to atrazine to have lower testosterone and a decrease in sperm production. Hayes ended his lecture explaining why he decided to "cross the line."

He said he did not think enough time was spent to get research findings out to the general public.

"While science was speaking for itself, money was talking," he said.

"I thought it was amazing and really informative," said senior Amy Hollar, a biology major participating in a KSC undergraduate research program studying endocrine disruption in amphibians.

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