I got my dander up earlier this month when, once again, misinformed people with the power of the press used emotion instead of facts in an editorial. A couple of months ago, one researcher made what some would call unsubstantiated claims about atrazine and some research that resulted in deformed frogs. The Minneapolis Star Tribune was eager to jump on this “travesty of environmental justice” in an editorial, saying that maybe state environmental officials and the EPA didn't really do their jobs in policing the product well for consumers.

Never mind that deformed frogs have been discovered and researched since the late 1800s across the U.S. (with no scientific conclusions drawn that I've ever seen). Never mind that the newspaper took the opinion of the one researcher, Tyrone Hayes, and alarmed consumers, when more than 200 EPA studies have been conducted by Syngenta, the major manufacturer of atrazine, in the last 10 years alone on the safety of atrazine to people and the environment. Never mind that the paper omitted that EPA and its external Scientific Advisory Panel reviewed a bunch of studies and concluded that there were deficiencies in ALL the lab studies on this subject.

In today's world of “beg forgiveness rather than ask permission,” it's easier to write an editorial without all the facts than to write a balanced piece that shares both sides of an issue. Sure, editorials are supposed to take a stand. Sure, the Star Tribune allowed Syngenta to run a counterpoint one week later.

But the real story here is after all these years agribusiness still has to defend itself from narrow-minded opinion writers who use emotion to scare consumers. Shame on you, Star Tribune. If you're going to run an editorial like that, the least you can do is run the counterpoint the same day and let those who produce products to help feed the world have an opportunity to state their opinions at the same time.

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