Score one for the precautionary principle...

Kermit the Frog might have to start using the female frog change room if he ever takes a bite out of Canadian sourced bread.

The Globe and Mail recently reported that a new study by researchers at the University of California Berkeley has found that when male frogs are exposed to a herbicide commonly used in Canada, they can be turned into female frogs. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on the chemical atrazine, which is a weed killer commonly used in North America but banned by the European Union.

Atrazine has brought up concerns from authorities and health officials as it has been found throughout drinking water systems and especially in agricultural regions. Although Health Canada has explored atrazine before, it has yet to deem it riskiness enough to ban in entirety. The United States Environmental Protection Agency is in the same boat.

The EU has a tendency to ban things that are relatively new, not well understood and could potentially be harmful. It adheres to something known as the precautionary principle, which simply states that we should make decisions very carefully and perhaps not adopt certain things until we know much more about them. For example, the EU has banned almost all food products that have been genetically-modified, citing that just too little is known about them yet to be throwing them into the food supply. In North America, genetically-modified foods run rampant.

The precautionary principle is becoming increasingly important as we start to realize that decisions that were made several years ago are starting to have unexpected consequences. For example, links have been drawn between the chemicals put into the drinking water supply that we flush down the toilet and decreased sperm count in men. Who would've seen that coming? And with more and more technological and biochemical advances being made every day, sometimes it is important to stop and think about what impact it might have.

Sometimes there is no evidence to backup the application of the precautionary principle. But when studies like this come along, it is probably worth taking a stronger look at what effects this herbicide could have. Having human beings starting to change sex could be a little problematic...