Here we go again!
Hi JonOriginally Posted by Jon
Here we go again! Finger on right buttonthis time - I hope!
Had to edit to send!
Eric
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
CATCH THE BUZZ
Press Release
In the July issue of Bee Culture Magazine there appeared an article by Tom Theobald detailing the fallacy of clothianidin registration in the U.S. That story is below. This article instigated several investigations by various concerned groups. The following Press Release is one result.
Heather Pilatic, Pesticide Action Network
cell: 415.694.8596
Jay Feldman, Beyond Pesticides
202.543.5450, ext 15
SAN FRANCISCO and WASHINGTON, D.C. – Beekeepers and environmentalists today called on EPA to remove a pesticide linked to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), citing a leaked EPA memo that discloses a critically flawed scientific support study. The November 2nd memo identifies a core study underpinning the registration of the insecticide clothianidin as unsound after EPA quietly re-evaluated the pesticide just as it was getting ready to allow a further expansion of its use.
Clothianidin (product name “Poncho”) has been widely used as a seed treatment on many of the country’s major crops for eight growing seasons under a “conditional registration” granted while EPA waited for Bayer Crop Science, the pesticide’s maker, to conduct a field study assessing the insecticide’s threat to bee colony health. Bayer’s field study was the contingency on which clothianidin’s conditional registration was granted in 2003. As such, the groups are calling for an immediate stop-use order on the pesticide while the science is redone, and redesigned in
partnership with practicing beekeepers. They claim that the initial field study guidelines, which the Bayer study failed to satisfy, were insufficiently rigorous to test whether or not clothianidin contributes to CCD in a real-world scenario: the field test evaluated the wrong crop, over an insufficient time period and with inadequate controls.
According to beekeeper Jeff Anderson, who has testified before EPA on the topic, “The Bayer study is fatally flawed. It was an open field study with control and test plots of about 2 acres each. Bees typically forage at least 2 miles out from the hive, so it is likely they didn’t ingest much of the treated crops. And corn, not canola, is the major pollen-producing crop that bees rely on for winter nutrition. This is a critical point because we see hive losses mainly after over-wintering, so there is something going on in these winter cycles. It’s as if they designed the study to avoid seeing clothianidin’s effects on hive health.”
According to James Frazier, PhD., professor of entomology at Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, "Among the neonicotinoids, clothianidin is among those most toxic for honey bees; and this combined with its systemic movement in plants has produced a troubling mix of scientific results pointing to its potential risk for honey bees through current agricultural practices. Our own research indicates that systemic pesticides occur in pollen and nectar in much greater quantities than has been previously thought, and that interactions among pesticides occurs often and should be of wide concern." Dr. Frazier said that the most prudent course of action would be to take the pesticide off the market while the flawed study is being redone.
“We are losing more than a third of our colonies each winter; but beekeepers are a stubborn, industrious bunch. We split hives, rebound as much as we can each summer, and then just take it on the chin – eat our losses. So even these big loss numbers understate the problem,” says 50-year beekeeper, David Hackenberg. “What folks need to understand is that the beekeeping industry, which is responsible for a third of the food we all eat, is at a critical threshold for economic reasons and reasons to do with bee population dynamics. Our bees are living for 30 days instead of 42, nursing bees are having to forage because there aren’t enough foragers and at a certain point a colony just doesn’t have the critical mass to keep going. The bees are at that point, and we are at that point. We are losing our livelihoods at a time when there just isn’t other work. Another winter of ‘more studies are needed’ so Bayer can keep their blockbuster products on the market and EPA can avoid a difficult decision, is unacceptable.”
"The environment has become the experiment and all of us – not just bees and beekeepers – have become the experimental subjects," said Tom Theobald, a 35-year beekeeper. "In an apparent rush to get products to the market, chemicals have been routinely granted "conditional" registrations. Of 94 pesticide active ingredients released since 1997, 70% have been given conditional registrations, with unanswered questions of unknown magnitude. In the case of clothianidin those questions were huge. The EPA's basic charge is "the prevention of unreasonable risk to man and the environment" and these practices hardly satisfy that obligation. We must do better, there is too much at stake."
Tom
I became concerned about clothianidin in 2007 as the possible cause of a break in the Fall brood cycle I was seeing in my bees and in early 2008 I began digging into the facts surrounding its approval. That story is instructive and cause for great concern I believe.
The first record I found on the consideration of clothianidin comes in the form of an EPA memo dated February 23, 2003, titled 'Risk Assessment for Seed Treatment of Corn and Canola.' To their credit, EPA scientists raised serious concerns in that document and called for strong label language if clothianidin was to be approved for use. They cited the experience in France with imidacloprid as the basis for extreme caution and called for label language which would highlight the dangers. Quite responsibly, they called for a field test of the dangers prior to registration:
'The possibility of toxic exposure to nontarget pollinators through the translocation of clothianidin residues that result from seed treatment (corn and canola) has prompted EFED [Environmental Fate and Effects Division] to require field testing that can evaluate the possible chronic exposure to honey bee larvae and queen. In order to fully evaluate the possibility of this toxic effect, a complete worker bee life cycle study must be conducted, as well as an evaluation of exposure and effects to the queen.' and they called for strong label language as well:
This is the Deepwater Horizon in agriculture. America’s farmland is awash in these questionable chemicals as surely as the shorelines of the Gulf Coast are awash in crude oil, and for many of the same reasons.
The bees are telling us something. We need to start listening before it’s too late.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks