Written by fatih al-farahat in

UK Commences Complete Review of Bayer's Pesticide

The bee story continues with the UK now doing acomplete review of the neonicotinoid situation. It is reminiscent of the foot-dragging that took place back in the earlysixties when thalidomide fiasco broke out. The evidence kept gathering while apologists kept singing and the publicswiftly became angrier.

The public is not involved yetbut it is not going to stay that way. The mere fact that it is effectively banned in

Germany

is telling as they weresurely first adopters.

The class action on this one maywell cost Bayer massively since we are looking at what has been a massivedestruction of the bee industry itself and that can be organized easily bylawyers.

A little harder to qualifygeneral losses as this has also affected wild pollinators also but theirability to perform may be much more robust.

U.K.

guv takes threat of bee-killing pesticidesseriously. Why doesn’t the U.S.?

BY TOM PHILPOTT

31 MAR 2011 1:45 PM

http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-03-31-uk-guv-threat-bee-killing-pesticides-bayer-neonicotinoids

Remember neonicotinoids? They're the widely used class of pesticidesthat an increasing body of evidence -- including from USDAresearchers -- implicates in the collapse of honeybee populations.Neonicotinoids are marketed by the agrichemical giant Bayer, which reels inabout $800 million in sales from them each year.

Germany

(Bayer's home country), France, and Slovenia have either bannedtheir use outright or limited it severely. Meanwhile, the U.S. EPA has stood byits approval of them -- even though itsown scientists have discredited Bayer's research purporting to declareneonicotinoids safe for bees, and the USDA's chief bee scientist, Jeff Pettis,has reported doing research showing them to be highlyharmful to bees even in extremely low doses.

Good news: A government body is reconsidering the decision to approvethose chemicals, based partly on concerns raised by Pettis. Less-good news:That government body is not our own; it's in the United Kingdom. Our own EPA hasmaintained its approval for the pesticides -- and farmers throughout the nationwill soon plant tens of millions of acres of neonicotinoid-treated corn seeds,which will soon sprout into trillions of corn plants with neonicotinoid-infusedpollen.

From London-based TheIndependent:

Growing concern about the new generation of pesticides used on 2.5million acres of U.K. farmland has led one of the Government's most seniorscientific advisers to order a review of the evidence used to justify theirsafety.

That scientist, Robert Watson, is the chief scientific adviser at theDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the U.K. version ofthe EPA.

Watson's concern was triggered by two recent studies, TheIndependent reports. The first is Pettis' as yet unpublished study, whoseexistence was revealed by TheIndependent in January. The second, according to the newspaper, is newresearch from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, whichalso found bees highly vulnerable to neonicotinoids in small doses.

It appears that the pesticides compromise bees' immune systems, makingthem susceptible to a viral pathogen called nosema.

Now, it's important to note that both Pettis' work and that of theFrench National Institute for Agricultural Research took place in thelaboratory, not the field. That is, they established that neonicotinoidstheoretically pose a grave threat to honeybees. That's not the same as showingthat they harm them in real-world, corn-field conditions.

But given the decline of honeybee health, which roughly tracks with theexplosion of neonicotinoid use in the late '90s, these studies show clear causefor grave concern. The coauthor of the Pettis study, Penn State University entomologist Dennis VanEngelsdorp, has stated [PDF]that their research found severe harm from neonicotinoids at extremely lowlevels, "below the limit of detection." He added: "The onlyreason we knew the [dead] bees had exposure [to neonicotinoid pesticides] isbecause we exposed them."

What about field tests? The study presented by Bayer to show that thepesticides don't cause harm in real-world conditions has been thoroughlydiscredited. The EPA had accepted the study, after holding it without commentfor two years; but then, last year, its own scientists downgraded it on thegrounds that it was flawed, an internalEPA memo leaked in December showed.

Apparently, to professional entomologists not on the Bayer payroll, thestudy was plainly shoddy. James Frazier, professor of entomology at Penn State,minced no words when I asked him about it in December. "When I looked atthe study," he told me in a phone interview, "I immediately thoughtit was invalid."

So we've got the theoretical possibility that neonicotinoids causeserious harm to bees even at extremely low levels; we've got one of the fewactual field studies exonerating the pesticide declared invalid; and we've gota catastrophic decline of a species critical to agriculture that coincides withthe rise of said pesticide. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to concludethat there's sufficient evidence to halt its use and subject it to rigorous,independent field study.

They're at least considering that course of action in the United Kingdom.And they're taking USDA scientist Pettis quite seriously. True, his researchremains unpublished two years after it was completed. He has told me in emailsthat his study is in the review process for publication, but has no releasedate yet. He emphasized that the "delays are on my end; not a conspiracyto keep my data from seeing the light of day."

Delayed or not, Pettis' research has inspired the U.K.'s version of EPA to publiclyreview its decision to green-light neonicotinoids. Furthermore, Pettis"sits on a panel of leading experts who will review a £10m [$16 million]research initiative into the decline of bees funded by Defra, two of Britain'sresearch councils, the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish Government," the Independent reports.He'll also address the House of Commons next month to "present hisfindings on neonicotinoids to MPs concerned about the possible link between thepesticides and the demise of bees and pollinating insects."

Hmm. Surely there are members of our analogue to the House of Commons,the House of Representatives, who are concerned about the possible link betweenthe pesticides and the demise of bees and pollinating insects? Perhaps thoseformidable defenders of the environment, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and EdMarkey (D-Mass.)? Or Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y), who has been so heroicin the fight to prevent the meat industry from abusing antibiotics?

Tragically, it's probably too late to stop the planting of neonicotinoid-lacedcrops during this spring's growing season. But the long-term health of ourpollinators -- and the health of the vast swaths of agriculture that rely onthem -- demands serious attention to the mounting concerns about this highlyprofitable and ubiquitous class of pesticides.