NEW EVIDENCE: Bee-Killing Pesticide Never Should Have Been Registered

NEW EVIDENCE: Bee-Killing Pesticide Never Should Have Been Registered

Environmental working groups across the United States are demanding
that the Environmental Protection Agency pull pesticides containing
synthetic nicotine off the market due to proof of a bogus test run by
the pesticide manufacturer. Stating: “Our nation cannot afford, and
the environment cannot tolerate another growing season of
clothianindin use,” a group of beekeepers and activists sent a letter
to EPA Director Lisa Jackson.

Probably most significantly, Penn State scientist James Frazier joined
the beekeeping community in calling for a ban on this pesticide —
which SafeLawns has been implicating in bee decline for the past four
years. The professor of entomology at Penn State’s College of
Agricultural Sciences said, “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.

Please forward this press release to all elected officials to your
states and local districts and let them know that you demand that
these products be taken off the shelves.

HERE IS THE RELEASE

Contacts:

Heather Pilatic, Pesticide Action Network
cell: 415.694.8596

Jay Feldman, Beyond Pesticides
202.543.5450, ext 15

Beekeepers Ask EPA to Remove Pesticide Linked to Colony Collapse
Disorder,
Citing Leaked Agency Memo

Pesticide Already Illegal in Germany, Italy & France Based on
Scientific Findings

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.”

Clothianidin is of the neonicotinoid family of systemic pesticides,
which are taken up by a plant’s vascular system and expressed through
pollen, nectar and gutation droplets from which bees then forage and
drink. Scientists are concerned about the mix and cumulative effects
of the multiple pesticides bees are exposed to in these ways.
Neonicotinoids are of particular concern because they have cumulative,
sublethal effects on insect pollinators that correspond to CCD
symptoms – namely, neurobehavioral and immune system disruptions.

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.

Clothianidin has been on the market since 2003. With a soil half-life
of up to 19 years in heavy soils, and over a year in the lightest of
soils, commercial beekeepers are concerned that even an immediate stop-
use of clothianidin won’t save their livelihoods or hives in time.

“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.”

Citing the imminent economic and environmental hazards posed by the
continued use of clothianidin, the National Honey Bee Advisory Board,
Beekeeping Federation, Beyond Pesticides, Pesticide Action Network,
North America and Center for Biological Diversity are asking EPA
administrator Lisa Jackson to exercise the Agency’s emergency powers
to take the pesticide off the market.

“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.”