I
have been on to this situation for as long as I have maintained this
blog and right now I suspect every farmer knows what is doing the
killing. It is slowly becoming the worst single corporate scandal in
history and will likely destroy the companies involved however
powerful.
We
now are in receipt of the smoking gun. See footnote 21. The Italian
ban ended the problem and bee populations have outright recovwered.
Thus
no further excuse exists whatsoever except to postpone the certain
class action suite that you know must even be on the way.
Death of the Birds and the Bees Across America
By F. William Engdahl
Global Research, July
1, 2012
williamengdahl.com
URL of this
article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31699
Birds and bees are
something most of us take for granted as part of nature. The
expression “teaching about the birds and the bees” to explain the
process of human reproduction to young people is not an accidental
expression. Bees and birds contribute to the essence of life on our
planet. A study by the US Department of Agriculture estimated that
“...perhaps one-third of our total diet is dependent, directly or
indirectly, upon insect-pollinated plants.”1
The honey bee, Apis
mellifera, is the most important pollinator of agricultural crops.
Honey bees pollinate over 70 out of 100 crops that in turn provide
90% of the world's food. They pollinate most fruits and
vegetables--including apples, oranges, strawberries, onions and
carrots.2 But while managed honey bee populations have increased over
the last 50 years, bee colony populations have decreased
significantly in many European and North American nations.
Simultaneously, crops that are dependent on insects for pollination
have increased. The phenomenon has received the curious designation
of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), implying it could be caused by any
number of factors. Serious recent scientific studies however point to
a major cause: use of new highly toxic systemic pesticides in
agriculture since about 2004.
The
human species could face staggering new challenges merely to survive.
The immediate threat comes from the widespread proliferation of
commercial insecticides containing the highly-toxic chemical with the
improbable name, neonicotinoids. Neonicotinoids
are a group of insecticides chemically similar to nicotine. They act
on the central nervous system of insects. But also on bees and small
song birds. Recent evidence suggests they could also affect human
brain development in newborn.
Some
five to six years back, reports began to circulate from around the
world, especially out of the United States, and then increasingly
from around the EU, especially in the UK, that entire bee colonies
were disappearing. Since 2004 over a
million beehives have died across the United States and beekeepers in
25 states report what is called Colony Collapse Disorder. In winter
of 2009 an estimated one fifth of bee hives in the UK were lost,
double the natural rate.3 Government authorities claimed it was a
mystery.
And
in the USA a fact sheet from the
Environmenrtal Protection Agency (EPA) on Bayer AG’s Clothianidin,
a widely used neonicotinoid, warned:
“Available
data indicate that clothianidin on corn and canola should result in
minimal acute toxic risk to birds. However, assessments show that
exposure to treated seeds through ingestion may result in chronic
toxic risk to non-endangered and endangered small birds (e.g.,
songbirds) and acute/chronic toxicity risk to non-endangered and
endangered mammals.”4
Alarming
UK results
A private UK research
organization, Buglife and the Soil Association, undertook tests to
try to determine cause of the bee death. They found that the decline
was caused in part by a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids.5
Neonicotinoids are “systemic” chemicals that kill insects by
getting into the cell of the plant. In Britain it’s widely used for
crops like oilseed rape and for production of potted plants.
The neonicotinoids are found in the UK in products including
Chinook, used on oilseed rape and Bayer UK 720, used in the
production of potted plants which then ends up in gardens and homes
around the country. The new study examined in detail the most
comprehensive array of peer-reviewed research into possible long-term
effects of neonicotinoid use. Their conclusion was that neonicotinoid
pesticides damage the health and life cycle of bees over the long
term by affecting the nervous system. The report noted,
“Neonicotinoids may be a significant factor contributing to current
bee declines and could also contribute to declines in other
non-target invertebrate species."6 The organization called
for a total ban on pesticides containing any neonicotinoids.
The
president of the UK Soil Association, Peter
Melchett, told the press that pesticides were causing a continued
decline in pollinating insects, risking a multimillion pound farming
industry. “The UK is notorious for taking the most relaxed approach
to pesticide safety in the EU; Buglife’s report shows that this
puts at risk pollination services vital for UK agriculture,” he
said. 7
Indeed in March 2012 Sir Robert Watson, Chief Scientist at the British Government’s Department of Environment announced that his government was reconsidering its allowance of neonicotinoid use in the UK. Watson told a British newspaper, “We will absolutely look at the University of Stirling work, the French work, and the American work that came out a couple of months ago. We must look at this in real detail to see whether or not the current British position is correct or is incorrect. I want this all reassessed, very, very carefully."8 To date no policy change has ensued however. Given the seriousness of the scientific studies and of the claims of danger, a prudent policy would have been to provisionally suspend further uise of neonicotinoids pending further research. No such luck.
EPA
Corruption
In the United States
the government agency responsible for approving or banning chemicals
deemed dangerous to the environment is the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA). In 2003, over the clear warnings of its own
scientists, the EPA licensed a neonicotinoid called Clothianidin,
patented by the German Bayer AG together with a Japanese company,
Takeda. It is sold under the brand name Poncho. It was immediately
used on over 88 million acres of US corn in the 2004 crop and since
that time, the shocking death of more than one million beehives
across the corn prairies of the Midwest has been reported. 9
The political
appointees at EPA at the time allowed Bayer to receive a license for
Poncho despite the official judgment of EPA scientists that
Clothianidin was “highly toxic to bees by contact and oral
exposure” and that is was “highly mobile in soil and groundwater
- very likely to migrate into streams, ponds and other fields, where
it would be absorbed by wildflowers” - and go on to kill more bees
and non-target insects like butterflies and bumblebees. The
warning, from a leaked EPA memo dated September 28, 2005 summarizes
the Environmental Fate and Effects Division’s Environmental Risk
Assessment for Clothianidin, which it said “will remain toxic to
bees for days after a spray application. In honey bees, the effects
of this toxic exposure may include lethal and/or sub-lethal effects
in the larvae and reproductive effects to the queen.”10
The EPA scientists
judged it to be many times more toxic than Bayer’s other
nicotinoid, Imidacloprid, sold under the brand name Gaucho, which
itself is "7,000 times more toxic to bees than
DDT.”11 DDT was banned in the USA in 1972 after numerous studies
proved its toxic effects on both animals and humans.
Then in January of
this year another US Government agency, the US Department of
Agriculture, published a significant new report from scientists under
the direction of Jeffrey Pettis of the USDA Bee Research Laboratory.
The study, published in the German scientific journal,
Naturwissenschaften, was explosive. The Pettis
study concluded after careful control experiments with bees exposed
and not exposed to neonicotinoids clearly demonstrated that there was
“an interaction between sub-lethal exposure to imidacloprid
(Bayer’s Gaucho—w.e.) at the colony level and the spore
production in individual bees of honey bee gut parasite Nosema.”
Moreover, the study went on, “Our results suggest that the current
methods used to evaluate the potential negative effect of pesticides
are inadequate. This is not the first study to note a complex and
unexpected interaction between low pesticide exposure and pathogen
loads... We suggest new pesticide testing standards be devised that
incorporate increased pathogen susceptibility into the test
protocols. Lastly, we believe that subtle interactions between
pesticides and pathogens, such as demonstrated here, could be a major
contributor to increased mortality of honey bee colonies
worldwide.”12
Renowned Dutch toxicologist, Dr. Henk Tennekes reported that, unlike claims from Bayer and other neonicotinoid manufacturers, bees living near maize fields sprayed with the toxic pesticides are exposed to the neonicotinoids throughout the entire growing season, and the toxin is cumulative. Tennekes noted, “Bees are exposed to these compounds and several other agricultural pesticides in several ways throughout the foraging period. During spring, extremely high levels of clothianidin and thiamethoxam were found in planter exhaust material produced during the planting of treated maize seed. We also found neonicotinoids in the soil of each field we sampled, including unplanted fields.” 13
Effect
on Human Brain?
But most alarming of
all is the evidence that exposure to neonicotinides hahs horrific
possible effects on humans as well as on birds and bees.
Professor Henk
Tennekes describes the effects:
"Today the major
illnesses confronting children in the United States include a number
of psychosocial and behavioral conditions. Neurodevelopmental
disorders, including learning disabilities, dyslexia, mental
retardation, attention deficit disorder, and autism – occurrence is
more prevalent than previously thought, affecting 5 percent to 10
percent of the 4 million children born in the United States annually.
Beyond childhood, incidence rates of chronic neurodegenerative
diseases of adult life such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia
have increased markedly. These trends raise the possibility that
exposures in early life act as triggers of later illness, perhaps by
reducing the numbers of cells in essential regions of the brain to
below the level needed to maintain function in the face of advancing
age. Prenatal and childhood exposures to pesticides have emerged as a
significant risk factor explaining impacts on brain structure and
health that can increase the risk of neurological disease later in
life."14
There is also growing
evidence suggesting persistent exposure to plants sprayed with
neonicotinoids could be responsible for damage to the human brain,
including the recent sharp rise in incidents of autism in children.
Tennekes, referring to
recent studies of the effects of various exposures of neonicotinoids
to rats, noted,“Accumulating evidence suggests
that chronic exposure to nicotine causes many adverse effects on the
normal development of a child. Perinatal exposure to nicotine is a
known risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome, low-birth-weight
infants, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Therefore, the
neonicotinoids may adversely affect human health, especially the
developing brain.”15
Referring to studies
recently published in the magazine, Science, Brian Moench noted:
The brain of insects
is the intended target of these insecticides. They disrupt
the bees homing behavior and their ability to return to the hive,
kind of like “bee autism.” But insects are
different than humans, right? Human and insect nerve
cells share the same basic biologic infrastructure. Chemicals
that interrupt electrical impulses in insect nerves will do the same
to humans. But humans are much bigger than insects and the
doses to humans are miniscule, right?
During critical first
trimester development a human is no bigger than an insect so there is
every reason to believe that pesticides could wreak havoc with the
developing brain of a human embryo. But human
embryos aren’t out in corn fields being sprayed with insecticides,
are they? A recent study showed that every human tested
had the world’s best-selling pesticide, Roundup, detectable in
their urine at concentrations between five and twenty times the level
considered safe for drinking water.16
The most alarming part
of the neonicotinoid story is that governments and the EU to date are
content to take little or no precautionary steps to stop even
suspected contamination from neonicotinoids pending through long-term
tests that would determine finally if they are as dangerous as
considerable and growing scientific evidence says.
Bayer
AG and neonicotinoids
In early 2011 the UN
Environment Programme (UNEP) published a report on bee mortalities
around the world. Bayer neonicotinoids, Poncho and Gaucho, are listed
there as a threat to numerous animals.
According to the UN
report, "Systemic insecticides such as those used as seed
coatings, which migrate from the roots through the entire plant, all
the way to the flowers, can potentially cause toxic chronic exposure
to non-target pollinators. Various studies revealed the high toxicity
of chemicals such as Imidacloprid, Clothianidin, Thiamethoxam and
associated ingredients for animals such as cats, fish, rats, rabbits,
birds and earthworms. Laboratory studies have shown that such
chemicals can cause losses of sense of direction, impair memory and
brain metabolism, and cause mortality." 17
Yet
Bayer AG shows no signs of voluntarily stopping production and
distribution of its toxic neonicotinoids.
The German pharmaceutical giant counts among its historic achievements one it prefers today to forget-- the first synthesis of something it marketed as cough medicine in 1898 under the trade name, Heroin, taken from the “heroic” feeling it gave to Bayer workers on whom it was tested. 18 According to the German citizen watchdog group, Coalition against BAYER Dangers, Gaucho and Poncho have been among BAYER's top-selling pesticides: “In 2010, Gaucho sales were valued at US$ 820 million while Poncho sales were valued at US$ 260 million. Gaucho ranked first among BAYER's best-selling pesticide, while Poncho ranked seventh. It is striking that in the 2011 Annual Report no sales figures for Gaucho and Poncho are shown.”19
The German pharmaceutical giant counts among its historic achievements one it prefers today to forget-- the first synthesis of something it marketed as cough medicine in 1898 under the trade name, Heroin, taken from the “heroic” feeling it gave to Bayer workers on whom it was tested. 18 According to the German citizen watchdog group, Coalition against BAYER Dangers, Gaucho and Poncho have been among BAYER's top-selling pesticides: “In 2010, Gaucho sales were valued at US$ 820 million while Poncho sales were valued at US$ 260 million. Gaucho ranked first among BAYER's best-selling pesticide, while Poncho ranked seventh. It is striking that in the 2011 Annual Report no sales figures for Gaucho and Poncho are shown.”19
Ban
in many EU CountriesUnlike the United States, several EU countries
have banned use of neonicotinoids, refusing to accept test and safety
reports from the chemical manufacturers as adequate. One
case in point was in Germany where the Julius Kühn-Institut -
Bundesforschungsinstitut für Kulturpflanzen (JKI) in Quedlinburg a
state-run crop research institute, collected samples of dead
honeybees and determined that clothianidin caused the deaths.
Bayer CropScience
blamed defective seed corn batches. The company gave an unconvincing
counter claim that the coating came off as the seeds were sown, which
allowed unusually high amounts of toxic dust to spread to adjacent
areas where bees collected pollen and nectar. The attorney for a
coalition of groups filing the suit, Harro Schultze stated, "We're
suspecting that Bayer submitted flawed studies to play down the risks
of pesticide residues in treated plants. Bayer's ... management
has to be called to account, since the risks ... have now been known
for more than 10 years."20
Significantly, in
Bayer’s home country, Germany, the German government has banned
Bayer’s neonicotinoids since 2009. France and Italy have imposed
similar bans. In Italy, the government found that with the ban,
bee populations returned in number, leading to an upholding of the
ban despite strong chemical industry pressure.21
Despite the alarming
evidence of links between neonicotinoids and bee colony collapse
disorder, as well as possible impacts on human foetal cells and
brains, the reaction so far in the European Union Commission has been
scandalously slow. Brussels has been so weak in responding that
the Office of EU Ombudsman has initiated an investigation into why.
European Union Ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandou said he had opened an
investigation after a complaint from the Austrian Ombudsman Board,
who said the European Commission had failed to take account of the
new evidence on the role of neonicotinoids in bee mortality. "In
its view, the Commission should take new scientific evidence into
account and take appropriate measures, such as reviewing the
authorisation of relevant substances," said a statement from the
EU Ombudsman's office.
The ombudsman has
asked the Commission to submit an opinion in the investigation by
June 30, after which it will issue a report. Recommendations by the
ombudsman are non-binding. The Commission in response has said it has
asked the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) to carry out a full
review of all neonicotinoid insecticides by April 30 and that it
would take appropriate measures based on the findings.22
Giving EFSA final say
on food safety for Europe’s consumers and insects is tantamount to
asking the foxes to guard the hen house today. EFSA is heavily
influenced by members with conflicts of interest and dubious ties to
the same agribusiness interests represented by Bayer AG and other
agriculture chemical multinationals.23
Bayer
is one of six global companies tied to development of patented GMO
seeds and related chemicals, controlling inputs into the entire food
chain. As a tightly inter-linked group, Monsanto, Dow, BASF,
Bayer, Syngenta and DuPont control the global seed, pesticide and
agricultural biotechnology markets. This concentration of power over
world agriculture is unprecedented. As one observer noted, it enables
them to “control the agricultural research agenda; dictate trade
agreements and agricultural policies; position their technologies as
the ‘science-based’ solution to increase crop yields, feed the
hungry and save the planet; escape democratic and regulatory
controls; subvert competitive markets.” 24Dutch toxicologist
Tennekes and Alex Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure
biology at Harvard’s Department of Environmental Health are among a
growing number of scientists around the world calling for an
immediate and global ban on the use of the new neonicotinoid
pesticides.25 Professor Lu calls for a very simple test: "I
would suggest removing all neonicotinoids from use globally for a
period of five to six years. If the bee population is going back up
during the after the ban, I think we will have the answer." That
should be more than food for thought in Washington, Brussels and
elsewhere.
Notes:
1 S.E.
McGregor, Insect pollination of cultivated crop plants, 1976, USDA
Agriculture. Handbook 496, p. 1
2 Coalition
against BAYER Dangers (Germany), Countermotion to shareholder
meeting: BAYER Pesticides causing bee decline, Press Release, April
11, 2012.
3Louise
Gray, Beekeepers lose one fifth of hives, 24 August, 2009, The
Telegraph, accessed
in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6069218/Beekeepers-lose-one-fifth-of-hives.html
4 Anon.,
Clothianidin a Neonicotinoid Pesticide Highly Toxic to Honeybees and
other pollinators, March 20, 2007, accessed
inhttp://www.theenvironmentalblog.org/2007/03/clothianidin-a-neonicotinoid-pesticide-highly-toxic-to-honeybees-and-other-pollinators/.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.8 Michael
McCarthy, Government to reconsider nerve agent pesticides, The
Independent, 31 March 2012, accessed
inhttp://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/government-to-reconsider-nerve-agent-pesticides-7604121.html
9 Henk
Tennekes, They’ve turned the Environment into the Experiment and WE
are all the experimental Subjects, January 19, 2011, accessed
inhttp://www.boerenlandvogels.nl/en/content/they%E2%80%99ve-turned-environment-experiment-%E2%80%93-and-we-are-all-experimental-subjects.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Jeffrey
S. Pettis, et al, Pesticide exposure in honey bees results in
increased levels of the gut pathogen Nosema, Naturwissenschaften-The
Science of Nature, 13 January, 2012, accessed
in http://www.springerlink.com/content/p1027164r403288u/fulltext.html
13 Henk
Tennekes, Honey Bees Living Near Maize
Fields Are Exposed To Neonicotinoids Throughout The Growing Season,
January 5, 2012, accessed in
http://www.farmlandbirds.net/en/taxonomy/term/3.
14 Henk
Tennekes, Prenatal exposures to pesticides may increase
the risk of neurological disease later in life, March 20,
2012, accessed
inhttp://www.farmlandbirds.net/en/content/prenatal-exposures-pesticides-may-increase-risk-neurological-disease-later-life
15 Henk
Tennekes, The neonicotinoids may adversely affect human health,
especially the developing brain, March 20, 2012, accessed
inhttp://www.farmlandbirds.net/en/taxonomy/term/3.
16 Brian
Moench, Autism and Disappearing Bees A Common Denominator?, April 2,
2012, Common Dreams, accessed
inhttp://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/02.
17 Coalition
against BAYER Dangers (Germany), op cit.
18 Richard
Askwith, How aspirin turned hero: A hundred years ago Heinrich Dreser
made a fortune from the discovery of heroin and aspirin, Sunday
Times, 13 September 1998, accessed
in http://opioids.com/heroin/heroinhistory.html.
19 Coalition
against BAYER Dangers (Germany), op cit.
20 ENS,
German Coalition Sues Bayer Over Pesticide Honey Bee Deaths, August
25, 2008, accessed
in http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2008/2008-08-25-01.asp
21 Roberta
Cruger, Nicotine Bees Population Restored With Neonicotinoids Ban,
May 15, 2010, accessed in
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/nicotine-bees-population-restored-with-neonicotinoids-ban.html.
22 Henk
Tennekes, EU response to bee death pesticide link questioned, April
24, 2012, accessed
in http://www.farmlandbirds.net/en/taxonomy/term/3.
23 Olivier
Hoedeman, Corporate Europe Observatory, Open letter
regarding conflicts of interest EFSA’s Management board ,
Brussels, March 4, 2011, accessed in
http://www.corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/files/openletter/EFSA%20management%20board%20conflicts%20of%20interest.pdf
24 Andrew
Olsen, Chemical Cartel, Chemical Cartel, June 28, 2010; see also, F.
William Engdahl, Saat der Zerstörung: Der Dunkele Seite von
Genmanipulation.
25 Henk
Tennekes, Imidacloprid and Colony Collapse Disorder - Scientists Call
for Global Ban on Bee-Killing Pesticides, April 5, 2012, accessed
inhttp://www.farmlandbirds.net/en/taxonomy/term/3
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