Healthy wild bee colony
By F. William Engdahl
July 2, 2012,
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.
If governments
in the EU, USA and other countries fail to impose a total ban on certain
chemical insecticides, not only could bees become a thing of the past. 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 songbirds.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 Environmental 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
Please enlarge thumb to read
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 use 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
.
BAN
IN MANY EU COUNTRIES
Unlike 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 authorization 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.
.
.
Bayer product. Mix and pour at base of plant
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.” 24
Dutch
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
.
Various neonicotinoid pesticides from Vietnam
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.
PREVIOUS POSTS:
PREVIOUS POSTS:
POLAND ANNOUNCES COMPLETE BAN ON MONSANTO’S GENETICALLY MODIFIED MAIZE
FOR BEEKEEPERS, IT'S BEEN THE BEST OF TIMES AND THE WORST OF TIMES
MONSANTO'S UPHILL BATTLE IN GERMANY ~ FIGHTING IN THE
FIELDS
POLAND ANNOUNCES COMPLETE BAN ON MONSANTO’S GENETICALLY MODIFIED MAIZE
FOR BEEKEEPERS, IT'S BEEN THE BEST OF TIMES AND THE WORST OF TIMES
MONSANTO'S UPHILL BATTLE IN GERMANY ~ FIGHTING IN THE
FIELDS
BEES “RESTORED TO HEALTH” IN ITALY AFTER THIS SPRING’S NEONICOTINOID-FREE MAIZE SOWING
INSECT NICOTINIC ACETYLCHOLINE RECEPTORS
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 inhttp://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
inhttp://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.
"Learning disabilities, dyslexia, mental retardation, attention deficit disorder, and autism ~ affecting 5 percent to 10 percent of the 4 million children born in the United States annually."
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of kids!
Around where I live there seem to be a huge number of mentally and physically handicapped people.
- Aangirfan