"Sometimes in combination, multiple pesticides are many times more toxic than either one would be individually ...A chemical combination can be 1,000 times more toxic than each of the individual pesticides." - Aaron Colangelo, Sr. Attorney, NRDC
September 25, 2008 Washington, D. C. - For two years, honey bees have been dying and disappearing in massive numbers throughout North America, Europe and spreading to other parts of the world. Half of Italy's bee population died in 2007 and in September 2008, the Italian government issued a ban on four nicotine-based pesticides linked to honey bee deaths, including clothianidin and imidacloprid. Argentina has lost more than 30% of its bees and the British Beekeepers Association reports that one-third of English honey bee hives did not survive through this past spring. The Association says if colony collapse disorder continues, "honey bees will disappear completely from Britain by 2018, causing calamitous economic and environmental problems."
French beekeepers linked massive die-offs of their bees with sprays of the nicotine-based pesticide imidacloprid made by Bayer CropScience of Germany. In 2003, French farmers rioted and demanded the government ban the pesticide to save their bees. And France did ban imidacloprid, also known as Gaucho, from use on sunflowers and sweetcorn. European researchers also found in lab research that imidacloprid interferes with bee memories so the insects can't find their way back to the hives.
While France banned imidicloprid in 2003, that same year back in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved with a conditional registration yet another nicotine-based pesticide manufactured by Bayer called clothianidin, also known as Poncho, PonchoBeta and Prosper. "Conditional" meant EPA had concerns about the nicotine-based pesticide's effect on honey bees, but EPA let Bayer put the pesticide on the market anyway while EPA said it would gather more research data.
Full Story: http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1477&category=Environment
