Center for Food Safety Calls on Congress, EPA to Take Action

Three new studies released in the past two weeks, including one today by Harvard University, add to the growing body of evidence that implicate pesticides, specifically neonicotinoids—a class of pesticides used as a seed treatment in crops—as one of the most critical factors contributing to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

“These studies show, once again, that these pesticides have a role to play in CCD and must be addressed,” said Peter Jenkins, an attorney for
the Center for Food Safety. “While pesticide manufacturers and government agencies argue over the state of the science, honey bees are being lost to CCD at an alarming rate.”

One of the new studies—released in Science last week—shows that sub-lethal neonicotinoid exposure disrupts honeybees’ foraging and homing abilities.  Another study shows that neonicotinoid exposure reduces queen fitness in bumblebees, causing an 85% reduction in the number of queens produced.  Harvard researchers found that 94% of the hives had died after exposure to a neonicotinoid pesticide called imidacloprid at levels hypothesized by the study team to have been present in high fructose corn syrup since the introduction of neonicotinoids into corn seed treatments in 2004-2005. The Harvard study will be published in the forthcoming issue of the Bulletin of Insectology. These three studies are just the latest in a string of studies over the past year connecting these pesticides with CCD.

Beekeepers cite colony loses of at least 30% each year, costing rural agricultural economies millions of dollars. In response, two weeks ago, commercial beekeepers and environmental organizations including the Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network and Beyond Pesticides, filed an urgent legal petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend further use of one such neonicotinoid, clothianidin, adopt safeguards to ensure similar future pesticides aren’t approved by the agency. The legal petition was supported by over one million petition signers.

“EPA should move swiftly to close the loophole and revoke the conditional registration of clothianidin,” continued Jenkins. “Bees and beekeepers can’t afford to wait for more industry misinformation and agency inaction.”

Nine years ago, scientists within the EPA required a field study examining the potential harms of one neonicotinoid pesticide (clothianidin) to non-target insects – specifically honey bees – because they had reason to believe the pesticide may harm pollinators. EPA, under pressure from manufacturers like Bayer ignored the agency’s regulations and granted a conditional, or temporary, registration to clothianidin in 2003.
The pesticide has remained on the market until this day.

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture.
CFS currently represents 200,000 members across the nation. On the web at: www.centerforfoodsafety.org and www.truefoodnow.org