Yesterday, I got a beg letter from
the Bee Action campaign by the Friends of the Earth that
asserted:
You may have heard that diseases, pests, climate change have all
been implicated in the global bee die off. But now, a growing body
of science points to the world’s most popular pesticides as key
contributing factor.Nionicotinoids – or neonics – are a powerful class of pesticides
used on 140 crops.
The FOE is pushing for the adoption of the Save Our
Pollinators Act that would ban neonics until the EPA
evaluates…
…the published and peer-reviewed scientific evidence on
whether the use or uses of such neonicotinoids cause unreasonable
adverse effects on pollinators, including native bees, honey bees,
birds, bats, and other species of beneficial insects…
Well, surely any proposed bans should be based on firm
scientific findings. But what if the relevant “findings” have been
with malice-aforethought manipulated by environmental lobbyists?
Say it ain’t so!
In today’s Times (London) an article, “Scientists
accused of plotting to get pesticides banned,” reveals that
four senior European scientists with links to prominent
environmentalist organizations apparently hatched a plan to pollute
the scientific literature with an article whose predetermined
conclusions would damn the pesticides. According to a note*
obtained by the Times, the four researchers carefully
selected in advance the scientists who would do the “peer-review”
in order to insure the publication of the cobbled together article.
They further arranged to have a policy statement arguing for a
Europe-wide ban on the pesticides published simultaneously.
From the Times:
Research blaming pesticides for the decline in honeybees has
been called into question by a leaked note suggesting that
scientists had decided in advance to seek evidence supporting a ban
on the chemicals.The private note records a discussion in 2010 between four
scientists about how to persuade regulators to ban neonicotinoid
pesticides. …The leaked note says that the scientists agreed to select
authors to produce four papers and co-ordinate their publication to
“obtain the necessary policy change, to have these pesticides
banned”.A paper by a “carefully selected first author” would set out the
impact of the pesticides on insects and birds “as convincingly as
possible”. A second “policy forum” paper would draw on the first to
call for a ban.The note, which records that the meeting took place in
Switzerland on June 14, 2010, says: “If we are successful in
getting these two papers published, there will be enormous impact,
and a campaign led by WWF etc. It will be much harder for
politicians to ignore a research paper and a policy forum paper in
[a major scientific journal].”The scientists at the meeting included Maarten Bijleveld van
Lexmond, chairman of the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides, and
Piet Wit, chairman of the ecosystems management commission of the
International Union for Conservation of Nature, an influential
network of scientists and environmental groups.
For a superb round up of the science and, sadly, the politics
regarding the effects of neonicotinoids on bees, see “Bee
deaths and neonics,” by Jon Entine who is the executive
director of the Genetic Literacy
Project.
For example, Entine’s article reports:
Four Canadian scientists led by Cynthia D. Scott Dupree, an
environmental biologist at the University of Guelph, undertook a
large-scale study of honey bee
exposure to one neonic, clothianidin, which is applied as a seed
treatment. The study was centered in southern Ontario, which
advocacy groups have contended has been particularly hard hit by
neonic-related bee deaths.Designed in cooperation with the US Environmental Protection
Agency and Health Canada, it was industry funded, but executed
under Good Laboratory Practice Standards.The scientists observed bees foraging heavily on the canola. As
numerous other studies have suggested, they found, “Although
various laboratory studies have reported sublethal effects in
individual honey bees exposed to low doses of neonicotinoid
insecticides, the results of the present study suggest that
foraging on clothianidin seed-treated crops, under realistic
conditions, poses low risk to honey bee colonies.”Assertions by entomologists that neonics play a limited role in
bee health infuriates some environmentalists convinced this mystery
is solved: Let’s just ban neonics, they say, and move on.
It seems that the distinguished scientists mentioned in the
Times are taking advice from the Queen in Alice In
Wonderland:
‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first — verdict
afterwards.’
*NB: I don’t have access to a copy of the note cited in the
Times, so I would be really grateful if someone would send it along
or give a me link to it so I can share it with readers.
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