#neonicitinoids

Recently, Health Canada announced a move to ban the use of certain pesticides containing chemical substances known as neonicotinoids. Scientists have long known such pesticides decimate bee populations, which is bad enough, considering several species have made the endangered list of late. However, current evidence exists showing how these substances harm more than just bees.

Researchers have found neonicotinoids present in the bodies of birds and other mammals as well. The substances have caused multiple hummingbird deaths. Scientists now fear what these substances could do to the human food chain as well as the planet’s ecology.

Just read the short excerpt, and add it to your mind list of the ways the EPA is determined to fuck up our health and our environment. The EPA’s mission to protect that which it is considering degrading even more.

Excerpt:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will consider allowing the bee-killing pesticide thiamethoxam to be sprayed on the most widely grown crops in the U.S. The application, if approved, would allow the highly toxic pesticide to be sprayed directly on 165 million acres of wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, alfalfa, rice and potato.

The proposal by the agrochemical giant Syngenta to dramatically escalate use of the harmful neonicotinoid pesticide came last Friday, on the same day the EPA released new assessments of the extensive dangers posed by neonicotinoids, including thiamethoxam.

"If the EPA grants Syngenta's wish, it will spur catastrophic declines of aquatic invertebrates and pollinator populations that are already in serious trouble," said Lori Ann Burd, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's environmental health program. "You know the pesticide-approval process is broken when the EPA announces it will consider expanding the use of this dangerous pesticide on the same day its own scientists reveal that the chemical kills birds and aquatic invertebrates."

Neonicotinoids have long been known to pose serious harm to bee populations. But the new EPA assessments found the commonly used pesticides can kill and harm birds of all sizes and pose significant dangers to aquatic invertebrates.

Neonicotinoids are washing off of their host seeds and into water bodies—threatening not just aquatic insects but the birds that rely on them.   

Still More Politicized Pseudo-Science?

The neonics and honeybees saga takes interesting, potentially fraudulent turn

By Paul Driessen ~

Widening efforts to blame neonicotinoid pesticides for honeybee “colony collapse disorder” and other “beepocalypse” problems have taken a fascinating turn.

Insisting that scientific evidence shows a clear link between neonics and honeybee population declines, EU anti-insecticide campaigners persuaded…