Insecticide 'unacceptable' danger to bees, report finds

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Insecticide 'unacceptable' danger to bees, report finds

Damian Carrington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 January 2013 11.18 GMT

The world's most widely used insecticide has for the first time been officially labelled an "unacceptable" danger to bees feeding on flowering crops. Environmental campaigners say the conclusion, by Europe's leading food safety authority, sounds the "death knell" for the insect nerve agent.

The chemical's manufacturer, Bayer, claimed the report, released on Wednesday, did not alter existing risk assessments and warned against "over-interpretation of the precautionary principle".

The report comes just months after the UK government dismissed a fast-growing body of evidence of harm to bees as insufficient to justify banning the chemicals.

Bees and other pollinators are critical to one-third of all food, but two major studies in March 2012, and others since, have implicated neonicotinoid pesticides in the decline in the insects, alongside habitat loss and disease. In April, the European commission demanded a re-examination of the risks posed by the chemicals, including Bayer's widely used imidacloprid and two others.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/16/insecticide-unacceptable-danger-bees

[womanofthehills]

1. I would add "unacceptable danger to people"

http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-community/neonicotinoid-pesticides-zmgz12aszphe.aspx

[Follow The Money]

2. Monsanto splices roundup into the genes of genetically modified foods

so they can spray roundup liberally on the crops that we eat.

I wonder, could the spread of the Cancer Monsanto be directly related to the bee population decline?

[progressoid]

3. Insecticide is dangerous to insects?

That's crazy talk.