Insecticides

Chemicals have become a weapon in man’s arsenal against crop-destroying insects and weeds. Fifty million tons of toxins are applied annually to soil and crops in America alone. What these poisons are doing to the entire web of life—and to personal health—began to be known some 40 to 50 years ago. We warned at that time that unless mankind drastically changed its ways, we were heading for disaster. And now, today, as you read these words, we are in the middle of that forecasted disaster—and are witnesses of an ever-expanding crisis!

Two Congressional Democrats have co-sponsored new legislation called the Save America’s Pollinators Act of 2013 to take emergency action to save the remaining bees in the U.S., and in turn, the U.S. food supply. At issue is the use of toxic insecticides called neonicotinoids. Recent studies suggest that at least four types of these insecticides are a primary cause of the massive decline in bee populations seen in the U.S. in recent years. It is estimated over 10 million beehives been wiped out since 2007, as part of a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. “Given that EPA allowed many of these insecticides on the market without adequate safety assessments and without adequate field studies on their impact to pollinator health, we feel it’s time that Congress support a bill like the Conyers-Blumenauer bill, which would suspend the use of the neonicotinoids until EPA does the adequate science to prove that these neonicotinoids… are not harmful - and if they are harmful, to keep them off the market,” Colin O’Neil, director for government affairs for the Centre for Food Safety, told IPS. “One-third of food that’s reliant on the honeybee pollination is really under threat, and threats to pollinators concern the entire food system,” O’Neil said.

The story started back in Germany when the cows of a farmer suffered and suddenly died from a mysterious disease after they were exclusively fed on Syngenta’s GM Bt 176. The farmer took Syngenta to court and Syngenta had to pay the farmer 40,000 Euros but the giant biotech completely denied that its GM corn caused the death of the livestock. However, few years later, the farmer found out that in a feeding study, Syngenta’s GM corn killed four cows in just two days. Now, few German farmers have come together and have taken Syngenta to the court for the death of famer’s cattle and covering up the deaths of livestock in the study. Most importantly, Hans-Theo Jahmann, the head of Syngenta is charged for not sharing his prior knowledge about the feeding study that resulted in the death of livestock in the first civil court.

Het Zwitserse agroconcern Syngenta heeft over het eerste half jaar van 2013 een nettowinst gerealiseerd van 1,41 miljard dollar. Dat is 5% minder dan over de eerste 6 maanden van 2012. De omzet nam met 2% toe tot 8,4 miljard dollar. Het operationele resultaat EBITDA steeg met 9% tot 2,2 miljard dollar en de operationele marge lag op 26,0%. In de eerste helft van 2012 bedroeg de marge 24,9%. Voor de tweede helft van 2013 rekent Syngenta op meer groei van de omzet, vanwege de vooruitzichten in Latijns Amerika, Azië en de Pacific. De onderneming blijft inzetten op een gemiddelde EBITDA-marge tussen 22 en 24% in 2015.

De Europese Commissie vroeg de EFSA, het Europese voedselagentschap, om de toelatingsprocedures van middelen te beoordelen. Aanleiding daarvoor is de bijensterfte en het tijdelijke verbod van vier neonicotinoïden. De Efsa concludeert dat er gaten zitten in de toelatingsstudies van de industrie betreffende bijen. Dit geldt niet alleen voor neonicotinoïden, maar voor alle middelen, dus insecticiden maar ook herbiciden en fungiciden. De Efsa heeft een concept-protocol met eisen opgesteld, waar toekomstige toelatingen aan moeten voldoen. Als de Commissie het concept-protocol aanneemt gaat dit gelden voor alle lidstaten. De eisen om een middel toegelaten te krijgen, worden dan flink strenger. Er worden voor een toelating dan meer onderzoeksresultaten gevraagd. Probleem is dat de onderzoekslaboratoria geen capaciteit over hebben en dat voor een aantal zaken nog geen testmethoden is. Herregistratie van middelen wordt dan een flinke dobber. Mogelijk dat na de neonicotinioïden ook diverse pyrethroïden sneuvelen vanwege aanvullende bijenstudies. Het middelenpakket tegen insecten wordt dan schraal. De chemische industrie lobbyt om de scherpe kantjes van het concept-protocol er af te krijgen. Maar Bayer Cropscience verwacht niet dat de toelatingseisen afgezwakt worden, hooguit later ingevoerd. In een reactie schrijft de toxicoloog Henk Tennekes dat de industrie nu een koekje van eigen deeg krijgt. Het voor de verdediging van de neonicotinoide insecticiden als onontbeerlijk gedeclareerde maar bijna onbetaalbare veldonderzoek wordt nu geheel onnodig een onderdeel van de toelatingsprocedures voor bestrijdingsmiddelen. De industrie zal een zware dobber krijgen aan de nieuwe toelatingseisen te voldoen, aldus Tennekes.

In the present study, ultrastructural alterations induced by oral administration of imidacloprid over 4 weeks was assessed in rats. Forty eight male sprague dawley rats procured from NIN and divided into four groups. Group 1 given with basal diet, group 2 orally gavaged with 80mg/kg/day imidacloprid, group 3 was treated with vitamin C at the rate of 10 mg/kg b.wt/day and group 4 was treated with both imidacloprid and vitamin C
for 4 weeks. In group 2, Ultra thin sections of kidney has evidenced apoptotic nuclei, pleomorphic mitochondria and liver showed swollen nuclei, disrupted chromatin and rough endoplasmic reticulum. Testes revealed increased perinuclear space, disintegrated chromatin, degeneration of spermatids and brain revealed vacuolar mitochondria and apoptotic nuclei. A mild improvement was observed in group 4. In conclusion, these results suggest that exposure to imidacloprid in rats induced ultrastructural alterations and co-administration of vitamin C brought mild protection.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the keystone of the European Union’s food and feed safety risk assessment. Indeed, EFSA provides scientific advice to risks managers for the safety of food in the EU and a high level of protection for food-producing animals, including bees, their ecosystem services, such as crop pollination and honey production. The large bee losses reported worldwide over the last decades have stimulated a lot of research on the monitoring of bees, mainly Apis bees (honeybees), and their stressors (e.g. pathological, agrochemicals, environmental, nutritional, etc.), but principally on pathogens. During this process, extensive datasets have been generated and collated on honeybee losses that have been linked to diseases, pests and pathogens in Europe and North America. However, given the importance of all bee pollinators - not only honeybees ­- and the universally agreed multifactorial origin of bee losses, such an approach seems too limited and may fail in meeting the global protection goals of ensuring bee diversity, crop pollination and honey production.