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Pesticides cause mass death of bees

CBGnetwork | 25.08.2008 15:40 | Health | World

The German Coalition against Bayer Dangers today brought a charge against Werner Wenning, chairman of the Bayer Board of Management, with the Public Prosecutor in Freiburg (south-western Germany). The group accuses Bayer of marketing dangerous pesticides and thereby accepting the mass death of bees all over the world.



Press Release, August 25, 2008
Coalition against BAYER Dangers (Germany)

Pesticides cause mass death of bees
Germany: Charge against Bayer´s Board of Management

The German Coalition against Bayer Dangers today brought a charge against Werner Wenning, chairman of the Bayer Board of Management, with the Public Prosecutor in Freiburg (south-western Germany). The group accuses Bayer of marketing dangerous pesticides and thereby accepting the mass death of bees all over the world. The Coalition introduced the charge in cooperation with German beekeepers who lost thousands of hives after poisoning by the pesticide clothianidin in May this year.

Since 1991 Bayer has been producing the insecticide Imidacloprid, which is one of the best selling insecticides in the world, often used as seed-dressing for maize, sunflower, and rape. Bayer exports Imidacloprid to more than 120 countries and the substance is Bayer´s best-selling pesticide. Since patent protection for Imidacloprid expired in most countries, Bayer in 2003 brought a similarly functionning successor product, Clothianidin, onto the market. Both substances are systemic chemicals that work their way from the seed through the plant. The substances also get into the pollen and the nectar and can damage beneficial insects such as bees.

The beginning of the marketing of Imidacloprid and Clothianidin coincided with the occurrence of large scale bee deaths in many European and American countries. Up to 70 per cent of all hives have been affected. In France alone approximately 90 billion bees died within ten years, reducing honey production by up to 60%.

Harro Schultze, attorney of the Coalition against Bayer Dangers said: “The Public Prosecutor needs to clarify which efforts BAYER undertook to prevent a ban of Imidacloprid and Clothianidin after sales of both substances were stopped in France. We´re suspecting that Bayer submitted flawed studies to play down the risks of pesticide residues in treated plants”. In France Imidacloprid has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers since 1999 and in 2003 was also banned as a sweetcorn treatment. The Comité Scientifique et Technique, convened by the French government, declared that the treatment of seeds with Imidacloprid leads to significant risks for bees. Bayer´s application for Clothianidin was also rejected by French authorities.

“Bayer´s Board of Management has to be called to account since the risks of neonicotinoids such as Imidacloprid and Clothianidin have now been known for more than ten years. With an annual turnover of nearly 800 million Euro neonicotinoids are among Bayer´s most important products. This is the reason why Bayer, despite serious environmental damage, is fighting against any application prohibitions”, says Philipp Mimkes, speaker of the Coalition against Bayer-dangers. The Coalition demands that Bayer withdraw all neonicotinoids from the market worldwide.

The accusation of flawed studies is confirmed by the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) which judged on Bayer´s Clothianidin application: “All of the field/semi-field studies, however, were found to be deficient in design and conduct of the studies and were, therefore, considered as supplemental information only. Clothianidin may pose a risk to honey bees and other pollinators, if exposure occurs via pollen and nectar of crop plants grown from treated seeds”. PRMA adds: “It should also be noted that Clothianidin is very persistent in soil, with high carry-over of residues to the next growing season. Clothianidin is also mobile in soil.”

In May 2008 German authorities blamed clothianidin for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products, including Clothianidin and Imidacloprid, on maize and rape.

The case is filed by the Public Prosecutor in Freiburg (Tel: +49-(0)761 2050) under the file number 520 UJs 1649/08

more information:
· The Guardian: Germany bans chemicals linked to bee devastation www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/23/wildlife.endangeredspecies
· Sierra Club urges EPA to suspend nicotinyl insecticides:  http://www.sierraclub.org/biotech/whatsnew/whatsnew_2008-07-30.asp
· Press Release of the Research Centre for Cultivated Plants (German):  http://www.jki.bund.de/cln_044/nn_813794/DE/pressestelle/Presseinfos/2008/1605__BienensterbenClothianidin.html__nnn=true
· Bee-keepers and environmental groups demand prohibition of pesticide "Gaucho"
· French Institutes Finds Imidaproclid Turning Up in Wide Range of Crops
· 2003 report from the "Comité Scientifique et Technique de l’Etude Multifactorielle des Troubles des Abeilles"  http://agriculture.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/rapportfin.pdf

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Prof. Juergen Junginger, designer, Krefeld,
Prof. Dr. Juergen Rochlitz, chemist, former member of the Bundestag, Burgwald
Wolfram Esche, attorney, Cologne
Dr. Sigrid Müller, pharmacologist, Bremen
Eva Bulling-Schroeter, member of the Bundestag, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Anton Schneider, biologist, Neubeuern
Dorothee Sölle, theologian, Hamburg (died 2003)
Dr. Janis Schmelzer, historian, Berlin
Dr. Erika Abczynski, pediatrician, Dormagen

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Additions

I'd missed this news in the commercial press. Thank You.

25.08.2008 20:41

I've been missing bees for years too.

Everytime I see one I feel a mixture of great sadness and anger. & the rareness of the encounters in the last years has meant each bee sighted has been a topic of conversation afterwards. Gaucho was being blamed (in many languages) as early as 2003 "Millions of bees dead - Bayer's Gaucho blamed" (2003-11-26)  http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/11/26/millions_of_bees_dead_bayers_gaucho_blamed.htm
Which of course was when the organisation that presented the article above had their first great clash with Bayer.
 http://www.cbgnetwork.org/Ubersicht/Zeitschrift_SWB/SWB_2003/SWB_02_2003/Gaucho_02_03/gaucho_02_03.html
& Guacho is being blamed now.

Who & what else was blamed in the meantime whilst Bayer & Bayer made their sweet sticky money?

After naming the product, molecule and fabricant - the blame was shifted in the commercial press to the mites that live on the honey bees back. The Varroa Vampire mites were sucking the life essence out of our pollinators & whose ultimate destruction would probably come from the multi-national-chemical industry. Then the blame was shifted again to GM crops, whose tweakiness had plausibly sent the Vampire mites radge to such an extent as to exterminate the main food source their careful evolution had afforded them & also in such a way as to lower stock market confidence in GM multinationals and allow a shift in R&D investment to the chemical companies in times of rising hydrocarbon & other raw material prices. & then finally the "zionist plot" element came into it with the discovery of the Israel acute paralysis virus (IAPV)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAPV which suggested that the bees hadn't actually died at all, but were just useless paraplegics taking up space within their hives in a way no worker bee had ever been known to do. Then someone remembered how crickets had done sort of the same thing during the world anti-polio campaigns and dug up Kashmir Bee Virus as the scapegoat. & then the commercial media knowing we have a limited understanding of virology told us the bees had "bee AIDS" but top scientists were working on a cure which would be affordable to apiculturists from the Home Counties of England to Yacht owners of the Mediterranean with special insurance clauses for retired Californians who had been convinced that "Colony Collapse Disorder" wasn't actually something to do with bees but the reason they needed high fibre 0% gluten diets and a shaman sticking their twinky up their bot once a month.

Years of spin and cross-pollination of disinformation - we're back to Bayer & Bayer.

& one group has been busy working away all this time -  http://www.cbgnetwork.org/index2.html

one of the hive


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