Stan:
> So it would seem that the author of the paper doesn't see that
metabolization of the product is incompatible with irreversible receptor
binding.

Randy:
Ghislain, we've been over Abbink's paper time and again.  Why keep bringing
up one sentence from an obscure and  old paper, when recent experts on
neonic chemistry and physiology have confirmed that the statement was in
error, and is completely unsupported by either field or lab data?

I can't understand why we should doubt about the irreversibility of the
mechanism since the manufacturer of the product wrote it itself already in
1991:

From the 'Biochemistry of imidacloprid' by Abbink, J. (Bayerwerk AG,
Wuppertal-Elberfeld (Germany):

The neurophysiological properties of the nicotinergic Acetylcholine
receptors of Stomoxys calcitrans, which include the binding of imidacloprid,
are described in detail. Imidacloprid is the first highly effective
insecticide whose mode of action has been found to derive from almost
complete and virtually irreversivle blockage of postsynaptic nicotinergic
acetylcholine receptors in the central nervous system of the insect pest
Stomoxys calcitrans.

That was thus before the first incidents in France in 1995. It is not
because Randy calls this information 'obscure and an old paper' that it is
not important. At that time Bayer hadn't yet to defend itself against the
French beekeepers and could write the facts as there were. 

Kind regards,

Ghislain De Roeck,
Belgium.

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