I talked to Josh at NRDC today.
From my perspective, the press release was unfortunate. Their push is to
get EPA to release chem testing for product label purposes. I've no problem
with that. I've been very vocal about stating the privatizing pesticide
testing, taking it away from universities has left us with the problem that the
results for products that eventually come on the market are not longer available
to the bee industry.
In the past, people like Larry Atkins, Carl Johansen, Dan Meyer - tested
pesticides, evaluated hazard to bees, and published the results in brochures,
pamphlets, and the open literature - so everyone had access.
Both assembled tables that compared the various products in terms of
toxicity to bees and residual times.
The private test labs has no requirement nor interest in publishing results,
and their clients have no obligation to do so, other than file with EPA.
Now, here's the rub. Even EPA scientists have difficulties retrieving the
results - if you want the test results, you need to know the exact formulation
tested. Freedom of Information doesn't do much good, unless you can specify
the exact product that you want to review.
Remember also, EPA used to have a test lab that routinely ran bee samples,
when a beekeeper suspected a pesticide kill. That was part of the beekeeper
indemnity program that the Reagen administration eliminated. That wasn't
EPA's decision, it was a political decision.
Now, as far as I can determine, Josh did not have any information about CCD
that we haven't seen on this list.
He based his claims about CCD and pesticides on the PSU report (which he can
get from them or read in ABJ without going through Freedom of Information or
EPA). That report simply says what has been seen in every decade back
through the 1930's - pesticide residues show up in bees, wax, etc. Bees are
sometimes killed by pesticides. Nothing has changed, other than some new
formulations - and that's what's happened every decade or so as we went from
inorganic pesticides (Arsenic, lead, copper, sulfur) to synthetic organic pesticides
(DDT in the 40s) to the encapsulated chemicals, carbamates, and
organo-phosphates that followed the chlorinated hydrocarbons, and now the neonicotinics.
Pesticides do kill bees. Label testing needs revision. Information needs
to be made more accessible, and in a timely manner. But, the evidence is not
there to say pesticides cause CCD.
And, to the best of my knowledge, EPA hasn't made any significant investment
in studying CCD. You can't hide data that you don't have.
Jerry
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