In article <[log in to unmask]>, Garth
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Hi All
>
>Thanks for the posts regarding this thread (especially to your
>Murray).
>
>As Murray pointed out, fluvalinate has been proven to have little
>known side effects, and carries with it a full set of product
>instructions.
>
>My point is: To make those procuct instructions, a lot of research
>was carried out. Many expensive personal carried tests out, injected
>the stuff into rats and all the other things that are done. Great
>lengths were taken to make sure that the product was only launched in
>countries after big disasters had hit, (advertising by example) and
>people make lots of money this way.
>
>So, when I lumped the chemical in with cocain. LSD, heroine, DDT and
>all those other nasties, all I had hoped to do was to show that it
>will oneday join these as another bad chemical. All the mentioned
>nasties act on the nervous system. All were once legal. All have been
>shown to be bad in some way, but not without doing some damage before
>they were banned, and more thereafter.
>
>Products which work, are not profitable. One wants to sell something
>that almost works. The model T ford worked very well. So well that
>people never needed another one as it never broke. So Ford decided to
>build in built in obscelescence. Cars broke after people had finished
>paying for them, so ford did not kill it's market. Likewise
>fluvalinate has built in obsolescence (sp?) it does not work very
>well, it will be banned probably just before it's patent wears out
>and a new treatment will be released, which has been developed using
>cash from the previous patent. And it will be banned just before that
>patent runs out? Anybody from an agrochemical company out there able
>to tell us how much their MD earns? How in the sixties certain very
>famous companies used to empty their experimental chemical vats into
>the St Lawrence river to save costs (from a previous employee who
>left in disgust when a friend had to go to hsopital for
>organaophosphate poisoning from swimming in the river)
>
>I think it is a dirty world, and all I wanted to show, was that, just
>like drug barons who sell a product that keeps it's customers to the
>death, in some ways certain pesticides are similar. (A rat lives four
>years, a human eighty - that means that we don't even know what the
>long term effect of 90% of this centuaries pesticide is as those
>people have not reached their life expectancy, and thier kids whose
>original gamets had the holes blown in them have fifty years to go
>before they find out whether the testing of fluvalinate was right -
>the MD will be dead by then so who cares?)
>
>Sorry, am a cynic - of to eat my breakfast/pesticides.
>
>Keep well
>
>Garth
>
>PS - I am not a green peacer. I believe that exposing myself to
>certain poisons is good (boosts enzyme levels to deal with them), and
>so on. Just don't like big businesses that play evil games to
>maximise profit. (We all would if we could though)
>---
>Garth Cambray       Kamdini Apiaries
>15 Park Road        Apis melifera capensis
>Grahamstown         800mm annual precipitation
>6139
>Eastern Cape
>South Africa               Phone 27-0461-311663
>
>On holiday for a few months     Rhodes University
>Which means: working with bees 15 hours a day!
>Interests: Fliis and bees
>Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way
>reflect those of Rhodes University.
Dear Garth,
 
I appreciate your cynicism and the grounds you cite for it. Suspicion is
not necessarily a bad thing.
 
However, fluvalinate is a pyrethroid, which, natural or synthetic, are
amongst the most benign and least persistent insecticides known today. I
am sure a better killer of varroa could be found, but it is unlikely
that it would have so few side effects. (Correctly timed applications of
fluvalinate kill somewhere in the 95 to 99 % of non resistant mites in a
colony, so how much higher do you want that figure to go bearing in mind
that something which will kill 100% of the mites probably kills the bees
as well.)
 
The obsolescence you mention is not really an avoidable option in this
case because nature has it built in anyway. Pyrethroids, by their very
nature, are relatively easily got round by the target species.
Resistance develops quickly especially in places where the treatment is
irresponsibly used, so the clock is already ticking for them as soon as
they are first used. I have heard that the problem with resistant mite
stems from some cost cutting, I think in Italy, where beekeepers were
soaking plywood strips in fluvalinate then placing them in their hives.
This uncontrolled usage gave rise to overdosing, which was damaging to
bees, and underdosing, which was very helpful to the mite population as
it selected for low levels of resistance which then bred up to higher
levels more quickly than if correct doses had been used all along. I
cannot remember for sure but I think I recall that a product called
MAVRIK, with fluvalinate as its active ingredient was the one being used
in this case, and it came as a liquid in a can and was extremely cheap.
 
I understand and accept much of what you say, but, even if you cannot
trust the pharmaceutical companies, there are a lot of good people out
there and it is not quite as dirty a world as you say. Many good
scientists have researched this subject. Trust some of them.
 
Hope you enjoyed your breakfast and hope to hear from you again soon.
 
Murray
--
Murray McGregor