In reference to the discovery of minute amounts of sulfer in the honey.
Hope those people don't eat eggs.  Anybody ever investigate the amount of
sulfer in the yolk of an egg?  Surely does turn silver black in a hurry.
Sometimes makes you wonder about the drug approval system.
 
On Fri, 15 Sep 1995, Allen Dick wrote:
 
> Thanks to Andy for another excellent post.
>
> > For sure it is not approved for use in the USA. It could be illegal
> > to sell any product for use in or on a beehive or on bee's that is
> > not approved. It could also be illegal for a beekeeper to use a
> > product that is not approved.
> >
> > The problem is and continues to be getting any product, no matter
> > how safe, or how much research, or how long it has been in use by
> > beekeepers, approved.
> >
> > Make's one wonder about the future of any golden bullet does it
> > not..!! Worse it make's me wonder about the product's that are
> > approved as they are not necessarily the best, only the one's that
> > had the money to use the system to get approval. And for sure limits
> > the choice that we can make and that choice is not necessarily made
> > on the best research, only who has the most money.
> <etc.>
>
> We lost the best treatment for AFB years back, because it was never
> put through the approval process in the years when approval was
> easier.  Actually, I don't know why it wasn't grandfathered.
>
> Sulfa was an excellent controll because of its persistence.  The
> problems started when the practice came under scrutiny a decade or
> so back.  With the advent of techniques to find minute amounts of
> contaminants, it was found in some honey in reatios of 1 part per
> million or so and resulted in a lot of good honey being dumped or
> used for feed.
>
> I don't know if there is any real danger to anyone in having levels
> of that order.  Some people have kidney problems when exposed to
> some level of sulfa drugs (I don't know much about this) and there
> is the hazard of having resistance to sulfa develop when it occurs
> widely, however, as far as I know, the hog people still use it as
> liberally as salt.
>
> Comments welcome.
>
> > The approved chemical treatment for the prevention of AFB and EFB is
> > TM, use it, it works and it is cheeper then any other approved or
> > not approved chemical or drug that you could use. It also benefits
> > healthy hives with increased brood rearing if used as proscribed on
> > the label.
> <etc.>
>
> Amen
>
> Regards
>
> Allen
>
> W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper                                    VE6CFK
> Rural Route One, Swalwell, Alberta  Canada  T0M 1Y0
> Honey. Bees, Art, & Futures <http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~dicka>
>