#neonicotinoids

[rjzimmerman]

This story tells us that the Biden administration is just as beholden to the chemical and big ag industries as were the trump and Obama administrations (and all those that preceded them).

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

The Environmental Protection Agency denied a petition Wednesday that asked the federal agency to more closely regulate a group of chemicals used in pesticide-coated seeds, which are linked to killing pollinators such as hummingbirds and bumblebees.

The petition, filed in 2017 by nonprofits Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network of North America, and Pollinator Stewardship Council, among other groups, claimed that the EPA’s lack of regulation on the seeds “could precipitate an economic and ecological disaster.”

“We gave EPA a golden chance and a blueprint to fix a problem that has caused significant harm to people, bees, birds, and the environment — and it stubbornly refused,” said Amy van Saun, senior attorney with the Center for Food Safety, in a statement. “It’s extremely disappointing and we’ll be exploring all possible next steps to protect communities and the environment from the hazard of pesticide-coated seeds, including a lawsuit challenging this decision.”

The seeds in question are coated in a class of chemicals known as neonicotinoids, or “neonics,” and have been cited in the mass die-off of various pollinators, such as bees and birds. The seeds are covered in chemicals that harm pollinators’ nervous systems, causing paralysis and death. The chemicals, banned in the European Union, aren’t regulated by the EPA’s pesticide enforcement rulings, which prompted environmental and ecological groups to take legal action. In the agriculture industry, seeds are treated with pesticides before they are put in the ground to protect plants from pests and diseases.

In its responsive letter, the EPA said it does not agree with the request of the petitioners to “categorically exclude seed treated with systemic pesticides” from the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. This EPA legislation limits the use of pesticides that “generally pose unreasonable risks to people, including agricultural workers, or the environment.”

In addition to killing bees, the class of chemicals has also been cited as a public health concern and directly linked to nearly 2,000 pet deaths, caused by flea and tick collars, which have also caused seizures in humans. The federal agency has not issued a formal warning against these collars.

#EPA #pesticides #bees #neonicotinoids #neonics

[falseandrealultravival]

Fear of Neonicotinoids... What's Safe? (chemistry-5)

A lot of bees are dying all over the world these days.

The reason for this is the article, after an introduction that it is possible that it is likely to be compounded, and that the new pesticide neonicotinoids (insecticides) have made a large contribution.

If honeybees die out, most of the plants that used honeybees as messengers for pollination, 80% of all plants, would be wiped out. This situation is feared to be more dangerous than the production of honey itself. No vegetables on the table! !

So, I read "Devil's New Pesticide 'Neonicotinoid'" (Shunsuke Funase: Sangokan).

However, in April 2006, the Supreme Court of France determined that neonicotinoids were "black" and banned their use. Beekeepers who suffered from CCD and an enthusiastic judge gathered information and pushed the ban.

The German company Bayer developed neonicotinoids, which have low acute toxicity to humans and act on the central nervous system of harmful insects. It was touched.

　

However, the impact also extended to bees, which are beneficial insects.

For example, in the case of imidacloprid (a type of neonicotinoid), the seeds are coated at the time of sowing, and all insects that attack the growing plants are harmed. In addition, once airborne, neonicotinoids spread within a 4km circle, whereas conventional pesticides were limited to within a 100m circle. If honey contains this dangerous pesticide, we humans, whose central nervous system is similar to that of honeybees, may also be neurotoxic. Neonicotinoids are tasteless and odorless, and some bees can't tell them apart. If it's an organic phosphorus pesticide, it seems that bees avoid it because it feels uncomfortable.

Note: This article is a little old. Neonicotinoids are banned in Europe and the United States, but Japan is promoting their use...

#Neonicotinoids #bee #insecticides #CCD #neurotoxic #Babylman #the Supreme Court of France determined that neonicotinoids were “black” and banned their use. #chemistry

[agapi-kalyptei]

#here found a documentary for you to watch #no what of course not #it's not uplifting #but it's interesting #neonicotinoids #pesticides #monoculture

[plethoraworldatlas]

The latest edition of an annual consumer's guide published Wednesday reveals that almost three-fourths of non-organic fruits and vegetables sampled contained traces of toxic pesticides while the "dirty dozen"—including strawberries and spinach—tested at levels closer to 95%.

Scientists with the Environmental Working Group (EWG) document in their new report, "2024 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides In Produce," that four out of five of the most frequently detected pesticides found on the twelve most-contaminated produce items were fungicides that could have serious health impacts.

"There's data to suggest that these fungicides can disrupt the hormone function in our body," EWG senior scientist Alexa Friedman told Common Dreams, adding that the chemicals had "been linked to things like worse health outcomes" and "impacts on the male reproductive system."

The four fungicides detected on the Dirty Dozen produce were fludioxonil, pyraclostrobin, boscalid, and pyrimethanil. Two of these—fludioxonil and pyrimethanil—were also found in the highest concentrations of any pesticide detected.

The annual Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists are based on a review of Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration data. This year, EWG looked at results from 47,510 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables.

2024's Dirty Dozen list is similar to previous years, with strawberries, spinach, and a trio of hearty greens—kale, collard greens, and mustard greens—once again taking the top three spots. The full list is as follows:

Strawberries

Spinach

Kale, collard, and mustard greens

Grapes

Peaches

Pears

Nectarines

Apples

Bell and hot peppers

Cherries

Blueberries

Green beans

The four fungicides were found on the fruits and vegetables for which new data was available this year—blueberries, green beans, peaches, and pears—for some of them at high levels.

"One reason we might see fungicides in high concentrations compared to other types of pesticides are that fungicides are often sprayed on the produce later in the process," Friedman said.

Farmers frequently apply fungicides after harvest to protect crops from mildew or mold on the way to the grocery store.

Beyond fungicides, testing also turned up the neonicotinoids acetamiprid and imidacloprid, which harm bees and other pollinators and have been associated with damage to the development of children's nervous systems.

Testing also revealed the pyrethroid insecticides cypermethrin and bifenthrin. While there are fewer studies on these pesticides, existing research suggests they may also harm children's brains. More than 1 in 10 pear samples tested positive for diphenylamine, which is currently banned in the European Union over cancer concerns.

#enviromentalism #ecology #pesticides #fungicides #Neonicotinoids #vegetables

[resistantbees]

#neonicotinoids

[andebonn]

'Pestilence'

More of this rubbish 'By Mistake On Purpose', published in various online backwaters.

#vector #cartoon #illustration #webcomic #botanicalgarden #conservation #neonicotinoids #insecticide #nicotine #vaping #botany #farming #gardening #horticulture #ivorytower #academic #student

[prose2passion]

#science #ecology #pollinators #bees #neonicotinoids

[alicemccombs]

#neonicotinoids #seeds #pollinators #climateactionnow #healearth

[ronnienews]

#neonicotinoids

[panicinthestudio]

How chemical companies destroy ecosystems (Insectides: A License to Kill), October 15, 2022

Today’s industrial agriculture relies on insecticides. These chemicals cause massive damage to the environment. Worldwide, the most common insecticides are neonicotinoids. Deployed to destroy pests, they also harm human health.

Thirty years ago, in the summertime, anybody driving a long distance would have to stop every two hours or so to clear their windshield of insects. Today, a driver can cross the whole of Europe without using the windshield wiper even once. That’s because the total biomass of flying insects has declined by about 75% since the 1990s. The culprit? The massive use of neonicotinoids, so-called "systemic" insecticides that spread throughout plant cells. They look like colorful candy and seem harmless, but they have a highly toxic effect. 

As more and more scientific studies warn of the catastrophic consequences of the use of these neurotoxins, multinational chemical companies are doing everything they can to cover up the causal link between their products and mass insect death. They fund dubious studies, put pressure on scientists and research institutions, lobby regulatory authorities intensively, and work hard to prevent or circumvent restrictions and bans. 

Meanwhile, insect death is progressing at an unprecedented rate. And because insects play a central role in food chains, both as pollinators and as food for larger animals, their decimation is affecting entire ecosystems. Fish and birds are running out of food, which increases their own mortality rates. What’s more, recent studies show that the chemicals also impact human health.

Deutsche Welle

#entomology #conservation #pesticides #insects #insecticides #agriculture #biodiversity #documentary #ecology #environment #agrochemicals #pollution #habitat loss #exploitation #right now #Deutsche Welle #science #corporations #profiteering #neonicotinoids

[kp777]

By Kenny Stancil

Common Dreams

May 5, 2023

"There's now no question that neonicotinoids play an outsized role in our heartbreaking extinction crisis," said one advocate. The EPA must "ban these pesticides so future generations don't live in a world without bees and butterflies and the plants that depend on them."

A newly published assessment from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns that three of the most commonly used neonicotinoid insecticides threaten the continued existence of more than 200 endangered plant and animal species.

"The EPA's analysis shows we've got a five-alarm fire on our hands, and there's now no question that neonicotinoids play an outsized role in our heartbreaking extinction crisis," Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), said Friday in a statement.

"The EPA has to use the authority it has to take fast action to ban these pesticides," said Burd, "so future generations don't live in a world without bees and butterflies and the plants that depend on them."

The agency's new analysis found that clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam likely jeopardize the continued existence of 166, 199, and 204 plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), respectively. This includes 25 distinct insects, more than 160 plants reliant on insect pollination, and dozens of fish, birds, and invertebrates.

"The Biden administration will have the stain of extinction on its hands if it doesn't muster the courage to stand up to Big Ag and ban these chemicals."

Species being put at risk of extinction include the whooping crane, Indiana bat, Plymouth redbelly turtle, yellow larkspur, Attwater's greater prairie-chicken, rusty patched bumblebee, Karner blue butterfly, American burying beetle, Western prairie fringed orchid, vernal pool fairy shrimp, and the spring pygmy sunfish.

"The EPA confirmed what we have been warning about for years—these neonicotinoid insecticides pose an existential threat to many endangered species and seriously undermine biodiversity," Sylvia Wu, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety (CFS), said in a statement. "Unfortunately, this dire news is what we have told EPA all along. EPA should be ashamed that it still has yet to ban these life-threatening pesticides."

The EPA is well aware of the risks associated with the three neonicotinoids in question. One year ago, the agency released biological evaluations showing that the vast majority of endangered species are likely harmed by clothianidin (1,225 species, or 67% of the ESA list), imidacloprid (1,445, 79%), and thiamethoxam (1,396, 77%). Its new analysis focuses on which imperiled species and critical habitats are likely to be driven extinct by the trio of insecticides.

As CBD pointed out: "For decades the EPA has refused to comply with its Endangered Species Act obligations to assess pesticides' harms to protected species. The agency was finally forced to do the biological evaluations by legal agreements with the Center for Food Safety and the Natural Resources Defense Council. After losing many lawsuits on this matter, the EPA has committed to work toward complying with the act."

"Given the Fish and Wildlife Service's refusal to lift a finger to protect endangered species from pesticides, we commend the EPA for completing this analysis and revealing the disturbing reality of the massive threat these pesticides pose," said Burd. "The Biden administration will have the stain of extinction on its hands if it doesn't muster the courage to stand up to Big Ag and ban these chemicals."

CFS science director Bill Freese said that "while we welcome EPA's overdue action on this issue, we are closely examining the agency's analysis to determine whether still more species are jeopardized by these incredibly potent and ubiquitous insecticides."

As CFS explained:

Chemically similar to nicotine, neonicotinoids kill insects by disrupting their nervous systems. Just billionths of a gram can kill or impair honeybees. Introduced in the 1990s, neonicotinoids have rapidly become the most widely used insecticides in the world. Neonics can be sprayed or applied to soil, but by far the biggest use is application to seeds. The neonic seed coating is absorbed by the growing seedling and makes the entire plant toxic. CFS has a separate case challenging EPA's regulation of these seed coatings. Bees and other pollinators are harmed by exposure to neonic-contaminated nectar and pollen, with studies demonstrating disruptions in flight ability, impaired growth and reproduction as well as weakened immunity. Neonic-contaminated seed dust generated during planting operations causes huge bee kills, while pollinators also die from direct exposure to spray. Neonics are also persistent (break down slowly), and run off into waterways, threatening aquatic organisms. EPA has determined that neonics likely harm all 38 threatened and endangered amphibian species in the U.S., among hundreds of other organisms. Birds are also at risk, and can die from eating just one to several treated seeds.

Neonicotinoids have long been prohibited in the European Union, but as recently as a few months ago, a loophole enabled governments to grant emergency derogations temporarily permitting the use of seeds coated with these and other banned insecticides. In January, the E.U.'s highest court closed the loophole for neonicotinoid-treated seeds—a decision the post-Brexit United Kingdom refused to emulate.

In the U.S., neonicotinoids continue to be used on hundreds of millions of acres of agricultural land, contributing to an estimated 89% decline in the American bumblebee population over the past 20 years.

According to Freese, "EPA has thus far given a free pass to neonicotinoids coated on corn and other crop seeds—which represent by far their largest use—that make seedlings toxic to pollinators and other beneficial insects."

"Our expert wildlife agencies—the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service—have the final say on this matter," Freese added, "and may well find that neonicotinoids put even more species at risk of extinction."

A 2019 scientific review of the catastrophic global decline of insects made clear that a "serious reduction in pesticide usage" is essential to prevent the extinction of up to 41% of the world's insects in the coming decades.

#neonicotinoid insecticide #clothianidin #imidacloprid #thiamethoxam #endangered species #environmental protection agency #endangered species act #environment

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

Jody Weible keeps a jar on her front porch that she refuses to open, because the smell would make her eyes water and her throat close up. Inside is a goopy mixture of fermented corn seeds that she collected nearly four years ago from a field near her home in Mead, Nebraska, a town of about 600 people. The seeds had been applied to the soil as an “amendment” to boost fertility, but they were actually waste from a nearby ethanol plant, AltEn — waste that contained staggeringly high levels of toxic pesticides.

For nearly a decade, AltEn collected leftover seeds from around the country to use as the base for its ethanol, a corn-based fuel that’s mixed into gasoline. A byproduct was the fermented seed mixture, stored in a pastel-green pile that at one point took up 30 acres of the property. The smell it gave off was “acidic, rotten, dead,” Weible told Grist from her home less than a mile away from the plant. Residents kept their windows closed because of the stench; birds stopped coming to feeders. One woman said her dogs started having neurological problems after eating some of the waste.

The seeds AltEn used were coated with a class of chemicals known as neonicotinoids, or “neonics,” an insecticide that’s been linked to a nationwide pollinator decline and is under consideration for regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency. Residents of Mead suspected AltEn’s pesticide-laced byproduct was killing nearby bee colonies and polluting their water. State regulators finally shut the operation down in February 2021, and are now suing the company for allegedly violating the Nebraska Environmental Protection Act. But the shuttered site continues to pose a hazard to the community.

A few days after it closed, a frozen pipe ruptured at the plant, sending 4 million gallons of wastewater into local rivers and streams. Today, over a year later, pesticide-laden seed waste remains at the site. It’s been covered in a gray mixture of cement, clay, and polyester –  an attempt to temporarily trap the toxic material while a longer-term solution is being developed. But researchers and environmental groups warn that the cleanup of AltEn is not happening quickly enough, and that neonics continue to leak into local streams and groundwater.

#ethanol production #biofuel #neonicotinoids #neonics #public health

[vsdindustries1]

Here is Some Information About Thiamethoxam Manufacturer in Ethiopia

Thiamethoxam Manufacturer in Ethiopia is a systemic insecticide and neonicotinoid class of chemicals used to control a broad spectrum of insect pests in agriculture, horticulture, and other settings. It is known for its effectiveness against various types of insects, including aphids, whiteflies, thrips, and beetles. Thiamethoxam belongs to a group of chemicals designed to disrupt the nervous systems of insects, ultimately leading to paralysis and death.

Visit Us: Thiamethoxam Manufacturer in Ethiopia

ADDRESS:

Office No - 704, 7th Floor, Akashdeep Building, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi - 110001

EMAIL:

[email protected]

PHONE:

[phone]

#Thiamethoxam Manufacturer in Ethiopia is a systemic insecticide and neonicotinoid class of chemicals used to control a broad spectrum of ins #horticulture #and other settings. It is known for its effectiveness against various types of insects #including aphids #whiteflies #thrips #and beetles. Thiamethoxam belongs to a group of chemicals designed to disrupt the nervous systems of insects #ultimately leading to paralysis and death. #Visit Us: Thiamethoxam Manufacturer in Ethiopia #https://www.vsdindustries.com/thiamethoxam-ethiopia.php #ADDRESS: #Office No - 704 #7th Floor #Akashdeep Building #Barakhamba Road #New Delhi - 110001 #EMAIL: #[email protected] #PHONE: #[phone]

[orbesargentina]

Insecticidas neonicotinoides: la prohibición no viola las regulaciones vigentes https://bit.ly/3Qik41a

#abejas #neonicotinoides

[nanzyn]

"oooug science is so cool" bleh how about you read 17 different scientific papers about shit you don't care about and write a 4 page paper for a stupid ecology class and come back to me

#bones talks #im just complaining to complain at this point #fuck these bees ill kill these bees myself at this point #who needs neonicotinoids when you have the fists of an overworked undergrad

[resistantbees]

#scientificresearch #neonicotinoids