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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
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- From: Kitty Cunningham <klparmley AT gmail.com>
- To: "Brian and Lanette Fee" <fee436 AT att.net>, <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees
- Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2012 08:08:26 -0400
Lanette,
I don’t hold Bayer solely responsible for the use of neonicotinoids. I do hold them responsible for
their “everything’s fine; we’ve looked into it; don’t worry about anything”
attitude. And I agree with you, there is a lot more to be done.
A “disorder” is a combination of causes for a particular dis-ease response
and I believe that Colony Collapse Disorder is appropriately named. It
seems reasonable that there are many parts of how we live in the world that are
contributing to the problem.
I keep deleting paragraphs that are me on my soapbox about our broken
agricultural system that don’t address this particular issue...
I won’t come to hear someone from Monsanto try to white wash their actions
either. These are companies who are supposed to be about helping farmers
grow good food, but instead they have become about making profits. Until
they return to their original purpose and change what they are selling, both
literally and philosophically, they are hurting all of us.
The disorder of the bees is the agricultural equivalent of a canary in a
mine and we ignore them at our peril.
And, for the record, as people keep throwing around credentials, I am a
medical lab tech for LabCorp. I do clinical trial testing. I know
the rules.
Kitty
From: Brian and Lanette Fee
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2012 1:37 AM
Subject: RE: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees Hi
Kitty,
My point was not that neonicotinamides are nonlethal. It was that there
was inadequate evidence given by Dr. Lu in his article to support the title “in
situ replication of CCD”. They did not recreate the disease. I think
there is strong evidence that neonicotinamides are very bad chemicals and are
particularly hard on social insects (which tend to be beneficial insects).
To me, they recreated what would be classic toxic symptoms for this pesticide,
not CCD. Just because it’s toxic doesn’t mean it causes CCD.
It may be a big component, but I think the issue of CCD is far more complex than
this and their data did not support their thesis statement. They did not
have adequate numbers of either test or control samples, - even with the 20
colonies. (Thank you Chloe for pointing out my error.) One control
per site is woefully inadequate. If we put forth an argument it should be
based on the same rigor and scientific merit that we expect from Bayer. We
wouldn’t agree with this study if it was done by Bayer so we shouldn’t agree
with it just because it supports our hypothesis.
I share your concern for the environment and the sheer number of chemicals we
are pouring into it. I go to Lowes on the weekend and I am deeply dismayed
at the amount of chemicals leaving the parking lot. The amounts,
nonjudicious use, and types of chemicals being put on yards and crops is truly
concerning and agribusiness is set up so that the average farmer doesn’t have a
lot of choices. This is all overload, it all washes out of the yards and
fields into the streams from which we drink, swim, and feed our
animals.
As for the website that you asked me to look at, some of the statements are
quite valid and as I said, I agree that neonicotinamides are bad. Is Bayer
entirely to blame for this? I’m not sure that is fair. Marty’s
question of “why Bayer alone?” is a good one. It would be fair to question
practices from many agribusiness companies – Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF,
DuPont? Warm
regards, Lanette From: Kitty Cunningham
[mailto:klparmley AT gmail.com] Whzat is your response to this? On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Brian and Lanette Fee <fee436 AT att.net> wrote: I
am not a fan of Bayer. I am not a fan of imidacloprid. I am a fan of
treating bees with as few treatments and with the lowest doses of those
treatments that I can manage. But we need to hold Mongabay and Dr. Lu to
the same standards we hold Bayer. We expect Bayer to do studies with more
than 2.5 acres of crop, but this guy only studied 5 hives, 4 test hives and only
one control. One of the standard procedures of science is that tests be
done AT LEAST 3 times. He didn’t even follow this basic tenant of
scientific procedure. These studies were done only once. The hives
were treated with other chemicals as well as imidacloprid. They also show
pictures in the proof of the article of the frames from the treated and
nontreated hive. The nontreated hive has lots of brood, but the treated
hive has very little brood. One of the hallmark symptoms of CCD is missing
bees with lots of brood still left.
This researcher is at Harvard. The reality is that he is under the same
pressures as any other researcher in the US to publish in the best journals that
he can. He chose to publish in a hidden away journal with an impact factor
of 0.34 instead of Science or Nature with an impact factor of 30. An
impact factor rates how often articles from those journals are cited –
essentially how trusted the journal is. Why did he only do his studies
with 5 hives? Why only one control? Why didn’t he get into
Science or Nature? The other studies did and they couldn’t pin CCD on
imidacloprid alone. This is a complex disease. Chances are it isn’t
going to have a simple answer. More than likely there is a number of
factors contributing to the disease and imidacloprid may indeed by one of them,
but it isn’t the only one. Dr. Lu may be on to something, but the studies
need to be repeated with better controls and symptoms from the treated hives
that represent the classical description of CCD. Lanette
Fee From: ocba-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:ocba-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Kitty
Cunningham
I will not be
attending any more meetings that have Bayer CropScience PR representatives
unless they have announced that they are on a tour to apologize for the behavior
of their company. This article is
just one of far too many that I have read recently indicting that company for
biological terrorism and there is no way a couple of research bee yards will
ever repair this damage.
|
-
[ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees,
Kitty Cunningham, 04/06/2012
- Re: [ocba] [NaturalBeesinNC] Bayer CropScience and bees, Marty Hanks, 04/06/2012
-
Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees,
Brian and Lanette Fee, 04/06/2012
-
Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees,
Kitty Cunningham, 04/06/2012
-
Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees,
Brian and Lanette Fee, 04/07/2012
- Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees, Kitty Cunningham, 04/07/2012
-
Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees,
Brian and Lanette Fee, 04/07/2012
-
Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees,
skirven511, 04/06/2012
- Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees, Kitty Cunningham, 04/06/2012
-
Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees,
chloe palenchar, 04/06/2012
- Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees, Marty Hanks, 04/06/2012
-
Re: [ocba] Bayer CropScience and bees,
Kitty Cunningham, 04/06/2012
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