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  • From: Leigh Hauter <bullrunfarm AT hughes.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Bayer and EPA break the law
  • Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:07:44 -0500

Unfortunately as you must know, Richard, being so well informed, Bayer has not conducted the testing necessary for their chemical to be certified for use as a pesticide. Back eight years ago in 2003 Bayer was given a 'conditional registration' by Bush's EPA administrators contingent on the German corporation successfully conducting field studies assessing whether this insecticide poses a threat to bee colony health.

Eight years has passed and Bayer has not performed any studies that fulfill this requirement. Bayer did turn in several reports but the EPA found that they were unsound and Bayer still needed to conduct tests for their chemical to be given a permanent registration.

Regardless of Bayer's inability to property test their chemical the EPA was still considering expanding Bayer's certification. In other words, this large foreign chemical company was being allowed to break the law, to put their product on the market, to sell it for more and more situations without it having to prove it was safe for bees. That is until last winter!

Last winter an internal EPA memo was leaked to the public. The memo reported that Bayer was not only unable to prove its product safe, but the original testing guidelines (the ones Bayer couldn't pass) were too weak, were insufficient to test whether clothyianidin contributes to CCD.

In other words, after eight years of trying Bayer has failed to pass tests showing that clothyianidin is safe for bees and that those original tests (the ones Bayer's product can't pass) are in fact not rigorous enough..

Finally, Richard, I don't know if you are a beekeeper or not however I am (I've been keeping upwards to a hundred hives for almost 30 years now). This year's winter die off rate due to CCD is the worst yet. Personally, I have never experienced anything so bad. The cost of replacing this winter's loss looks like it might be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Add to that the cost of past year's losses we're talking real money.

When I hear that the EPA has allowed Bayer to make millions of dollars by failing to follow the law. That it has not been able to create guidelines to prevent its chemical from causing economic harm to me and other beekeepers (we are not even talking about the general environmental harm yet), I get very upset.

I don't see much difference between the EPA allowing Bayer to market and make money from a product that might be costing me tens of thousands of dollars than the local police letting a junky hit me over the head, steal my wallet and then use my credit cards. Both are criminal activities, both cause other people economic harm.

Bayer's product should be taken off the market until Bayer can prove that it is safe. If it can't, Bayer should compensate all beekeepers for their losses and compensate the American people for the damage to our environment. The people at the EPA that allowed Bayer to skirt the law should be immediately fired whether this product in the end proves safe or not. There is no room in government for administrators to forget that they are there to serve the public.
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http://www.bullrunfarm.com/

"Sometimes the world seems on the verge of insanity, and one wonders what
limit there can be to greed, aggression, deception and the thirst for power
or fame. When reflections of this sort threaten one's serenity one can be
glad for the bees, for the riches they yield to the spirit of those who love
nature and feel their kinship with everything that creeps and swims and
flies, that spins and builds, to all living things that arise and perish, to
the whole of creation of which we are only a part, like the bees."
Richard Taylor,
The Joys of Beekeeping, 1974.




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