pesticides, bees, and history's lessons be damned

Last month I wrote about Germany's ban on the pesticide clothianidine, produced by Bayer AG. It was implicated in the death of thousands of honeybee colonies.  See that post for more background.

Last week the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit to force the federal government to disclose studies on the effect of clothianidine on honeybees. The EPA ordered studies on the pesticide from Bayer CropScience when it was registered in 2003. However, agency has failed to respond to the NRDC's Freedom of Information Act request for agency records concerning its toxicity to bees, refusing to disclose the results, or if the studies have even been submitted.

By the way, all the data regarding the pesticides submitted to the EPA when requesting registration comes from the manufacturer itself. The EPA just reviews it, a process which has been criticized. Once a pesticide has been approved, it's hell to get it off the market. Carbofuran was approved in 1967, and has proved deadly to millions of birds. In 2005, the EPA itself stated that all legal uses of carbofuran were likely to kill birds. Yet it took until this year for the EPA to revoke its registration. The manufacturer, FMC Corporation, is fighting the decision in court.

If you have any lingering doubts that 1) the agrochemical business drives regulatory decisions without deep regard for human health or the environment, and that it has done so for decades or 2) we stubbornly refuse to learn from history regarding preventing and controlling introduced (and native) insects, you need to read American Pests: The Losing War on Insects from Colonial Times to DDT. It's a thorough chronicle of battling crop pests in the U.S. for the last 400 years or so. Author James McWilliams carefully documents facts such as:

• By 1876, it was recognized that habitat alteration and the planting of large monoculture crops disturbed the balance of nature and caused the spread of pests
• Doctors and scientists began warning that common insecticides were human health hazards as early as the late 1800s
• Despite the onslaught of criticism against chemical pest control beginning in 1925, producers of agrochemicals thwarted public warnings and the passing of effective insecticide legislation
• People had figured out that the transport of nursery stock was responsible for the spread of introduced and native species across the country prior to 1900
• Not much progress has been made in eradicating gypsy moths since 1911

And so on. It was both enlightening and depressing to read colonial accounts of invasive species, problems with monocultures, and careless application of dangerous chemicals that -- save for the dates and the compounds involved -- could be drawn from today's news. Every other page will have you asking yourself, "Why are we still doing these same stupid things???"

This book is exhaustively researched, yet still readable. McWilliams is a historian, and therefore is able to put everything in nice context (his entire chapter devoted to the framing and impacts of Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, was especially well done). My only beef, as a scientist, was that there were no scientific names for most of the pests discussed in the book.

On a related topic, BugGirl posted the American Mosquito Control Association's position (AGAINST) on devices known as mosquito misters. I had not heard of these systems, which are mounted on or near a home and periodically spray compounds (usually, pesticides) all over, whether there are mosquitoes around or not, through tubing coming from a 55 gallon drum! For god's sake people, if you want to poison yourself and your pets and children, why not just drink a glass of arsenic or overdose on drugs? Is slow contamination and health problems via sub-lethal effects really a preferable way to go? And are you really so selfish or ignorant that you feel that it's okay to pollute your neighbor's yard and screw up local ecosystems?  Because hey -- there is no proof these things work!

Have a nice day.

Comments

[bug_girl]

rats--I must have missed your earlier bee posts!

I am still making my way through the pest book--I think his argument has some inconsistencies, but then I'm an entomologist. I would say that :)

[farlane]

Excellent post - you're right on target.

[John]

Putting a pesticide onto the market without testing for ill effects does not make much sense.

[Angela]

I guess that the chance to change policy on pesticides depends on two separate levels one is examining the rationality of the whole approach and the other is within the thought patterns that prevail today to start treating pesticide more like we treat drugs for the purpose of approving them for use.