Welcome to “Tom’s Corner,” a blog about bee decline by Tom Theobald, founding member of the Boulder County Beekeepers’ Association. In July 2010 Theobald wrote an article about clothianidin and bees for Bee Culture magazine. “Do We Have a Pesticide Blowout” ignited a conversation about the connection between systemic pesticides, specifically clothianidin, and declining bee populations in the United States. Timeline here:
It would also be helpful to your understanding of the arguments if you have watched the French film completed in 2003 that shows so clearly that little of this alarming science tells us anything new. both the chemical industry and the regulators have known from the beginning how pernicious these neonics are and they chose to hide that information.
Those of you who have been in the trenches might find this interesting. Below are some excerpts from the article. Read the comments, too.
• Regulatory agencies captured by the industries they regulate are worse than no regulation at all since capture gives industry the power of government.
• From my own experience with the U.S. EPA, even if an inspector finds a violation, this only triggers a lengthy complex process with many levels of warning, review, appeal, negotiation, and adjudication before any action is taken (or, more often, avoided).
• When I was writing regulations, I was told on more than one occasion to make sure I put in enough loopholes.
• The people who get ahead are those clever ones with a talent for procrastination, obfuscation, and coming up with superficially plausible reasons for accomplishing nothing.
- William Sanjour*
* William Sanjour retired from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 after 30 years, most of it spent in regulations. He has written and published articles about why regulatory agencies don’t work and what can be done about it. He has have been invited to testify at numerous Congressional hearings and at state legislatures and citizens groups around the country as well. He presently sits on the Board of Directors of the National Whistleblowers Center. This article and others can be found on the Web at Sanjour.info.
This just came from Graham White. If you have any interest at all in the issue of bees and systemic pesticides it deserves your time and attention. And if you are a beekeeper and plan to continue to be one, this subject demands your attention. The English subtitles are good but those of you who speak French will probably have an easier time of it. I encourage you to watch the entire documentary because it is playing out here in the U.S. in the same way.
The French bee-deaths documentary, “Temoin Genant,” is now on YouTube. It deals with the disaster which struck the French beekeeping industry as far back as 1994 when over 400,000 colonies a year were killed following the introduction of the systemic neurotoxin Imidacloprid/Gaucho for use on sunflowers and maize.
The film reveals is the fact that Bayer lied from the very outset about the effect of this pesticide for bees and other pollinators. It shows how the science was ignored, corrupted, distorted and buried for over ten years and how any scientist who dared to stand up for the truth was threatened, intimidated, bullied, transferred … careers were ruined, people’s lives were seriously damaged. The ONLY thing that worked for the French beekeepers was direct action; the science didn’t work; the regulators didn’t work; the politicians didn’t work and the government didn’t work. The only thing that brought action from the government was thousands of bee-farmers blocking the roads of Paris and causing a huge commotion. That worked.
