No, we aren’t losing all of our honeybees. And neonicotinoid seed coatings aren’t driving their health problems—here’s why

Jon Entine | March 20, 2020

In recent years, articles on honeybees have often started with a sentence like this: “Populations of honeybees have crashed in recent years, and many researchers have pointed the blame at a class of widely used insecticides called neonicotinoids.”

In fact, that’s how an otherwise excellent 2018 article in The Scientist summarizing a USDA study on honeybees’ molecular responses to neonicotinoids began. The narrative that honeybees, which are not originally native to North America, face mortal danger—has been advanced by environmental groups for years and echoed in the media, in casual blogs and the mainstream science sites alike. This twist on the news is so pervasive that it’s often accepted without question: bee populations are rapidly declining as a result of pesticide use, particularly the use of neonics, and the crucial pollinators could be edging towards extinction, plunging our entire food system into chaos.

• “Declining honeybee population could spell trouble for some crops,” blared a headline on Fox News in 2017.
• “Death and Extinction of the Bees,” was the banner claim on the activist Centre for Research on Globalization.
• “Honey Bees in a Struggle for Survival,” claimed a guest columnist in a Tennessee newspaper in 2018.

The only problem is that it isn’t true..............To Read More...

The world faces ‘pollinator collapse’? How and why the media get the science wrong time and again

Jon Entine | July 30, 2019

There’s a saying among lawyers that goes, “If the facts aren’t on your side, argue the law. If the law isn’t on your side, argue the facts. If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table.”
Substitute the word “science” for “law” and the same would apply to many environmental advocacy groups and even some politicians campaigning to ban various pesticides on the grounds that they’re contributing to a dangerous collapse in our pollinator population.

With neither the facts nor the science on their side, they’ve been doing a lot of table pounding lately.
As I and others have detailed in the Genetic Literacy Project and as other news organizations such as the Washington Post and Slate have outlined, the pollinator-collapse narrative has been relentless and mostly wrong for more than seven years now.

It germinated with Colony Collapse Disorder that began in 2006 and lasted for a few years—a freaky die off of bees that killed almost a quarter of the US honey bee population, but its cause remains unknown. Versions of CCD have been occurring periodically for hundreds of years, according to entomologists........To Read More....

Beegate 3: Conflicts of interest dog European IUCN bee panel as nenonic ban devastates crops

David Zaruk | December 16, 2014 | Genetic Literacy Project

David Zaruk is an environmental-health risk policy analyst based in Belgium specializing in the role of science in policy and societal issues. He blogs under the pseudonym: The Risk-Monger. Over the past two weeks, Zaruk posted two stories based on a leaked internal document from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which showed how, in 2010, certain scientists with confirmed conflicts of interest launched a strategy to manipulate public opinion and influence the European Union to ban neonicotionids (neonics), claiming that bees faced mortal danger.

Part I: Neonics ban tied to corrupted bee research by scientists at EU’s ethically-challenged IUCN?

Part II: Bee-gate: European IUCN task force mired in corruption scandal over neonics ban plot

Here is Part III: The Bee-Sting: Activist Scientists and the Abuse of Power

[Note: The Genetic Literacy Project’s Jon Entine uncovered a similar case of possible research corruption in the United States in an investigation of the disputed studies on neonics and bees by Harvard nutritionist and organic activist Chensheng Lu. Huffington Post version HERE.]

 

To Read More.....

Bee Deaths Reversal: As Evidence Points Away From Neonics As Driver, Pressure Builds To Rethink Ban

By Jon Entine

If the Environmental Protection Agency moves to restrict neonicotinoid pesticides because of fears that they are causing bee deaths, it will happen in spite of the mounting evidence rather than because of it.

[UPDATE NOTE: This story was revised on 8 February to reflect release of new data on neonics and bee health presented at a New Orleans entomology conference.]

Last December, the European Commission banned the use of neonicotinoids, often called neonics, for two years. The moratorium, support for which was channeled by the precautionary politics that now dominate science-based regulation in Europe, took effect just as numerous new studies–including one released this past week–shed increasing doubt on the belief that neonics play a central role in bee health.

Now the focus is on Canada. Farmers in the United States are worried about a domino effect if regulatory officials there buckle under pressure from anti-pesticide campaigners to ‘do something,’ which could result in copycat moratoriums…..To Read More……

Campbell's Big Fat Green BPA Lie -- and the Sustainability Activists that Enabled It

By John Entine

  

How did the world’s largest soup company go from pariah to paragon over its use of the controversial chemical bisphenol A? It lied, and credulous NGOs and chemophobic campaigners played willing patsies. Here’s an ugly story of what happens when ideology corrupts science.  “I just don’t understand how Campbell’s is doing it,”……. Campbell’s, like many canned good companies, such as Heinz, ConAgra, Del Monte, Kroger and Wal-Mart, to name just a few, has faced strident attacks from a coalition of advocacy groups and what’s known as the “socially responsible business community” for using epoxy liners made in part with BPA in its canned goods. Regulators around the world uniformly say BPA safely protects against spoiling and poses no danger at the minute levels used in cans, but many activist groups portray it as a ‘child killer’……“Activism Works,” was the self-celebratory headline at TruthTheory.com. “Campbell’s Drops BPA in Response to Health Activism, Outrage.”….. For the rest of its canned business—95% or more— Campbell’s has known since March 5 that the media was wrongly praising it for something it hasn’t done, and doesn’t even believe in.  Campbell’s, like its competitors, will stick with what’s safe and effective: BPA…..This is a sad story—for Campbell’s, for advocacy groups that may mean well but have lost their way and for large swaths of the “sustainability” and “progressive” communities, which increasingly rely on litmus test ideology….(To Read the Entire Article)

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