Millions of butterflies, dragonflies and lady bugs are also killed by neonicotinoids, not just bees

Sunday, April 17, 2016 by: S. D. Wells
Tags: neonicotinoid pesticides, bees, butterflies

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(NaturalNews) Just as "Big Tobacco" hid the scientific fact, for 30 years, that cigarettes cause lung cancer, Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta are running similar propaganda with neonicotinoids (a.k.a. "neonics"), a class of pesticides that absorb into a plant's tissue, so that the plant itself emits toxins, from the root to the nectar. These toxic pesticides can keep bees from reproducing or being able to find the hive. It's like infertility and dementia, but for bees.

On January 7, 2016, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) released the very first Risk Assessment of Neonicotinoid Pesticides, which have long been implicated in harming several pollinators, including bees. The EPA concluded that neonics cause SIGNIFICANT HARM to HONEYBEES when exposed to specific crops. The fact that the EPA acknowledged that these pesticides harm bees exposes the whole FLAWED approval process that green-lights totally unsafe chemicals for widespread use in the USA. It reveals how the EPA rubberstamps applications for the sale and use of bee-killing pesticides.

Jennifer Sass, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, made the following statement:

Neonics have rocketed to the top of the list of the most widely-used insecticides, despite the EPA 's inability to demonstrate they are safe. Today, even as these chemicals are slathered on hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and the Agency presents clear evidence that bees are put at risk from neonics, the EPA has not issued any plan of action to protect the pollinators essential to our food supply. Neonics are a preventable cause of widespread bee deaths; EPA should withdraw its approval of these pesticides, starting with the most harmful uses.

Natural News recently reported:

Three years ago, the European Union strictly limited the use of neonicotinoid herbicides, blocking companies such as Bayer CropScience and Syngenta from selling their chemicals. In that time, honey bee colonies have re-emerged.

France's National Assembly are now committed to a full ban on neonicotinoids. If the new biodiversity bill passes the French Senate, the neonicotinoid ban will go into effect on Sept. 1, 2018.

Wild bees and honeybees getting pummeled by toxic stressors

For the past 10 years, and especially last year, bee populations have been on a massive decline – more like an avalanche, raising major concern among scientists worldwide who are not paid by biotech firms to keep their mouths shut. Policy experts across North America are freaking out and realize that the detriment must be stopped, immediately. This concern is being addressed by the National Academy of Sciences, trying to wake up the sleeping White House and get some legislation passed to protect the bees and thus the "breadbasket" of the world's food supply.

From field crops to home gardens, farmers and gardeners are pouring on the toxic insecticides because corporations print the words "safe for humans" on the label. That means nothing, especially since the FDA approves 70,000 chemicals for consumption, and the CDC approves mercury to be injected regularly into children, and the AMA approves toxic fluoride in the water supply, and the USDA fails to check for heavy metal toxins in organic food.

Various combinations of pesticides causing mass bee die-offs across North America

Widespread use of toxic and cancer-causing herbicides like atrazine, glyphosate (Roundup) and 2,4-D poison the very wild flowers and clovers that bees rely upon for food. Neonics contribute to bee parasites (e.g.: the deadly Varroa destructor mites, small hive beetles and Nosema fungus) by crippling the bees immune systems – imagine what they're doing to humans who consume the produce laced with these carcinogens. Not only do the pesticides weaken and confuse bees, but they can jeopardize the whole colony's ability to survive a exceptionally cold winter or unexpected heat wave, when bee food is much more sporadic and hard to find.

Facts you might not know about neonics and the plight of the bees:

At least 42% of all US honey bee colonies collapsed last year.

"Neonics" are 10,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT is to humans.

Total number of managed bee colonies in US in 1970 was 4 million. There are only 2.5 million functioning today.

Sources for this article include:

NRDC.org

NaturalNews.com

Action.SumOfUs.org

NRDC.org

NRDC.org^[PDF]

Action.SumOfUs.org

NaturalNews.com

Science.NaturalNews.com