http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/42551/title/Study--Pesticides-Harm-Bees/
Study: Pesticides Harm Bees
A researcher challenges the UK government’s
conclusion that neonicotinoids aren’t that bad for pollinators.
By Kerry Grens | March 27, 2015
A redo on the data analysis of a study by the
UK’s Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA)
that concluded
<http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31886/title/Pesticide-Problems-for-Bees/>neonicotinoid
pesticides do not harm bees has found the
opposite. The original study was used to form the
UK government’s controversial position on the use of the chemicals.
“I would argue they didn’t correctly interpret
their own results,” the University of Sussex’s
Dave Goulson, who conducted the reanalysis, told
<http://www.nature.com/news/bumblebee-study-called-into-question-1.17201>Nature
News.
The
<http://fera.co.uk/ccss/documents/defraBumbleBeeReportPS2371V4a.pdf>original
field study (which was never peer reviewed) found
that bumblebees were unaffected by exposure to
certain pesticides. But when Goulson applied a
different model predicting the bees’ exposure, he
found the number of queens produced and the
weight of colonies correlated with exposure.
“Despite the conclusions that were originally
drawn by FERA, their data appear to provide the
first clear evidence that colonies of free-flying
bumblebees exposed to neonicotinoids used as part
of normal farming practice suffer significant
impacts in terms of reduced colony growth and
queen production,” Goulson wrote in his report,
published in <https://peerj.com/articles/854/>PeerJ this week (March 24).
The European Commission has
<http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/35355/title/Europe-to-Ban-Neonicotinoids/>restricted
neonicotinoid use based on other studies that identified risks to bees.
FERA told Nature: “Whilst there was an absence of
evidence to support the hypothesis that
neonicotinoids harm bees, this does not lead to
the conclusion that they are benign.”
“What this shows is how data can be used to
support different positions,” Trevor Mansfield,
head of policy at the Soil Association, told
<http://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/bee-expert-casts-doubts-on-defra-neonics-field-study.htm>Farmers
Weekly. “That’s why we think it is vital that
Defra [the UK Department for Environment, Food,
and Rural Affairs] commits to publishing the
resultsin fullof the research it has funded on
neonicotinoids and to not making any long-term
decisions on their future in the UK until
academics and wider society have had a good
opportunity to review that data and draw their own conclusions.”
************************************
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Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen
Realize that little things lead to bigger things
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~ Pete Seeger
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