by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Freiburg, Germany - The German organization “Coalition against Bayer Dangers” has brought legal action against Werner Wenning, the chairman of the Bayer AG Board of Management, by filing a charge against him with the public prosecutor in Freiburg on August 25, 2008.
The group accuses Bayer CropScience of "marketing dangerous pesticides and thereby accepting the mass death of bees all over the world."
The coalition filed the charge in cooperation with German beekeepers who claim they lost thousands of hives after poisoning by the Bayer pesticide clothianidin in May.
Bayer has, since 1991, been producing the insecticide imidacloprid, which is one of the best selling insecticides in the world, often used as seed-dressing for maize, sunflower, and rape. Bayer exports imidacloprid to more than 120 countries and the substance is Bayer's best-selling pesticide.
Since patent protection for imidacloprid has expired in most countries, Bayer in 2003 brought a similarly functioning successor product, clothianidin, onto the market, the coalition alleges.
Both these substances are systemic chemicals which means that they work their way from the seed through the plant. The substances get into the pollen and the nectar and can, and it would appear will, damage beneficial insects such as bees.
The coalition alleges that the start of sales of imidacloprid and clothianidin coincided with the occurrence of large scale bee deaths, so-called “colony collapse disorder”, in many countries of Europe and the Americas.
Up to 70 percent of all hives have been affected. In France, approximately 90 billion bees have died over the past 10 years, reducing honey production by up to 60 percent.
Attorney Harro Schultze, who represents the “Coalition against Bayer Dangers” said, "The public prosecutor needs to clarify which efforts Bayer undertook to prevent a ban of imidacloprid and clothianidin after sales of both substances were stopped in France. We're suspecting that Bayer submitted flawed studies to play down the risks of pesticide residues in treated plants."
In France, imidacloprid has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers since 1999 and in 2003 was also banned as a sweet corn treatment.
Convened by the French government, in 2003 the Comité Scientifique et Technique declared that the treatment of seeds with imidacloprid leads to significant risks for bees. Bayer's application for approval of clothianidin was also rejected by French authorities.
Clothianidin and imidacloprid are two of a relatively new class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids that impact the central nervous system of insects.
"Bayer's Board of Management has to be called to account since the risks of neonicotinoids such as imidacloprid and clothianidin have now been known for more than 10 years," says Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the Coalition Against Bayer-Dangers.
The coalition is demanding that Bayer withdraw all neonicotinoids from the market worldwide.
"With an annual turnover of nearly 800 million Euro, neonicotinoids are among Bayer's most important products," said Mimkes. "This is the reason why Bayer, despite serious environmental damage, is fighting against any application prohibitions."
Whatever, it would appear, Bayer may with to claim, studies in many countries have shown that clothianidin may pose a risk to honey bees and other pollinators, if exposure occurs via pollen and nectar of crop plants grown from treated seeds. The company still denies this though.
It should also be noted that clothianidin is very persistent in soil, with high carry-over of residues to the next growing season and clothianidin is also mobile in soil.
Germany banned neonicotinoids for seed treatment in May 2008, due to negative affects on bee colonies. Beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region suffered a severe decline linked to the use of clothianidin.
The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products on maize and rapeseed, including clothianidin and imidacloprid.
Bayer says the pesticide entered the environment because farmers failed to apply an adhesive agent that affixes the compound to the seed coats. Without the fixative agent, Bayer says, the compound drifted into the environment from sown rapeseed and sweet corn and then affected the honeybees.
"Seed treatments are one of the most targeted and environmentally friendly forms to apply crop protection products. We regret the recent bee losses and the situation they have created for the beekeepers in Baden-Württemberg," said Dr. Hans-Josef Diehl, head of development and registration at Bayer CropScience Deutschland GmbH during an expert hearing on bee losses in Karlsruhe, Germany in June 2008.
Dr. Richard Schmuck, an ecologist at Bayer CropScience, said in June, "All studies available to us confirm that our product is safe to bees if the recommended dressing quality is maintained. This is also shown by the product safety assessments which we have submitted to the registration authorities."
"When used correctly," he said, "this crop protection product is safe for operators, consumers and the environment and fulfills the international criteria with regard to ecological systems."
“When used correctly” is always the great get out attempt by all of those that create such disaster substances.
Farmers failed to apply an adhesive agent that affixes the compound to the seed coats, say Bayer in its defense. So it is the farmers that are to blame, according to this chemical company rather than the product simply being dangerous.
While Bayer keeps harping on about the safety of the product IF the recommended dressing quality is maintained it still does not away with the fact that, simply, the product is dangerous to bees and pollinators, period.
“Colony collapse disorder” has claimed more than one-third of honey bees in the United States since it was first identified in 2006 and it has claimed probably the same amount in other countries.
Let's hope those responsible, in this case Bayer Crop Science, are brought to book. Shame that none of that will restore those bees to us and the honey production lost and the loss of pollination to crops and the subsequent produce lost.
But it we were told it was safe, is always the claim, same as no one had a clue that Cyclon B was used to gas Gypsies and later Jews under the Nazis; a product that was produced by a company similar to Bayer.
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
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German pressure group sues Bayer over pesticide honey bee deaths
