These pesticides are bad news and need to be fully banned globally. I remember as a kid they decided to ban DDT because of how bad it was, yet a half century later here we are again trying to get a pesticide banned that is doing more harm than good.
The European food safety watchdog said Wednesday that three pesticides currently partly banned in the EU pose a risk to wild bees and honey bees, in a long-awaited report. The report said “most uses” of the three neonicotinoid pesticides, which are based on the chemical structure of nicotine and attack the nervous systems of insect pests, posed a risk to bees.
Wednesday’s report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) triggered immediate calls from environmental campaigners for tighter restrictions on neonicotinoids, if not an outright ban.”Overall the risk to the three types of bees we have assessed is confirmed,” Jose Tarazona, Head of EFSA’s Pesticides Unit, said.
The EU restricted the use of three types of neonicotinoid—clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam—in 2013 as part of efforts to protect bees and commissioned a deeper report into their effects, gathering all available studies on the issue. Two chemical giants whose products are affected by the restrictions—Switzerland’s Syngenta and Bayer of Germany—are challenging them in the EU courts.
