Are Scientists Exposing Bee Death Epidemic Facing Censorship and Threats?
A formal letter to the United States Department of Agriculture reports that scientists are being harassed and their research on bee-killing pesticides is being censored or suppressed by the Monsanto-infiltrated agency (the USDA). Surprised, anyone?
At least we are organizing formally against a scourge that has been painfully obvious for years now. A broad coalition of farmers, environmentalists, fisheries and food-safety organizations (over 25 citizens’ groups) urged an investigation into the USDA’s support of the chemical industry over the American public in a May 5 letter sent to Phyllis K. Fong, USDA Inspector General.
It states:
“The possibility that the USDA is prioritizing the interests of the chemical industry over those of the American public is unacceptable.”
Hear. Hear. (“Hear, all ye good people, hear what this brilliant and eloquent speaker has to say!” )
The group is concerned that a forthcoming report by the White House Task Force on Pollinator Health, which is co-chaired by the USDA, is compromised. The signatories of the letter to the USDA include the American Bird Conservancy, Avaaz, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Farmworkers Association of Florida, Food and Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Green America, Organic Consumers Association and Sierra Club.
Could it be? Yes, it certainly could be – here’s why:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been essentially taken over by an outside organization – biotechnology giant and GMO crop-creator, Monsanto. RootsAction has launched a campaign demanding a Congressional investigation.
Want specific examples?
How Monsanto has Taken over the USDA
Monsanto’s growth hormones for cows was approved by Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto lobbyist who turned into the USDA administrator and FDA deputy commissioner. This was after Margaret Miller, a former Monsanto employee, oversaw a report on the hormones safety and then took a job at the FDA where she approved her self-penned report.
Islam Siddiqui, a former Monsanto lobbyist, wrote the USDA’s food standards that allow corporations to label irradiated and genetically engineered foods as “organic.”
Furthermore, President Obama signed, sealed, and delivered the Monsanto Protection Act to the American people which allows the horrid company rights above and beyond the federal government.
Still not convinced?
Tom Vilsack, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, is now head of the USDA. Michael Taylor, the former Monsanto Vice President, is now the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods, and Roger Beachy, the former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center, is the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and that’s not even the end of it.
Until these obviously compromised institutions are cleaned out, these appeals are likely to get us no where.
The letter goes on to state:
“It is imperative that the American people can trust that their government and its employees are serving their constituents and not the profits of private companies . . . All of the research that the USDA conducts must maintain scientific integrity and transparency to ensure it is guiding sound policy decisions.”
We are well past any transparency. One Monsanto employee has even accidentally admitted that the company has an entire department meant to discredit any science that speaks against its suicide seeds and cancer-causing chemicals.
What the Letter Addresses, Specifically
In this case, authors of the letter are addressing neonicotinoids, specifically. This nicotine-like class of insecticides has been shown to damage the neurological systems of insects and has caused pollinator die-offs that can ultimately harm our food supply tremendously. Monarch butterflies and bees have been hit hardest in what is being called colony collapse disorder (CCD).
Bees are responsible for pollinating numerous crops around the world, impacting the US by at least $15 billion a year in food production. Without bees, much of our food would be lost.
In March, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an environmental activist group supporting local, state, and federal researchers, filed a legal petition with the USDA seeking new rules meant to increase the job protection for government scientists and citing censorship and harassment.
At least 10 USDA scientists have been bullied for research into farm chemical safety that conflicts with the interests of the agribusiness sector, according to PEER executive director Jeff Ruch:
“They have very little in the way of legal rights and have career paths that are extremely vulnerable.”
The scientific work getting hit hardest puts Monsanto at the bulls’ eye – it scrutinizes the effects of neonicotinoids and glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s best-selling Roundup herbicide, which the World Health Organization recently concluded is ‘probably carcinogenic.’
A senior scientist at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service told Reuters:
“Your words are changed, your papers are censored or edited or you are not allowed to submit them at all.”
Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity echoed this sentiment:
“Censorship and harassment poison good science and good policy. There’s no question that neonicotinoids are killing bees, and it’s long past time for our government to take action. The European Union has already banned neonicotinoids. The reports that USDA is harassing and suppressing its scientists for doing their jobs instead of using their findings to protect our pollinators are extremely disturbing.”
Tiffany Finck-Haynes, food futures campaigner with Friends of the Earth stands for the American people:
“How can the American public expect USDA to develop a federal strategy that will protect bees instead of pesticide industry profits if it is harassing and suppressing its own scientists for conducting research that runs counter to industry claims?
“If USDA wants to employ a kill-the-messenger approach, it will only delay critical action to address the bee crisis that threatens our nation’s food supply.”
Additional Sources:
Photo source: Wikipedia
These people are called the destroyers and are proud of it . While they use your tax dollars to slow kill and suppress you . Answer ? Stop paying taxes to them . Quit your job if you have to. Use your cash while it is still good to build out your survival plan.
I would submit that the main reason
that honeybees took such a beating in recent years is that in the
last 20 years the Africanized bee and its hybrids became the dominant
honeybees from California to Florida. They cannot handle cold
weather. When the temperature drops below 32, their hives die. Which
is why they have not migrated any further southwards than central
Argentina.
Take this example: winter 2007-8 saw a
two week cold snap into the 20s down the West Coast to southern Baja
and east to Texas, with a similar cold snap in the Southeast.
Hundreds of thousands of hives were killed off.
The record cold weather of the last
nine years did similar things whenever the temperatures dropped
below 32 for more than a few hours. People can dishonestly claim
we’ve “warmed”, but the reality on the ground is very
different. The africanized bee and it’s hybrids first entered the
nation about 20 years ago and became the dominant strains in the
southern tier states— the main beekeeping region— about 12 years
ago. The bee cannot survive more than a short time below freezing.
Every time there is a plunge to the 20s, as became a regular winter
occurrence in the last decade, within a short time, articles about
“colony collapse” would show up in the media.
Bees are shipped all over the U.S. and
this spreads the Africanized hybrids all over the U.S. during the
warmer months. Imagine the dismay of a Wisconsin farmer or beekeeper
when the bees he bought from California or Texas die off that winter
the first cold snap.
The frost kills of honey bees in
California, AZ,NM, TX, LA, MS, and FL may have silver linings. The
Africanized bee, which had become dominant in many areas of the
southern tier states, had no resistance to the frequent cold snaps of
the last 9 years. It keeps recolonizing from Mexico, unfortunately,
but farmers can restock with honey bees from the northern U.S.,
Canada, and Hawaii.
Our other pollinators, such as
bumblebees, are in excellent shape outside of urban areas. Honeybees
are doing very well in the colder parts of the nation. Here in the
northwest, which had its own beekeeping, the colonies are almost
unaffected, except those which were recently imported from the south.
The honeybee populations in the woods and deserts are unaffected,
being European. I routinely see 8 native bees and the European
honeybee in my backyard garden every year and I’m about 10 miles
inside an MSA with a combined population of 180000 in Oregon. There
are more than 200 days of frost here and the African variety of
honeybee cannot survive here.
Of course, the varroa and tracheal
mites are still a problem, but thankfully, at least here in Oregon,
our native pollinators seem to be increasing in number. Our
raspberries are often pollinated mostly by bumblebees of different
types whereas it used to be mainly honeybees, for example. Leafcutter
bees and ground dwelling bees have been showing up in areas where
they had been absent. There are at least 3 species of bees smaller
than honeybees that have become common in recent years. I’m beginning
to wonder if the introduction of the European Honeybee suppressed
some of the local bees.
My garden generally has 5 species plus
two tiny, 1/4″ bee species native to the Pacific NW. And a few
others that I haven’t ID’d yet. Because our bees are cold adapted
and the Africanized bee cannot survive here, our native colonies of
honeybees are unaffected.
Why isn’t anyone looking into this?
Admittedly, it’s more interesting if it’s varroa mites, tracheal
mites, viruses or bacteria, but these have been with us for
millennia. But cold, something we all take for granted and the
hybrids cannot handle? Why hasn’t Canada, which locked out our bees
due to the Africanized bee’s arrival in the States, had the same
die off, for example?
Speaking of bees, some years ago, one
of the large variety of bumblebees was busily pollinating the daisies
in the backyard. About 2.5 inches long and an inch tall, it was
nothing for a fascinated cat to mess with. Naturally, our 13 lb
taupe cat “Blondie” decided that it would make for good
prey. He leaps! About that time, the bee moved to another flower.
The cat pounces on the now-empty daisy, which doesn’t support him and
he continues on and smacks the grass. POOMP! The bee just ignored
him and continued on it’s way.
Couldn’t help but wonder what the cat
would do with the bee if he caught it.
Nice theory but no. The african and hybrids are unmanagable. You don’t maintain them for domestic use. It is the docile european and American bees that are dying out.
The people still have a voice and Corporation are starting to listen. We buy the goods make sure to purchase only the ingredients you want. Read labels, if you can’t pronounce an ingredient don’t buy the products. They have and are starting to change. Consumer just need to continue demanding real food.
They do loose in the end but how bad it gets before that is anyone’s guess.