Leaked document: EPA knowingly approved bee-killing pesticide

Natural News, Jan. 5, 2011

A Colorado beekeeper recently obtained a leaked document revealing that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) knows a popular crop pesticide is killing off honey bees, but has allowed its continued approval anyway. Despite opposition from its own scientists, EPA officials first gave the a-okay to Bayer CropScience's toxic pesticide clothianidin in 1993 based on the company's own flawed safety studies. But now it has been revealed that the EPA knew all along about the dangers of clothianidin and decided to just ignore them.

By now, most people know that honeybees are dying off at an incredibly disturbing rate. Colony collapse disorder (CCD), a condition where bees stray from the hive and never find their way back, is nixing millions of nature's pollinators every year. Previous studies have pinpointed various environmental toxins as the primary culprits, including toxic pesticides like clothianidin.

Several European nations have outlawed the use of clothianidin, including Germany, France, Italy and Slovenia. U.S. growers of conventional crops, however, continue to use the dangerous chemical thanks to corrupt EPA officials. And when all the honey bees die and there are no pollinators left to grow food, these same EPA officials will be responsible for the mass murder of millions of people.

Full story

Leaked Memo Sheds Light on Mysterious Bee Die-Offs and Who's to Blame

The culprit may be a pesticide that the EPA has allowed on the market despite the fact that the company which makes the pesticide has failed to prove it is safe.  

A new leaked memo from the EPA has the beekeeping world buzzing. Bad puns aside, the failure of the EPA to protect the environment -- in this case, bees -- jeopardizes beekeepers' ability to continue in their work. Beekeeper Tom Theobald, who exposed the leaked memo, says that beekeepers now lose 30 to 40 percent or more of their hives each year, and it takes two years to recover each one. Theobald has been a beekeeper in Boulder County, Colorado for 35 years, but now he says he's not sure he can continue. "I can't afford to subsidize this as a hobby. I'll fold the tent," he says. "Commercial beekeepers will work themselves to death," he continues, noting that it's only the passion and commitment of beekeepers that has staved off a complete collapse of the entire beekeeping industry this long.


The leaked EPA memo, dated November 2, 2010, focuses on Bayer CropScience's request to register (i.e. legalize) its pesticide clothianidin for use on mustard seed and cotton. Clothianidin was first registered in May 2003, but its registration was conditional on safety testing that the EPA said should be completed by December 2004. Only, as the latest memo points out, the study, when it was done (long after 2004), was inadequate in demonstrating that clothianidin does not pose a threat to honeybees. Unfortunately, with the EPA's failure to ensure clothianidin's safety before allowing its use on corn and canola, it fell to beekeepers to discover why their bees were dying, and how the EPA allowed clothianidin on the market.

Full Story