Category: Opinion

You have to read this, corporate malfeasance definitely suggested. Once again Europe is leading the charge, trying to save us from ourselves. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has studies that prove bee colony collapse is definitively linked to pesticides.  There is something to be said about the different regulatory regimes in North America versus Europe.  Here in North America corporations hold sway.  Despite an abundance of evidence that the fox is in the hen house govenment regulators continue to lay down and let themselves be bought to approve the purely short term and avericious desires of multi-nationals.  By far the worst offenders in my opinion are the chemical companies related to food production.

Montana bee researcher Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk, had originally signed up to be an expert witness on behalf of beekeepers who brought a class-action lawsuit against Bayer in 2003. He suddenly dropped out—and immediately received a significant research grant from Bayer to study bee pollination, which has continued in recent years. It should come as no surprise that Bayer pesticides were never mentioned in the study as a potential cause of CCD …

….Beelogics, a company whose primary goal is to control colony collapse disorder, has just been bought by Monsanto. That means any research from Beelogics may now be compromised.

Pesticides Definitively Linked to Bee Colony Collapse
ANH-USA

According to this article nearly one-third of US cropland is planted with crops treated with neuroactive insecticides which are known to be highly toxic to bees.  Similiarily roughly one-third of crop species in the US are pollinated exclusively by honeybees, including fresh vegetables and fruits.  Half of the food supply is at risk if bees die off.

Just as in the GMO crop debate, you need to get involved.  Start by getting educated.  You need to know the extent to which chemical companies are spinning the truth and suppressing facts.  In Canada we need to speak and and demand the return of appropriate levels of oversight.  Restore the government labs, the testing facilities, protect the scientists who speak out.  Over the past 20 years we have an abysmal record. 

Food science not your thing?  Try big pharma.  Ask yourself what company, in a purely capitalism based ecomony, will purposely take action to put itself out of business.  Then ask yourself why we have not progressed in the search for cures. All we get is symptom treatments.  See all these TV commericals for prescription drugs? Want to really scare yourself sometime? Research how drugs get to market, you will find lots are invented first then the drugs companies go looking for an ailment.  Then we end up talking about pseudo-ailments like fibromyalgia and treating them with anti-depressants.

 

Italy has never been an exemplar of cool headed thinking and calm rational response. They are more often categorized as hot blooded, emotionally driven. Case in point this week is the conviction of six scientists and a government official to six years in jail for failing to warn citizens of a 2009 earthquake.

They were convicted even though the prosecutor acknowledges that earthquakes are impossible to predict. Current models forecast the potential for an earthquake within a period of decades. Even if these scientists said that there was a 100% chance of an earthquake they could not say with any certainty when it would happen. What did the Italian court want them to do? Did they really think it would be reasonable to evacuate a region for ten, twenty, thirty or more years until something happened?

What if they scientists issued a warning that said there was a 90% chance of an earthquake happening in the next 8 weeks? Would they have evacuated then? If it did not happen, would the courts then be looking to hold the same six scientists financially accountable for economic impact of shutting a place down for several weeks?

The conviction is a travesty. Thousands of researchers, geologists, and other scientists and scientific organizations around the world are speaking up against this conviction and writing to Italy’s president to step in. For Italy’s sake let’s hope he does.