neonicotinoids

December 17, 2024

EPA must tighten pesticide rules to protect pollinators like bees and butterflies, petition argues

By Douglas Main

US regulators should require pesticide makers to more thoroughly tests their products for toxicity to insects before approval, according to a petition submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday by an environmental advocacy group.

Most pesticides registered for use in the US have not been rigorously tested for their impacts on insects other than honeybees, a single non-native species. Scientists and conservationists have argued for years that this system fails to protect pollinators and underestimates the toll of pesticides on these animals, which is especially relevant given the decline of many insect species worldwide.

The EPA only requires that manufacturers perform, at a minimum, three narrow tests on adult bees to study a chemical’s toxicity on insects.

“They’re not an appropriate surrogate for the other 4,000 wild species we have in North America, nor are they a surrogate for other pollinators like moths and butterflies,” said Rosemary Malfi with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

The petition was filed on behalf of Xerces by the environmental law group Earthjustice.

Many of proposed changes come directly from EPA experts or academics invited to advise the agency.

“They’re not following their own recommendations,” Malfi said.

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November 22, 2024

Court deals setback to efforts to regulate pesticide-coated seeds

By Carey Gillam

A federal court this week dealt a blow to calls for new regulations on pesticide-coated seeds used in farming, ruling that US regulators were not acting improperly in exempting the seeds from registration review.

The US District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday granted a summary judgment in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and agrochemical industry lobbyist CropLife America, turning back arguments by the Center for Food Safety and other environmental advocates who have spent years warning of a range of “devastating effects” they say result from widespread use of the specialty seeds.

The concerns addressed in the case focus on seeds that are coated in insecticides before they are planted. Three specific types of insecticides that are part of a class of chemicals known as neonicotinoids present particular threats to beneficial birds and insects such as butterflies, and can contaminate the air, soil and water with toxins, according to critics.

The court case ruled on this week focused on three types of neonics – imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, and clothianidin.

“Neonicotinoid treated seeds are used on at least half of all croplands in the US but pose an extreme danger to birds, bees, and other pollinators,” the Center for Food Safety said in a statement issued Thursday following the ruling. “With the future of agriculture and entire food webs on the line, it is irresponsible and unlawful that these pesticides will continue to be exempted from registration.”

The European Union has banned the outdoor use of certain types of neonicotinoids, also called neonics, and the United Nations has said neonics are so hazardous that they should be “severely” restricted. But in the US, neonics remain widely used, typically as coatings on corn, cotton and soybean seeds, planted by farmers to protect crops from insects and disease.

Scientific research has shown they are contributing to a decline in important pollinators such as honeybees. Environmental advocates say numerous studies show neonics are not necessary.

October 3, 2024

EPA not protecting public from neonic exposure, analysis suggests

By Shannon Kelleher

Rodent studies given to US regulators by insecticide makers close to 20 years ago revealed the chemicals could be harmful to the animals’ brain development – data worrisome for humans exposed to the popular pesticides but not properly accounted for by regulators, according to a new research report published this week.

The analysis examined five studies that exposed pregnant rats’ to various types of insecticides known as neonicotinoids (commonly called neonics). The studies found that the offspring born to the exposed rats suffered shrunken brains and other problems.

Statistically significant shrinkage of brain tissue was seen in the offspring of rats exposed to high doses of five types of neonics – acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiacloprid, and thiamethoxam, the paper states. The authors said the impacts on the brain appeared similar to the effects of nicotine, which they said is known to disrupt mammalian neurological development.

The animal studies also support the possibility of a link between neonic exposure and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the authors said.

In most cases, the companies submitting the studies did not submit data for all dosage levels, leading the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assume negative effects were only seen at the high dose, according to the study.

“We found numerous deficiencies in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s regulatory oversight and data analyses,” the authors state in the paper, published in the journal Frontiers in Toxicology. The industry studies, which the EPA used to determine what neonic exposure levels are considered safe for humans, were not publicly available and were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

“Consistently, effects were found at the high dose and EPA did not demand data for the lower doses, therefore leaving it unclear how little of a substance it takes to actually cause adverse effects such as reduced size of certain brain regions,” said Bill Freese, the science director for the environmental advocacy group Center for Food Safety and an author of the study.

September 19, 2024

Wide variety of pesticides found in baby foods sold at major retailer

By Douglas Main

Samples of puréed apple and pear baby food sold online and at Target stores in San Francisco, Washington, DC and Minneapolis were found to contain a wide variety of pesticides, according to a new report by an environmental group.

All eight samples of the baby food products, which are made by the popular retail store’s house brand, Good & Gather, contained a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids, according to the study published this week, which was conducted by the nonprofit Friends of the Earth and has not been peer-reviewed. These pesticides are widely used in agriculture and considered toxic to insects such as honeybees. Evidence is accumulating that they may also have various negative effects on human health.

The neonicotinoids detected include imidacloprid, present in half of the pear products, and thiacloprid, present in 75% of the apple purée samples. Both are considered “highly hazardous pesticides” by the Pesticide Action Network, and each are banned for outdoor use in the European Union due to their toxicity, including to pollinators like bees.

The European Food Safety authority has stated that thiacloprid “is likely to damage fertility and the unborn child.”

Target did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Nathan Donley, a scientist who studies pesticides with the Center for Biological Diversity but wasn’t involved in the report, said the results show the regulators are failing to keep food safe, especially for infants.

“To see neurotoxins in children’s food, at any level, is unacceptable in my opinion,” he said. “Every child has different susceptibilities and sensitivities – the idea that a certain level of a poison is safe for every individual is outdated thinking.”

April 30, 2024

Despite ban, EPA grants ’emergency’ approval for bee-killing insecticide for 10th straight year

By Johnathan Hettinger

US regulators have approved the emergency use of clothianidin on Florida citrus trees for the tenth straight year, once again allowing farmers to use the insecticide despite its known risk to endangered species and pollinators critical to the health of the food supply.

Since 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has had a moratorium on new uses of neonicotinoid insecticides, including clothianidin, because of evidence that the class of pesticides is linked to pollinator decline. Neonics have been shown to be particularly harmful to bees, which help pollinate important crops, such as vegetables, nuts, cotton and more.

In a 2023 analysis, the EPA found that clothianidin and other neonics are driving hundreds of species protected under the Endangered Species Act toward extinction. Neonics are banned in Europe, and the EU has proposed essentially banning clothianidin on crops imported into the EU.

Despite the concerns, the EPA has continually allowed farmers in Florida to drench the soil surrounding citrus trees with clothianidin to help fight an insect called Asian citrus psyllid, which spreads a disease the industry calls “citrus greening.” The EPA renewed that exemption last week. Florida’s citrus production has seen a steep decline over the last 20 years due largely to the dreaded disease.

“It is the no. 1 issue in citrus, probably in the world,” said Lauren Diepenbrock, an assistant professor & citrus entomology extension specialist at the University of Florida. In the past 20 years, Florida citrus production declined from 300 million boxes in 2003-04 to under 20 million boxes in 2022-23.

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February 14, 2024

Pesticide-treated seeds harm earthworms, study finds

By Shannon Kelleher

Commonly used pesticides pose a toxic threat to earthworms, creatures considered crucial for the health of soil used to grow crops, according to a new study published Wednesday.

The study builds on evidence that a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, or neonics, are harming a range of species important for planetary health. Neonics have been banned in many countries but are popular with farmers in the United States.

The authors of the new study said they found that when earthworms were exposed to four different types of neonics, as well as the fungicide difenoconazole, they suffered damage to their mitochondrial DNA and gained significantly less weight than earthworms not exposed to the chemicals. The pesticides were especially damaging when the worms were exposed to a neonic plus the fungicide in combination.

The findings were published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

“We need to re-evaluate the toxicity of neonics and the synergistic effects of neonics and systemic pesticides in those non-target organisms when they are applied to soil simultaneously,” said Chensheng (Alex) Lu, a professor at Southwest University in Chongqing, China and an author of the study.

“The contribution of earthworms to crop yields is as essential as pollination done by honey bees,” he added. “A healthy soil is simply not possible without the presence of earthworms.”

November 29, 2023

Pesticides continue to plague bee health, study warns

By Shannon Kelleher

Pesticides sprayed on farmland continue to harm bumblebees in Europe, underscoring a need for more protective regulatory oversight, according to a new study that revealed how bees respond to real-world pesticide exposure at 106 sites across eight countries.

The analysis, part of a project called PoshBee that aims to monitor and improve bee health across Europe, went beyond standard field experiments that measure how bees respond to a single substance in a test environment. Instead, the researchers studied bumblebees in actual farm landscapes – apple and rapeseed fields – treated with multiples pesticides. Bumblebee colonies with greater toxicity from pesticides in their pollen had fewer total cocoons, weighed less altogether, and had fewer new queens, according to the study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Insecticides, including neonicotinoids, pyrethroids, and organophosphates, posed a greater risk to the bees than other types of pesticides.

“This is a very important study,” said Margaret Reeves, a senior scientist at the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America who was not involved in the study. “Pesticides are almost never used in isolation [and] can drift long distances, with those used in close proximity to one another especially likely to interact. Much of this we simply don’t understand because various kinds of mixtures are seldom studied.”

“If pesticides in agricultural fields pose the problems described to bees, just imagine what these pesticides are doing to the millions of field workers in those same fields,” she added.

The findings point to a need to monitor approved pesticides after farmers begin spraying them in the environment, a strategy that could also safeguard species important for pest control and soil quality on farms, said Jessica Knapp, an assistant professor of botany at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland and an author of the study.

“For us, it’s not necessarily that [risk assessment] should become tighter, it’s that it should become more realistic with what these species are actually exposed to in real landscapes,” she said. “Once [pesticides] go through all the regulation, the testing kind of stops, which is obviously nonsensical because we don’t know what is happening in these real environments. That’s where we really want a change.”

The study comes on the heels of the European Parliament’s failure last week to pass the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products Regulation (SUR), proposed legislation that included targets to slash the use and risk of chemical pesticides in the European Union in half by 2030. SUR was rejected because decision makers felt that pesticide reduction wouldn’t be economically viable for farmers, said Knapp, adding that farmers need such protections to ensure healthy landscapes for future generations.

“Countries outside the [European Union] should also take note of these results, as many nations have looser pesticide regulations that may lead to more magnified impacts on wild bees,” said Clara Stuligross, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Riverside who was not involved in the study.

March 27, 2023

Letter to the EPA: Take action on “Devil’s bargain” pesticides

An Open Letter to: Michael Regan, Administrator; Michal Freedhoff, Assistant Administrator, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention; and Ed Messina, Office of Pesticide Programs Director, Environmental Protection Agency

The environment needs protection from neonicotinoid-coated pesticidal seeds, which are by far the greatest single insecticide application across the country, covering more than 100 million acres. Fundamental ecosystem integrity, plus the welfare of millions of birds and other animals where the coated seeds are planted, are at risk. You can be the difference makers if you seize the opportunity.

You know, as we NGO-types have recited to you in the past through broadly-supported letters and petitions, that a major body of evidence now shows neonic-coated seeds are the Devil’s bargain. While there may be some effective uses, they are mostly used prophylactically with no assessment of need. And yet they do great harm to essential pollinators, beneficial insects, and farmland birds, while contaminating the environment with their toxins.

In Ontario, Canada, when farmers were compelled to prove they needed to use neonic-coated seeds before being allowed by the provincial government, their use declined by a huge margin with no adverse economic effect.

Neonics have largely been banned in Europe since 2015. But, in the US, their excess production as a result of your agency’s leniency is a waste that resulted in the ongoing tragedy in Mead, Nebraska, where AltEn gathered about 80,000 tons of unwanted neonic-coated seeds in order to distill them for ethanol but instead ending up contaminating the environment to the tune of roughly $100 million in total damages. EPA’s uncritical approval of these seeds enabled the Mead disaster.

Of all the environmental threats in the United States, pesticides are conceptually the easiest to prevent because all the approved products out there resulted from registrations by your agency. But I am not asking you to cancel registrations, I am just asking you to take a closer look at EPA’s interpretation and regulatory issues that have allowed the harms of neonic-coated seeds to spin out of control.

March 13, 2023

Scientists warn pesticide impacts may be worse than we thought

In California, regulators have rolled out a plan to eliminate “high-risk” pesticides from agricultural and urban use. In Mexico, officials have announced a ban on the widely used weedkiller glyphosate. And in Canada, regulators have implemented some new pesticide restrictions and are reviewing the potential for others.

The moves, which are also playing out in various forms around the United States, have drawn opposition from chemical and farm industry forces. But supporters say they don’t go far enough to adequately protect human and environmental health.

Three University of British Columbia researchers recently published a paper that summarizes what they say is a growing body of evidence showing that pesticides are having harmful ecological impacts beyond what is already well understood, and that these impacts are not being recognized by current testing and regulations. The authors of the paper looked at dozens of studies to draw their conclusions.

The New Lede had a conversation with lead author Risa Sargent about the team’s findings. Sargent is an associate professor of applied biology within the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia. She and colleagues reviewed studies from around the world, finding alarming results.

February 22, 2023

Citing birds and bees, groups petition EPA to close pesticide loophole

By Carey Gillam

The US should overhaul regulation of a class of insecticides tied to excessive honeybee and bird deaths, according to a citizen petition filed Wednesday with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by a coalition of more than 60 nonprofit groups.

Specifically, the groups are demanding the EPA revoke a nearly 40-year-old waiver that allows pesticide companies to bring their products to market without first providing data that proves the product benefits. The groups say the waiver dates back to a 1984 EPA declaration that stated: “rather than require efficacy data the Agency presumes that benefits exceed risks”.

The petition, which was submitted by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the American Bird Conservancy, is aimed at turning back the use of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, or neonics, which many studies have shown to be exceptionally harmful to hundreds of species.

Environmental advocates say numerous studies show neonics are not necessary and are so detrimental to the environment that they should be banned.

“This stuff is causing all sorts of environmental problems and the environmental tragedy is multiplied because in many cases these insecticides provide farmers no benefit but at the same time they’re doing all this damage,” said Peter Jenkins, a lawyer with PEER.

The European Union has banned the outdoor use of certain types of neonics, and the United Nations has said neonics are so hazardous that they should be “severely” restricted. But in the US, the pesticides remain widely used, typically as coatings on corn and soybean seeds planted by farmers to protect crops from insects and disease. Neonicotinoids are used across on an estimated 150m acres of US farmland annually.

When used as seed coatings, neonics are absorbed through the roots of plants as they grow. Residues of the chemicals can persist for years in the environment and are blamed, along with other pesticides, for a so-called “insect apocalypse.”