Conflicts of Interest and the Anti-Neonic Movement
August 28, 2017
From: Cape Cod Times
Many factors involved in honey bee die-offs
A representative of Environment Massachusetts recently wrote that “millions of honey bees are dying off because of neonicotinoids, pesticides that are extremely lethal to bees” (“Celebrating honey bees is celebrating our food,” Letters, Aug. 19).
Truth is, science appears divided on the cause of the past 10 years of mass bee die-off. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Research Service has found that some researchers who previously blamed neonicotinoids conducted laboratory experiments by exposing bees to extremely large doses of chemicals that they would never encounter in the field under real-life conditions. Also, as the Huffington Post reported, one such experimenter was on the board of The Organic Center, an arm of the multimillion-dollar Organic Trade Association, a lobby group with strong financial interest in disparaging conventional agriculture, synthetic pesticides and neonics in particular.
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