Scientists versus Activists: Who Will Prove More Influential?
January 9, 2018
From: Genetic Literacy Project
Rethinking the pesticides–neonicotinoids–bee health crisis narrative: Why the media get it wrong
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Bee health is a genuine concern. After all they are trucked around from farm to farm as insect livestock. And entomologists and the USDA say that Varroa destructor mites have been infesting bee hives at an accelerating rate over the past few decades, and present a serious and on-going threat. Pesticides rank low as a likely cause of bee health problems, contend most entomologists, but that’s not the way the issue has played out in the media and online.
Anti-pesticide campaigners have long rejected the conclusions of government agencies and scientists, deciding that bee health issues could not be driven by something as prosaic as a well-known parasite, and have focused instead on neonics.
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