Cell Phone/Bee Study DEBUNKED, Co-author Says Herbicides & Pesticides, GM crops Most Likely!

[Dems Will Win]

OK you DUers know I've been investigating the bee story -- I have now debunked the famous "Cell Phones Are Causing CCD and Killing the Bees Study".

I think "Study" is now one of the most dangerous words we have today, as it is so abused by industry and their compliant media to fool the holy living shit out of the population...

There was no cell phone study of any significance at all! A Physics professor was helping a graduate student write a paper on the effects of electro-magnetic fields on the environment.

The headlines were catchy, the subject compelling and, in some cases, the newspapers well respected.

"Cellphones linked to honeybee deaths." "To bee or not to be near mobile phones." "German study links cellphones to drop in honey bee population; Radiation said to interfere with homing ability." "Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees."

All rather dire if you try to imagine a world without honey and especially if you happen to have read a quote that has been attributed to Albert Einstein saying that if bees were to disappear, the human race would follow suit four years later because of the important role bees play in pollinating plants.

The bee story had an extra appeal for those people who use their cellphones rather tentatively because they think the privilege to speak on the move may be frying their brain cells one by one. So now, if the headlines are to be believed, we learn that our cellphone and those long calls from mom where she refuses every attempt to cut short the conversation not only are going to lead to our demise, they are killing millions of bees.

Good story for sure, except that the study in question had nothing to do with mobile phones and was actually investigating the influence of electromagnetic fields, especially those used by cordless phones that work on fixed-line networks, on the learning ability of bees. The small study, according to the researchers who carried it out too small for the results to be considered significant, found that the electromagnetic fields similar to those used by cordless phones may interrupt the innate ability of bees to find the way back to their hive.

...

"We cannot explain the CCD-phenomenon itself and want to keep from speculation in this case," Jochen Kuhn, a professor in the physics department at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Germany who co-authored the bee study, wrote in an e-mail message. "Our studies cannot indicate that electromagnetic radiation is a cause of CCD."

...

"If the Americans are looking for an explanation for colony collapse disorder, perhaps they should look at herbicides, pesticides and they should especially think about genetically modified crops," said Stefan Kimmel, a graduate student who co-authored the study last year with Kuhn and other professors.
...

"It's not my fault if people misinterpret our data," said Kimmel. "Ever since The Independent wrote their article, for which they never called or wrote to us, none of us have been able to do any of our work because all our time has been spent in phone calls and e-mails trying to set things straight. This is a horror story for every researcher to have your study reduced to this.
Now we are trying to force things back to normal."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/22/news/wireless23.php

So the authors of the cell phone study themselves are HORRIFIED at the CCD claim, one claims that herbicides, PESTICIDES or GM crops should be looked at instead.

Some people at DU assume there is some kind of Manhattan Project that has been started by the gummint to figure the bee problem out.

NOT!

There is no Manhattan Project, there are just separate UNFUNDED researchers making educated guesses. Meanwhile, the corporatist media trumpeted the cell phone red herring, taking attention off pesticides, perhaps because Bayer, who makes the imidacloprid that has been proven to cause CCD in French semi-controlled field tests, is one of the media's biggest advertisers.

Since the French banned Imidacloprid in 2000 after proving it wiped out their honeybees, and the media refuses to report that, and the EPA knew all along but never made a peep, and we now have to fight the whole Pesticide Industry and the Republican Party to save the bees -- we have quite a situation on our hands, DU!

Here are the previous threads:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x987633

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x986600

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=979180


PLEASE RECOMMEND TO GET THE DEBUNKING OF THE CELL PHONE CLAIM OUT THERE!

[originalpckelly]

1. I knew it was bullshit, even if you just use common sense...

and ask one question:
If cell phones are not a new technology, and have been around for more than a decade, why would these supposed effects, if they are related to cellphones, be occurring now?

There is no significant event I can think of that would suddenly start causing this, and have the cause be due to cell phones.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. It's not pesticides or GM foods either.

It's bigfoot.

[Richard Steele]

3. I never bought that silly "cell phone" story. No surprise that it's pesticides.

And no surprise that our corporately-owned "media"
have hidden yet another obvious truth from us.

Well, tried to, anyway.

Recommended.

(eddited fer spellin)

[mike_c]

7. the media are not hiding anything regarding this story...

...they're simply misunderstanding the science, as usual. There is ZERO actual evidence of links between CCD and imidacloprid exposure in the field. Yes, laboratory experiments have demonstrated that low level imidacloprid exposure can disrupt learning in honeybees, but the necessary next step linking imidacloprid exposure to actual hives undergoing CCD has not been found yet.

But regarding the press-- I don't think there is anything insidious going on. Most journalists are simply are not well equipped to interpret scientific data, nor are they eager to report "no results yet." So they interview people who speculate about this or that possible cause and report their speculations as facts. It's a bad business, and one of the reasons that I NEVER agree to interviews.

[Gormy Cuss]

14. Bingo.

There used to be science reporters with appropriate backgrounds to write these stories for the large media outlets. I don't think there are many of that breed left any more.

[gravity]

4. Pot, meet kettle

[Dems Will Win]

5. I answered your comment in the other bee thread, Gravity

Iimidacloprid is in the nectar so I guess I DO have a point. And it has been proven by French beekeepers and scientists that imidacloprid DOES cause CCD.

Period.

[mike_c]

9. I'm sorry-- no such thing has been proven....

Dude, this is my profession and I'm pretty familiar with the literature. Demonstrating that imidacloprid can disrupt learning in honeybees is NOT proof that it is causing CCD. Not yet. Not even close.

The evidence IS a bit better with regard to Nosema infection, but even that has not been unequivocally linked to CCD yet.

Cool your jets and see what comes out of research this summer. CCD is garnering a lot of interest among entomologists and will likely be the focus of lots of research over the next couple of years.

[Dems Will Win]

11. Hey Mike, I just called up The PA researchers

They had never heard of the French field tests or the beekeeper's observations about July and CCD being linked!

So they asked me to email them right away, and when I read them the data they were extremely interested.

They are aware of the French ban and said there were several neonicontinoids out there but that imidacloprid was the most used suspect.

There was also a House hearing on this and their people testified and are trying to raise finding for a multi-year study.

They also agreed imidacloprid ACCUMULATES in the soil, which really worried them...

[mike_c]

13. good deal....

Personally, I think the next couple of years are going to yield much more good, concrete data on a host of honeybee issues. CCD is likely to be the impetus for a bunch of data collection-- research is beginning to fan out from the working group folks. You might also contact James Cane or Theresa Pitts-Singer at the USDA bee lab in Logan Utah. Although his lab is more concerned with native pollinators than honeybees, it will certainly be a clearinghouse for bee info in general.

Here's a link: http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/site_main.htm?modecode=54-28-05-00

[mike_c]

6. this has already been discussed at length here....

The co-authors of the RF story-- it wasn't even a cell phone-- are not in a position to comment knowledgeably about the causes of CCD. They're physicists, and they did not collect data on any of the potential causes of CCD in their own work.

I'd suggest you take a look at the CCD Working Group info at MAAREC: http://www.ento.psu.edu/MAAREC/pressReleases/ColonyCollapseDisorderWG.html

The overwhelming majority of information being presented in the press right now is VERY premature and generally misunderstood by the journalists presenting it. For example-- there is NO consensus among the bee research community about the causes of CCD. Absolutely none. If anything, the data best support pathogens as causes, especially Nosema infection, but most likely in combination with other stressors, like varroa infestation. However, as I said, those data are still quite preliminary.

[Dems Will Win]

8. Hi Mike C.

Thanks for the info and knowledge. I will contact them and update them to the French research.

Wondered what you thought of the French findings that every year around July 15, when the sunflowers bloomed, the CCD appeared within 3 or 4 days. Plus they DID run a scientific field test that proved imidacloprid causes CCD.

Also what do you say about the presence of imidacloprid in the nectar above the 1.5 ppb danger level?

It all seems conclusive to me, well beyond the Precautionary Principle the Europeans use...

[mike_c]

10. I think it's circumstantial, at best....

Here's an equally likely scenario. Bees increase their foraging efforts dramatically in response to landscape scale sunflower blooming (and, I presume, managed pollination), expending great amounts of energy and stressing foragers. Varroa infestations increase as well when hive conditions are good but bees are stressed, passing increased numbers of iflaviruses to their host bees. Nosema infections escalate also. Foraging workers weaken rapidly and cannot return to the hive, further escalating stress on the remaining workers in an exponential collapse cycle. All of this coincides with the sunflower bloom.

These could all be contributing factors to CCD, either directly, or indirectly. The later hypothesis suggests that combined hive stress, pathogen load, etc might increase sensitivity to a wide variety of toxins, including both chemicals used in hive management and yes, environmental exposure to pesticides.

Of course, I'm speculating-- utterly. But that's what everyone else is doing right now. There is no actual evidence to support the scenario above, but neither is there much to support any other potential causes yet.

I'm not yet impressed by the small concentration of imidacloprid in some samples of sunflower nectar. Again, there simply are no data linking that circumstance to CCD. Not yet.

[Dems Will Win]

15. More info Mike C.:

Since 1994 for some, from 1995 or '96 for others, depending on the region, they have witnessed exploitation problems concerning the bees on the sunflower nectar flow: problems of acute hive depopulation and of aberrant behaviour patterns, being accentuated year on year. For them, there is no longer any doubt that these phenomena are linked to the crop flowering period. It requires only 3 or 4 days from the start of the sunflower flowering period to initiate the problems - this taking place at the beginning of July or 15 days later in the case of 1998. It is the same and unique itinerary every year - and only when the hives are in the areas of crops treated with GAUCHO. Those hives moved before hand to other areas for such nectar flows produced by sweet chestnut trees, lavender, pine and wild blossom escape totally the fore-mentioned phenomena. The year that GAUCHO is introduced into an area the troubles appear for the first time. The phenomena are: Destabilising for the bee colony to the point that it becomes impossible to undertake all normal activities associated with the honey flow


Dr. M.E. Colin ( INRA Avignon ) :

Having analysed video documentation obtained from sunflowers growing in agricultural condition during 1998 and 1999, Dr. Colin has been able to conclude that foraging by bees on sunflowers treated or contaminated with GAUCHO, takes place with less efficiency and with a behavioural comportment very different to that compared with those foraging sunflowers growing in Organic conditions and on soils that have never received any GAUCHO treatment.


Dr. M.E. Colin ( INRA Avignon )
The frequentation, characterised by differing criteria, at a source of syrup either contaminated or un-contaminated - was studied in semi-controlled conditions. For Imidacloprid, the negative effects are still present at 6 ppb. At 3 ppb., the effects are still present under certain criteria. (BAYER communicated in January 1997 during the A.N.P.P. Congress that the first effects on the bee show from levels of 5,000 ppb.. Three years later, this threshold has been brought down to a few ppb.!). The toxicity of the derivative OLEFINE is clear at 1.5 ppb.; it is still present at 0.75 ppb. - but with a less regular occurrence.

Dr. M.H. Pham-Delègue ( INRA Bures sur Yvette )
(November 2000): Showed that prolonged ingestion of Imidacloprid contaminated syrups cause a significant decrease in performance of Olfactory learning at levels between 6 and 12 ppb..

Dr. L. Belzunces ( INRA Avignon )
Showed that prolonged ingestion by bees of 4.5 picogramme of Imidacloprid and associated metabolites /24 hour cause the appearance of significant mortalities, 3 to 4 days after the start of the treatment, which corresponds to the time delay between nectar flow and hive population losses observed by beekeepers. According to M. Belzunces, it is very probable that the intoxication process in bees by Imidacloprid is due to the presence of toxic metabolites with a particularly noxious and "deceitful" action. The breakdown into the toxically significant metabolites originating from Imidacloprid by bees is very rapid: the half-life of the original molecule is situated between 2 and 4 hours.


``These things (imidacloprid insecticides) do a great job on termites, fleas, ticks, but ]people forget honeybees are insects, too,'' said Jerry Hayes, president of the Apirary Inspectors of America and an entomologist with the Florida Department of Agriculture.

``When neonicotinoids are used on termites, they can't remember how to get home, they stop eating, and then the fungus takes over and kills them. That's one of the ways imidacloprid works on termites -- it makes them vulnerable to other natural organisms. So if you look at what's happening to honeybees, that's pretty scary.''

[Dems Will Win]

12. Hey Mike, I just called up The PA researchers, Marian Frazier

She asked me to send the French field test which she had not seen yet.

Good thing we bloggers are helping you scientists!!

She agreed they needed help as there is no funding and it's such a BIG problem with little data.

[Dems Will Win]

16. buzz~!