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Honey bees, the essential pollinators of many major US crops, have been dying off in massive numbers since 2006. This threatens the American agricultural system and the one in twelve American jobs that depends on it. There is growing evidence that a new class of pesticides -- nerve toxins called neonicotinoids, which are used on most US crops including almost all corn -- may be toxic to bees. The Environmental Protection Agency allowed neonicotinoids on the market without adequate tests to determine their toxicity to bees. Environmentalists want neonicotinoids banned until needed safety tests are done. While the US government is slow to act and neonicotinoid sales reap billions for the chemical industry, bees continue to die. Earth Focus reports. Link: http://www.linktv.org/video/8123/killing-bees-are-government-and-indust…

Are pesticides, irradiation, and genetically modified seeds just a sad necessity for feeding the world? On the contrary, these technologies represent short-term bandages to systemic problems in agriculture, and pose unknown—and often unresearched—risks to ecosystem integrity and human health. The Earth provides a perpetual bounty as long as we don’t destroy its self-renewing capacity with our appetites. Today, however, we are eating up the planet. Our global food system, with its resource-intensive production and distribution, is using almost half the planet’s ecological capacity and is slowly degrading our natural resource base. To assure our well-being, we must close the gap between human demand and ecological capacity. Sustainable food systems offer viable opportunities to shrink humanity’s food Footprint to a size the Earth can support.

Breeding Bird Surveys (BBS) conducted by the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey and volunteers throughout the country reveal that grassland birds, as a group, have declined more than other groups, such as forest and wetland birds. There are many examples of population decline in grassland birds, most notably the extinction of the heath hen (Tympanuchus cupido cupido) from the northeastern United States. Over the 25-year period 1966-1991, New England upland sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda) and eastern meadowlark (Sturnella magna) populations declined by 84 and 97 percent, respectively. The greater prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus cupido) has experienced an average annual rate of decline of over 10 percent during this same 25-year period. These examples and others illustrate the decline in grassland birds on a continental scale. While loss of grassland breeding habitat is likely the largest factor contributing to the decline in many grassland bird species, other factors have played a role. Brood parasitism by brown-headed cowbirds, increased use of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals toxic to birds, mortality during migration, and loss of wintering habitats may have contributed to population declines in many species.

The European ombudsman has rejected claims that the EU executive has failed to take action to stop bees from extinction, after studies released in March suggested a link between EU-approved pesticides and the collapse of European bee populations. The Austrian Ombudsman Board appealed to P. Nikiforos Diamandouros in March, saying the Commission should have reviewed the authorisation of the insecticides, known as neonicotinoids. The complaint highlighted studies in the journal Sciencethat said the chemicals caused a reduction in queen bee numbers and damaged bees’ navigational ability to return to their hive. Diamandouros said the Commission had adequately addressed the issue by designating an EU reference laboratory to analyse bee health further and commissioning a study on the phenomenon. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is also set to complete a review of risk assessments for neonicotinoids by the end of the year, he said.

Doug Tallamy, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware and author of “Bringing Nature Home,” finds that most homeowners’ plant choices, though visually attractive, are threatening our future. And our decline begins with the insects. “The highlight (of the lecture) is: Plants matter,” said Tallamy. “We’ve come to think of plants in the last 100 years as decorations. We’re landscaping just for aesthetics. Eighty percent of the plants in people’s yards are non-native, typically from China. Those are poor at supporting native insects. When we don’t support insects, we do in our birds.” It is the veritable canary in the coal mine. With an estimated 96 percent of terrestrial birds feeding primarily on insects, any loss among those populations will be felt further up the food chain, humans included. As the non-native plants spread and stifle the insect species, humans, too, feel the effects, as fewer pollinators are present for crops. Tallamy said, “It’s not just our landscapes we transformed. It’s clobbering the food web and doing us in.”

It's a rare thing to witness the extinction of an entire class of animal. We weren't around to see the dinosaurs disappear, and the dodo was just one species of bird -- it's not like all birds slowly disappeared. But according to many conservation scientists, that's exactly what amphibians are facing: Frogs and others in the amphibia class are on their way out unless the conservation community takes immediate action.The amphibia class in general -- frogs are just the most populous group of the class, which also includes salamanders and caecilians -- has actually been on the decline for some time. Frogs, in particular, have suffered, having lost an estimated 170 species in the last 10 years alone, with another 1,900 in a threatened state, which is one step below the endangered designation (meaning extinction is imminent). A fungus identified in the last decade seems to be speeding up the death of the worldwide frog population exponentially. The chytrid fungus coats the frog's skin and makes its pores non-functional. Because a frog relies on its porous skin for hydration and for some of its respiration, the fungus essentially cuts off its water supply and makes it difficult to breathe. In the end, the frog dies from dehydration.

Learning disabilities, childhood cancer and asthma are on the rise in the United States. And a new report out today points to pesticides – with over 1 billion pounds applied on farms and homes annually – as a critical contributor to these health harms in children. “Protecting our children from harm is the fundamental duty of parenthood, but how can we do this when developmental toxicants are allowed to freely circulate in our economy?” says Sandra Steingraber, ecologist and acclaimed author. “PAN’s report (ATTACHED) shines a light on a completely preventable tragedy – that an entire generation of children will not reach its full potential. As such, it describes a violation of human rights and a crisis of family life both.

This report reviews dozens of recent studies that examine the impact of pesticides on children’s health. Our analysis reveals the following:
• Compelling evidence now links pesticide exposures with harms to the structure and functioning of the brain and nervous system. Neurotoxic pesticides are clearly implicated as contributors to the rising rates of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, widespread declines in IQ and other measures of cognitive function.
• Pesticide exposure contributes to a number of increasingly common health outcomes for children, including cancer, birth defects and early puberty. Evidence of links to certain childhood cancers is particularly strong.
• Emerging science suggests that pesticides may be important contributors to the current epidemic of childhood asthma, obesity and diabetes.
• Extremely low levels of pesticide exposure can cause significant health harms, particularly during pregnancy and early childhood.

The aim of this study was to provide EFSA with information relating to assessment of the risk to amphibians posed by pesticide exposure. In the first part of the study the European amphibian species associated with agricultural habitats were identified with the aim of collating information for representative species such as body size and life-cycle. Also collated were the results of studies of amphibians in European agricultural habitats to provide information on activity in areas where they may be at risk of exposure to pesticides.

Human exposure to imidacloprid is likely to occur during its use as an acaricide or an ectoparasiticide. Accordingly, the developmental immunotoxic potential of imidacloprid was investigated. Oral exposure was initiated in timed pregnant female Wistar rats on gestation day 6 (GD 6) till GD 21. On GD 20, half of the gravid dams were sacrificed, and in utero fetal development was assessed. In the other half of the dams, administration was continued till weaning on postnatal day 21 (PND 21) and maternal toxicity was investigated. A subgroup of weaned pups was sacrificed to assess immunotoxicity parameters. The other half of the pups were exposed to imidacloprid till PND 42, and immunotoxicity was assessed. The findings revealed post-implantation loss in the highest dose group, indicating the risk of abortion. Soft tissue abnormalities and skeletal alterations were observed in the highest dose group. Humoral immunity was assessed by estimating hemagglutination titer and immunoglobulin production. Cell mediated immunity was assessed by Delayed Type Hypersensitivity, whereas, non-specific immunity was assessed by phagocytic index, and other phenotypic parameters. These data revealed that imidacloprid caused age-dependent adverse effects on the developing immunity which was aggravated when exposure continued throughout development, leading to a compromised immune system.