Insecticides

Eine weltweite Serie von Vogelsterben erschreckt viele Gemüter, wird doch der Beginn des jüngsten Gerichtes mit ähnlichen Bildern beschrieben. In Beebe im US-Bundesstaat Arkansas vielen 5000 Vögel vom Himmel. In Lousianna fand man 500 verendete Amseln, Stare und Spatzen. Im schwedischen Fallköpping verendeten zahlreiche Dohlen, in Italien 700 Tauben. In den USA und vielerorts weltweit sterben jährlich mehr als 30% der Bienenvölker und Nutzinsekten durch landwirtschaftliche Insektizide. In seinem kürzlich erschienenen Buch „The Systemic Insecticides: A Disaster in the Making“ beschreibt der niederländische Toxikologe Dr. Henk Tennekes die Brisanz dieser seit einem Jahrzent weltweit eingesetzten Insektizide. Durch das systematische Vergiften einer Basis unseres Nahrungskreislaufes, nämlich der Insektenfauna, sind alle davon lebenden Arten ebenfalls betroffen.

In a two-part article (attached), authors Marilyn Steiner and Stephen Goodwin shine a spotlight on neonicotinoid pesticides against a backdrop of widespread use of this group and concerning reports of an alarming and increasing loss of biodiversity. While honey bees have been the focus of concern, other pollinators and invertebrates, birds and even the lowly earthworm are at risk. Stephen Goodwin and Marilyn Steiner are IPM consultants trading as Biocontrol Solutions at Mangrove Mountain. Email: sgoodwin.msteiner@gmail.com

We are reporting a case of self poisoning with imidacloprid leading to severe psychiatric symptoms and respiratory failure. A forty one year male patient was brought to emergency with alleged history of self ingestion of 75ml 70% imidacloprid three hours before admission. He had developed nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, muscle twitching and difficulty in breathing within 30 minutes of ingestion of poison. He was immediately resuscitated with endotracheal intubation and ventilated with ambu bag. After 12 hours of ventilation the patient was fully conscious and started developing neuropsychiatric manifestations like agitation and delirium. Due to severe agitation he self extubated so he was sedated and reintubated. After 96 hours, neuropsychiatric manifestations subsided and he was weaned off from the ventilator and extubated on day five.

LTO Nederland staat achter een onderzoek van de Gezondheidsraad naar de blootstelling van omwonenden aan gewasbeschermingsmiddelen. Sjaak Langeslag, voorzitter van de LTO-werkgroep Gewasbescherming noemt het goed dat eerst blootstellingsonderzoek plaatsvindt alvorens iets te kunnen zeggen over mogelijke gezondheidseffecten voor omwonenden. ‘We zijn ook positief over het feit, dat de Gezondheidsraad, naast vertegenwoordigers van de omwonenden ook de landbouwsector en de agrochemische industrie zal betrekken bij de opstelling van het advies. Zeker op dit dossier is samenwerking geboden om alle aanwezige kennis zoveel mogelijk te benutten.' Navolgend een reactie van de toxicoloog Henk Tennekes op deze samenwerking.

I have been reading recent reports on Tree Sparrow Passer montanus decline in Nottinghamshire and the UK and these are pointing fingers mostly at habitat destruction and modern hedgerow management practices leading to a lack of winter food and shelter but I wonder if this is the complete picture? Tree Sparrow populations seem to be doing fairly well on a lot of our Wetland Nature Reserves in the country and I wonder if this is down not just to very good feeding regimes in place on these sites but also because these sites are very rich in insect life during the breeding period and when the chicks hatch, which sadly a lot of our agricultural land no longer is.

To many people bugs are pests but in reality out of the millions of species worldwide only a tiny handful are actually true pests. The other, harsh, reality is that overall there definitely aren't as many species or numbers of bugs around as there were in the past. Why should that be important and why should we care - after all, insects are pests?

Well for one, many of the birds species we all know and love are declining because of either secondary pesticide poisoning or the lack of insect food available, especially at breeding time. Let's face it; every time we see a bug we don't want, we reach for the spray. Transfer that to an agricultural scale and you get mass extinction on the scale of the dinosaurs, but because many are tiny little inconspicuous creatures that we rarely see, we don't notice or care.

This is a fact: three of the 25 British species of bumblebees are already extinct and half of the remainder have shown serious declines, often up to 70%, since around the 1970s. In addition, around 75% of all butterfly species in the UK have been shown to be in decline. Insects of all sorts play a massive role in our lives and indeed our survival yet we disregard them so easily.