toxicity - pesticides, herbicides and insecticides - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 30 – Scientists Discover What’s Killingthe Bees and It’s Worse than You Thought“There’s growing evidence that fungicides may beaffecting the bees on their own and I think what ithighlights is a need to reassess how we label theseagricultural chemicals,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, thestudy’s lead author, told Quartz.Labels on pesticides warn farmers not to spray whenpollinating bees are in the vicinity but such precautionshave not applied to fungicides.Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinateone California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a westcoast problem—California supplies 80% of the world’salmonds, a market worth $4 billion.In recent years, a class of chemicals called neonicotinoidshas been linked to bee deaths and in April regulatorsbanned the use of the pesticide for two years in Europewhere bee populations have also plummeted. ButvanEngelsdorp, an assistant research scientist at theUniversity of Maryland, says the new study shows thatthe interaction of multiple pesticides is affecting beehealth.“The pesticide issue in itself is much more complex thanwe have led to be believed,” he says.“It’s a lot more complicated than just one product, whichmeans of course the solution does not lie in just banningone class of product.”The study found another complication in efforts to savethe bees: US honey bees, which are descendants ofEuropean bees, do not bring home pollen from nativeNorth American crops but collect bee chow from nearbyweeds and wildflowers.That pollen, however, was also contaminated withpesticides even though those plants were not the target ofspraying.“It’s not clear whether the pesticides are drifting over tothose plants but we need take a new look at agriculturalspraying practices,” says vanEngelsdorp.http://www.adguk-blog.com/2013/07/scientists-discover-whatskilling-bees.html#comment-form☻☻☻☻☻Soy-Based Lunch kills 22Children in India: HaveGMOs and Pesticidesbecome Instant Killers?By RiseEarth.comJuly 21, 2013At least 22 children in India have died as a result ofeating soy-based school lunches served to them in thecountry's Bihar state, according to new reports. Thetainted lunches, which were loaded with geneticallymodified(GM) soybeans and pesticide chemicalresidues, were given to the student victims as part of aU.K.-based government meal program similar to the onecurrently being implemented in the U.S. by MichelleObama for American public schoolchildren.The U.K.'s Independent reports that the culprit mealscontained a blend of rice, soybeans and potatoes, andhad apparently been doused with an unidentified newcooking oil that was later determined to be tainted withtoxic crop insecticides. Early on, the school's cookwarned her superiors that the new oil appeared"discolored and dodgy," but her concerns were ignoredwhen school officials insisted that the oil was safe.Not long after students ate the first meal served with thenew oil, dozens of them began to vomit profusely andsome developed severe diarrhea. Several of them had tobe immediately rushed to the hospital for emergencycare, which sent the school's headmaster running for thehills -- according to reports; she literally fled the schoolafter first learning that students were becoming ill fromeating the food."We feel that some kind of insecticide was eitheraccidentally or intentionally mixed in the food, but thatwill be clear through investigations," said R.K. Singh,the medical superintendent at the local children'shospital in Patna, Bihar's capital. "We preparedantidotes and treated the children for organicphosphorus poisoning," he added, noting that early testsidentified the presence of a toxic organophosphatechemical in the tainted food.But the school itself appears to have dropped the ball inhelping its sick children in the immediate aftermath ofthe poisoning. Reports indicate that it took about 15hours after the first child fell ill to evacuate the rest. Itwas only after 17 children died that school officialsbegan to take the situation seriously by trying toactually help the children. Continued on page 4531-- Traditional African Clinic July 2013