This Story Will Make You Angry
Dear Larry, This is a story of an arrogant government agency more dedicated to helping pesticide manufacturers to profit than doing its job to protect human health and the environment. It’s a story that will make you angry . It proves beyond a doubt that pesticide management in Canada must be fixed. Here’s our story. It starts three years ago. Back in 2013, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) was faced with the evidence of catastrophic bee kills by neonicotinoids used to coat corn and soy seeds. Honey beekeepers were finding millions of dead and dying bees during spring planting. No one knows how many millions of wild bees were also killed on contact since no one was counting wild bees. The European Union had just decided to ban the use of three neonicotinoids until more research has done on their impact on bees - thiamethoxam, clothianidin and imidacloprid. Faced with millions of dead bees and the important precautionary ste