The Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Food Safety, and Defenders of Wildlife have given notice of their intention to sue the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for knowingly going against recognized studies that show flupyradifurone is harmful to endangered wildlife, and giving the insecticide its approval for manufacture and use.
On January 14, 2015, the EPA announced that Sivanto, a (flupyradifurone) insecticide manufactured by Bayer CropScience had received registration and would be available for the 2015 growing season in the United States. The EPA stressed that Sivanto was a safe and effective insecticide, “delivering rapid knockdown of sucking pests while helping safeguard beneficial insects.”
Flupyradifurone is a systemic insecticide that poisons the entire plant and anything that feeds on it. We know this to be true because the EPA has created a list of food crops and the parts-per-million (ppm) tolerance levels in humans allowable. But they have turned a blind eye on endangered bees and butterflies. Lori Ann Burd, Environmental Health director at the Center for Biological Diversity says “It’s our government’s duty to investigate how dangerous insecticides might impact wildlife — not just rubberstamp their approval.”
In general, the EPA did not consider the impact of this highly toxic insecticide on our native pollinators such as butterflies and bees, and on a range of birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and aquatic invertebrates. The EPA claims the systemic insecticide is safer for bees than other products because Sivanto will kill bees that ingest it in the field, unlike other systemic insecticides that can be carried back to the hive.
Not only has the EPA gone against it mandate to protect the public, it has totally ignored its own risk assessments, recognizing this pesticide is persistent and mobile, meaning it will reach aquatic environments and put additional aquatic life at risk.
The number of pesticides approved every year is frightening
Did you know that in 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found pesticide residues on two-thirds of the crops they tested. This is an interesting finding, especially with the public wanting food stuffs without agricultural chemicals on them. And the frightening thing is this: We are not talking about one or two pesticides on a fruit or vegetable. As an example, the Environmental Working Group is reporting that the USDA detected 10 different pesticides on at least five percent of 777 samples of peach baby food sold in the U.S., with nearly one-third of the samples violating European guideline for pesticides in baby food.
According to AgroPages.com, In 2014, there were 81 pesticides registered worldwide, including 60 single active ingredient products and 8 mixture products. In the same year, there were 62 pesticide varieties released to market that included 34 single active ingredient products and 28 mixture ingredient products. Now that is a lot of chemicals.
