As bees continue to die off, suspicion turns to chemically coated seeds and other factors

R. Donald Snyder... It's way past the time that our government pays attention to this threat to our economy, agriculture and even national security.

The government serves at the pleasure of their campaign benefactors and the public interests get lip service. They won't help, they're the problem.

Congress funds this chemically intensive, factory farming of commodity crops. We're a Nation ravaged by obesity and diabetes and growing Monsanto corn, soy, cotton and canola on the majority of subsidized acres. Not any more hope Congress will bite the hands that feed them here in petrochemical agribusiness than in the Goldman Gang with the TARP bailout. Wall Street gets full service and the public get lip service.

This problem is a much, much, much bigger threat to the American way of life then the worst terrorist organization.

It's not a pretty picture from any angle and it all puts Congress right in the middle.

Can't resist using two user names eh Publius, the Bambi comments come out when you can't eh?

Who's got issues when Bambi's only participation at Newsvine is adding snarky remarks to me?

Sorry, I stand corrected, Bambi has another comment area and stopped in to belittle the idea of cyberstalkers and suggest anyone who makes claims against cyberstalkers is a hysterical crackpot. Monsanto and cyberstalkers is an odd pair for anyone but a paid industry hack to react to.

http://bambidear.newsvine.com/

As bees continue to die off, suspicion turns to chemically coated seeds and other factors
Tue Dec 1, 2009
Congress kills the bees thats silly

Being cyberstalked on Newsvine? Contact the Internet Response Team
Sat Nov 7, 2009
Are you one who calls 911 when you cant find car keys? There is a setting for no comments silly No setting for no disagreement is that the problem Grow up

'Bioidenticals' not FDA-approved, contain estrogen
Sun Oct 25, 2009
I will do everything the woman in the picture says. Because she has killer lip gloss and freckles just like me.
I was not sucking his d*** - and it's pretty obvious that wasn't the case ... you only have to look at the mark on my chest," she said.
Mon Oct 12, 2009
Rug burn, I'm betting. The poor, dear, sweet child. But, hey, no worries, Mate!

Translator Blacklisted by Monsanto
Sun Sep 27, 2009
What does the translation guy have to do with it? Hunger sucks you want people to starve are you hungry Maybe elitst maybe evil. Not so silly then

Translator Blacklisted by Monsanto
Sun Sep 27, 2009
A translation guy isnot hired and that means we all die if we eat it? Thats not making sense. Silly story.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug dies at 95
Sun Sep 13, 2009
hunger sucks

Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug dies at 95
Sun Sep 13, 2009
Your the one who doesn't have her facts straight. Always changing the subject to not answer. Just full of it up to your ears. BS about food no facts just some newspaper story

My contention is that Bambi is a second user name for Publius Redux, who does add comments from a preachy perch of scientific superiority and endlessly aiming at any critics of agribusiness.

Publius has been told that comments from him/her will be allowed in my columns once we see the human safety studies that were done to assure the GMO food is safe to eat. So far the simple issue of showing they are fit for human consumption has Publius stumped and so we get Bambi!

Mosephus...My personal opinion, is genetically engineered crops.

Interesting reaction, is it your belief that the problem relates to additional pesticides used with the GMO crops or the novel proteins from the GMO crops that are affecting the immune systems or is there another effect that makes you suspect the GMO are playing a role in the bees dying?

tony....If I understand GMO crops, they need less pesticide than natural crops. They are more resilient to pests.

That's the widespread industry claim, but not true. There are a few points that cause confusion. First herbicides and pesticides are both included in the volumes of pesticide chemicals used.

The GMO crops now grown commercially fall into two main categories, pesticide producing and herbicide tolerant. The herbicide tolerant can withstand toxic doses of herbicide and that tolerance has increased over time to help kill the weeds that have naturally developed herbicide tolerance, there's one place more chemicals are used.

The second are pesticide producing and with those, every fiber in the plant contains pesticides that go into the soil and the ecosystem, so while the figure for "applied" pesticide for theose can be reported as a reduced figure, they are still adding toxins to the farming operation.

Recently there have been GMO crops called stacked trait that produce pesticides and tolerate herbicides and those crops do even more to add toxic elements to the process of food production.

Hope that helps clear it up, while industry claims these reduce chemicals, switching from applied on the plant to plant produced toxins should hardly count as upside now that people eat more pesticides when it's part of the food and cannot be washed off.

Obviously, even with all we know, our current understanding of the complexity and workings of ecosystems is inadequate and needs much more study.

That reminds me of the remark made to us by a Nobel Prize winning cancer researcher, "People too often forget that what we don't know far exceeds what we do and therein lies the problem with finding the right answers."

As long as industry works to obstruct knowledge of effects and muddling the facts we do know, the problems will simply grow!