Pesticide Action NetworkNEWS

Pesticide Action Network NEWS
Advancing alternatives to pesticides worldwide • www.panna.org
Spring 2013
The Buzz Grows Louder
PAN Sues EPA to Protect Bees
As Europe restricts use of pesticides harming bees, attention turns to U.S.
With your support, PAN and our allies have kept the pressure on EPA to protect bees. We helped
file more than two million public comments and a legal petition with two dozen beekeepers — and
yet the agency continues to drag its feet. Now we’re taking EPA to court.
As other options waned, PAN, beekeepers and food safety organizations filed a lawsuit against the agency in March for its failure
to take decisive action in the face of dramatic honey bee die-offs.
With pressure mounting on all fronts, EPA will have to act soon.
Scientific evidence mounting
Increasingly, scientific research points to a combination of factors
causing bee declines— often called colony collapse disorder
(CCD)—including nutrition, pathogens and pesticides. Based on
the most recent studies, neonicotinoid insecticides are a critical
factor, directly affecting bees by weakening their immune systems,
impacting their brain function and making them more susceptible to other stresses.
Neonicotinoids are a newer class of systemic insecticides that are
absorbed by plants and transported throughout the plant’s vascular tissue, making the entire plant potentially toxic to insects.
They first came into heavy use in the mid-2000s, at the same
time beekeepers started observing widespread cases of colony
losses. They are now the most widely used class of insecticides in
the world.
Our lawsuit comes on the heels of the most challenging season
to date for California’s almond farmers, who produce 80% of the
world’s almonds. Almonds are entirely reliant on bees for pollination and growers rely on beekeepers to bring billions of bees from
across the country to their orchards. This year many beekeepers
are reporting losses of more than 40%. The shortages have left
many California almond growers without enough bees to support
their crops.
Europe steps up for honey bees
In April, Europe adopted continent-wide restrictions on use of
neonicotinoids. Governments there have reacted to the emerging science and public pressure by placing increasing limitation
on three pesticide products used on more than 20 million acres
of mostly corn and canola: clothianidin, imidacloprid and
thiamethoxam. Pesticide corporations, especially Syngenta and
Bayer, have not taken this lightly; they’ve mounted aggressive
public relations campaigns, appeared on talk shows and paid for
bogus economic analyses in an effort to keep their products on
the market.
continued on back page
Demonstrating in April at Parliament Square
in London for the proposed European Union
neonicotinoid ban: PAN UK director Keith Tyrell
with Katherine Hamnett, long-time PAN supporter and
a leading British fashion designer famous for campaigning
on issues ranging from organic cotton to nuclear
disarmament. Photo: Paul Lievens/PAN UK
Inside This Issue
Midwest Mother p. 2
Actor Susan Clark p. 3
Going the Distance p. 3
A Midwest Mother Looks for Answers
Crystal Rayamajhi grew up on a small dairy farm near Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Today she lives in
Grand Forks, North Dakota, with her husband Manoj and infant daughter, and is pursuing graduate
work in earth system science. Manoj is in the University of North Dakota nursing program.
It was during a classmate’s presentation that Crystal first
heard about Pesticide Action Network. A month later, she
received a call from another friend asking if she was interested
in joining PAN’s Drift Catcher air monitoring program.
Unrelated to her graduate program, Crystal’s interest in
the health impacts of pesticides stemmed from both her
own research and her personal experience: her daughter
was born with a tumor in her mouth. While it was successfully removed and proved benign, the tumor raised a lot of
questions.
She’d been very careful about eating healthfully during her
pregnancy and had avoided even cold medicines. Yet Crystal
has concerns about how chemicals may impact DNA during
fetal development. She worries that by the time the science
is fully certain of connections between pesticides and DNA
damage, we will have passed birth defects along to generations of children.
Curious to see if pesticides from nearby fields were drifting
into the densely populated campus area where her family
I
cannot know conclusively why
my baby needed surgery on her
third day after birth, but I am happy
to work with PAN to prevent this
from happening to other children.
•
Crystal Rayamajhi
lives, in March Crystal joined 25 other volunteers learning
to use the Drift Catcher. After attending a day-long training
in Mahnomen, Minnesota, she was visited at home by PAN’s
Midwest organizer Linda Wells and staff scientist Dr. Emily
Marquez to be certified on the technology. They tested her
skills with the equipment and helped her select the best
locations and timing to document drift.
Crystal and many other volunteers will also be working with
PAN to sample their drinking water for atrazine and other
harmful pesticides, feeding data to EPA as it reviews the
widely used herbicide.
To learn more about PAN’s Drift Catcher
program, see www.panna.org/science/drift.
on the web
The Science
for your conversations about pesticides
Between 1975 and 2004, a 25% increase in new cases
of childhood cancers was observed in the U.S. While
it’s difficult to point to a single chemical as the cause
of an illness, public health research suggests that
cumulative impacts of chemical exposures can have
significant effects on childhood disease. Examples
from PAN’s recent report, A Generation in Jeopardy,
include:
• Childhood cancer risk is significantly higher
among U.S. children who live in areas of high agricultural activity from birth to age 15.
• Birth defect risk is higher among infants conceived between April and July, when elevated concentrations of the herbicide atrazine are found in
surface water, according to a multi-year national
review of USGS water data and CDC birth defect
records.
• Neuroblastoma, a nerve tissue cancer, is the
most common cancer among infants. Risk of this
cancer is higher among children whose parents
report garden and home pesticide use, and among
those whose fathers are landscapers or groundskeepers.
2
Crystal Rayamajhi and Mack Ivers, a beginning farmer from
Hendrum, Minnesota, learn to use the Drift Catcher. PAN invented
the instrument to enable farmworkers and community members to
document otherwise invisible pesticide exposure. The Drift Catcher
is simple, affordable and scientifically robust. It samples air for
laboratory analysis Photo: Linda Wells
Pesticide Action Network News Spring 2013
Decades of Dedication
Actor Susan Clark and her late husband,
actor and athlete Alex Karras, first joined PAN more than
two decades ago. Susan, known for her work for over thirty
years in films and TV (including her role as Katherine on the
1980s sitcom Webster), is now starring in the play Habitat at
the Los Angeles Theater Center.
Susan has long been aware that the rise in illnesses in recent
decades might be linked to toxins in the environment. Back
in 1982, she heard PAN’s co-founder and first executive
director, Monica Moore, give a lecture and “everything she
said made a lot of sense.”
We crossed up a little hill and I suddenly felt like I’d been
hit. I got very dizzy, my head started spinning, I lost my
balance and went slowly down to my knees. “Oh my god,” I
gasped, “What’s happening?”
As she helped me up my landlady calmly said, “Oh, they’re
spraying.”
We walked to the top of the hill and there were huge trucks
with giant sprays arching out. It could have been water but
it was pesticides — herbicides or fungicides — which, I’m not
sure. The smell was very sweet, almost syrupy, and revolting.
Business as usual for potatoes destined for french fries. On
another occasion they were spraying the potato fields and
there were fishponds nearby, you know, where they put the
baby fish to grow up. The wind direction changed one day
and overnight there were thousands of fish belly-up.
Provide for a safe &
sustainable food system
So I got in touch with Monica at PAN and told her “a lot
of people up here are angry at being poisoned. What can
we do?” I put Monica together with a young woman who’d
started to organize, linking her with activists across Canada
and in the U.S.
Susan has a step-grandson who is autistic, and one of Alex’s
nephews has an autistic child.
They grew up in the Midwest, and the fathers and grandfathers were raised in Gary, Indiana, a steel mill town. So
what they were eating and breathing and drinking had all the
toxic elements of that kind of heavy manufacturing. We all
need to know if there is a connection, for future generations.
It is so important for PAN supporters to work with children — children in schools, children after school. Show them
how to grow a garden, let them taste the difference between
foods that are junk and foods freshly grown. And PAN
can guide us into asking questions and not accepting easy
answers.
Read our extended conversation with Susan at
www.panna.org/pan-conversation-susan-clark
on the web
OUR MISSION•
•Pesticide
Action Network North America
works to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically
sound and socially just alternatives. As one of five PAN Regional Centers
worldwide, we link local and international consumer, labor, health,
environment and agriculture groups into an international citizens’
action network. This network challenges the global proliferation of
pesticides, defends basic rights to health and environmental quality,
and works to ensure the transition to a just and viable society.
Pesticide Action Network News Spring 2013
90 COUNTRIES
Join the PAN
Sustainers Circle
by pledging a
monthly or quarterly
donation. Pledging
provides reliable
funding and shows
your commitment
to a resilient and fair
food system, grounded in science and rooted in
our commitment to justice and equity. Pledge
$10 a month or more, and we’ll thank you with
honey from Nine-Acre Farm in New Jersey.
Learn more at panna.org/Gift
Susan Clark is currently starring in the play “Habitat” at the Los
Angeles Theater Center. Photo courtesy of Susan Clark
30 YEARS
Susan herself was exposed to pesticides in 1996 while on
location on Canada’s Prince Edward Island, which is famous
for its oysters, mussels and potatoes. She was staying at a bed
and breakfast during production of the television series Emily
of New Moon. One day, as she was out walking with her
landlady, something dramatic happened.
3
continued from page 1
We’re just getting started in the U.S.
As in Europe, we face significant opposition in the U.S.
from the Big 6 pesticide manufacturers when trying to curb
widespread use of their bee-harming products. And we know
that litigation alone will not solve the problem. But in combination with a concerted public outcry and support from
policymakers—as Europe has also taught us — litigation will
give EPA no choice but to act.
What you can do
—Sign PAN’s petition urging Congress to press EPA for
action to protect bees from pesticides.
Go to www.panna.org/bees.
—Write a letter to your local paper or find ways to
organize in your community.
Visit www.honeybeehaven.org to learn more.
—Create a bee haven in your yard.
Visit www.honeybeehaven.org.
—Donate now to strengthen our fight for honey bees.
Go to www.panna.org/donate.
Together we can protect these vital pollinators.
on the web
www.panna.org/bees
A
merica’s beekeepers cannot survive for long with the toxic environment
EPA has supported. Bee-toxic pesticides in dozens of widely used products,
on top of many other stresses our industry faces, are killing our bees and
threatening our livelihoods, crop pollination and honey production. It’s time for
EPA to recognize the value of bees to our food system and agricultural economy.”
•
Steve Ellis, owner of Old Mill Honey Co., Minnesota & California
Big thanks to PAN staff, interns and board
who this spring raised PAN’s profile and
more than $3,500 in the Oakland Running
Festival. Board chair Jennifer Sokolove,
staffer Matt Belli and intern Diane Hannigan
completed the half marathon; staff members
Emily Marquez and Devika Ghai ran the
5k. PAN supporters will soon have more
opportunities to raise funds for PAN
through sporting events. Stay tuned!
Photo: Janet Stephens
Thank you for going
the distance for PAN!
After completing the marathon on March 24th, PAN runners Matt Belli,
Emily Marquez and Diane Hannigan toast to a successful fundraiser with
organic wine provided by Frey Vineyards, a PAN business supporter.
Connect Online
8 Sign up for Action Alerts
and the GroundTruth blog
at www.panna.org/subscribe.
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our CFC number is 11437
PAN, 1611 Telegraph Avenue, Suite 1200 • Oakland, CA 94612 • 510.788.9020 • www.panna.org
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