"Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee" Joins Endangered Species List

The Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee, disappearing from an orchard near you (Photo © Johanna James-Heinz; source)

by Gaius Publius

The plant world has been losing its pollinators (pollinating insects) for a while due to species decline and, in the case of bees, colony collapse. I suspect most people have had this story on the far edge of their radar for a while. It's time to bring the story nearer.

For the first time, a bee species, the "Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee," has been put on the endangered species list by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This means two things — one, the species gets "special protection," and two, the long-term threat to U.S. and world food supply from loss of pollinating insects should not be underestimated.

The bumble bee story is in many places. Let's start with Lorraine Chow, who follows this at EcoWatch (my emphasis):

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has declared the rusty patched bumble bee an endangered species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). This is the first-ever bumble bee in the U.S., and the first wild bee of any kind in the contiguous 48 states, to receive ESA protection.

This landmark decision was made in "a race against extinction" of the Bombus affinis which is "balancing precariously on the brink of extinction," the agency said in its announcement Tuesday.

The bee, known for its distinctive reddish mark on its abdomen, was once common and abundant across 28 states from Connecticut to South Dakota, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces, but has plummeted by 87 percent since the late 1990s. Only small, scattered populations remain in 13 states and one province.

"The rusty patched bumble bee is among a group of pollinators—including the monarch butterfly — experiencing serious declines across the country," USFWS Midwest Regional Director Tom Melius said. "Why is this important? Pollinators are small but mighty parts of the natural mechanism that sustains us and our world. Without them, our forests, parks, meadows and shrublands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops require laborious, costly pollination by hand."

The rusty patched bumble bee is already listed as "endangered" under Canada's Species at Risk Act and as "critically endangered" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.

The insect is an important pollinator of prairie wildflowers, as well as food crops such as cranberries, blueberries, apples, alfalfa and more.

"Bumble bees are especially good pollinators; even plants that can self-pollinate produce more and bigger fruit when pollinated by bumble bees," the USFWS said. "Each year, insects, mostly bees, provide pollination services valued at an estimated $3 billion in the United States."

There's more in the article if you wish to read further. The Washington Post puts it this way:

The rusty patched bumble bee was so prevalent 20 years ago that pedestrians in Midwest cities fought to shoo them away. Now, even trained scientists and experienced bee watchers find it difficult to lay eyes on them. “I’ve never seen one, and I live here pretty close to where there have been populations documented,” said Tamara Smith, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist stationed in Minneapolis.

Fearing that the striped black and yellow pollinator with a long black tail could be lost forever, Fish and Wildlife designated the animal as endangered Tuesday. ...

Why was the rusty patched bee selected for the list and not others? The answer, Smith said, is its former abundance and astonishing plummet.

Apparently the speed of this species' collapse got people's attention.

"Canary in the Coal Mine"

This is just the beginning of the loss of pollinating insects. Honey bees have been in trouble for a while, and as the Post writer says, more species are sure to follow this bumble bee:

Although rusty patched bumble bees are the first to be considered endangered, and the first bee species on the U.S. mainland to get the designations (the yellow faced bee in Hawaii became the first overall in October last year), they are likely to be joined by others. “This bee is kind of like the canary in the coal mine,” Smith said, an indicator that many pollinator species — bees and butterflies — are in deep trouble.

There were nearly 3.5 million honeybee colonies in 1989, according to the Agriculture Department. That number fell by a million colonies when colony collapse disorder was first documented in 2006. in the 10 years sinc[e], the number of colonies has climbed only slightly, by about 100,000.

One state, Maryland, shows how eerie and perilous the decline has been for professional beekeepers. In 2015, the state lost more than 60 percent of its hives, each containing up to 20,000 honeybees. Beekeeper Steve McDaniel, owner of McDaniel Honey Farms, lost half of his hives in Manchester, Md., and all of them where he kept bees in downtown Baltimore. Hives with up to 20,000 bees cost about $1,200.

So, what's causing this? For a change, the answer isn't climate change.

Pesticides Are Killing the Bees

The scientific community has reached a consensus that the agent causing these species collapses is a group of widely used pesticides called "neonicotinoids" or "neonics." EcoWatch, from a different article:

Neonicotinoids—a potent class of pesticides used on many crops in the U.S.—have long been blamed for the widespread decline of our pollinators. Now a major new study has found a direct correlation between the use of these "neonics" and honeybee colony losses across England and Wales.

Meanwhile, a report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) revealed that the controversial insecticides were present in more than half of both urban and agricultural streams sampled across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

 Back to the first EcoWatch article:

"A number of scientific articles clearly document the lethal and sublethal effects that these chemicals are having on bees and other pollinators, and their use has intensified extensively within the rusty patched bumble bee's range during the same time period that declines have been observed," the Xerces Society explains.

The world's largest producer of neonics is Bayer. They're not just an aspirin company; they're a chemical producing giant (and, by the way, part of the cartel that sold poison gas to Nazis for concentration camps).

But neonicotinoids aren't the only culprit:

The Xerces Society also suggests that the massive rise in the use of the controversial herbicide glyphosate on genetically modified corn and soybean fields in the last 20 years has effectively eliminated milkweed and other wildflowers from the agricultural landscape.

"While no direct link has been made from the use of these pesticides to the declines observed in the rusty patched bumble bee there is little doubt that stressors like pesticides at the very least put increased pressures on an already imperiled bumble bee, especially when one considers the scope at which these chemicals are being adopted and used," the group points out.

Which bring us to ... Monsanto.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, a pesticide used around the world. And Monsanto is one of the world's leading megalomaniacal corporations. Which leads to this.

Is Monsanto Killing the Bees? 

Above, the EcoWatch writer noted that "no direct link" showed that glyphosate is responsible for the collapse of the rusty-patched bumble bee population, which brings me to these final points:

Monsanto is one of the most obsessively profit driven companies in the world. It aims to create a worldwide monopoly for its GMO food products, and has thus, ironically, been tabbed as a leading cause of world hunger. The reason is simple. Monsanto doesn't really grow food; it grows money, and food is just the middle-man. If too much corn is being planted for ethanol (see link above), taking productive fields offline for other uses, Monsanto doesn't care, so long as the money comes in.

Which means that if Monsanto, the corporation — or more specifically, its CEO class — has to choose between making millions from a mega-profitable operation versus providing sufficient food for actual humans, well, what choice do you think they're going to make, ten times out of ten?

Special Protection?

Which brings us back to where we started — the Endangered Species Act and the "special protection" offered to species on its list. Here's how the Post writer quoted above put the pesticide problem:

Fearing that the striped black and yellow pollinator with a long black tail could be lost forever, Fish and Wildlife designated the animal as endangered Tuesday. The designation triggers protections such as regulations against knowingly destroying the bumble bee’s habitat and habitat creation. It also raises awareness about the plight of the bumble bee and requires a detailed, long term recovery plan to restore its population.

What are the odds that Monsanto and other pesticide companies will be required by the U.S. givernment to eliminate sales of their products within the habitats of these insects? Or will the agency simply content itself with "raising awareness"?

The Post article lists these causes of bumble bee population collapse: "farm pesticides, household herbicides, human development over bee habitat, disease and climate change." A convenient list for corporate giants; it could be your fault too, even though the farm pesticide usage is magnitudes greater as a cause than anything else in that list.

And, as the writer notes, there really is no direct link, just as there is no "direct link" between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. The link is strong, but no one can say that any individual death was caused by smoking, even if the deceased died of lung cancer and was a heavy smoker. Doubt-inducers can always point to individuals who smoked heavily and lived to ripe ages, and to lung cancer patients who never smoked at all.

Yet ... this seems specious, doesn't it? In the case of smoking, the statistical evidence finally became too overwhelming even for an industry-captured government to ignore, and the U.S. finally issued regulations designed to reduce or eliminate smoking, because human life is irretrievable and the risk of death from smoking is high.

Same on this case. Only now the risk is to food across the planet: "The honeybee is the most important commercial pollinator, globally responsible for pollinating at least 90% of commercial crops." The rusty-patched bumble bee population has collapsed 87%. In the U.S., between April 2014 and 2015, honey bee loss was 42%, up from 34% the previous year.

If the honey bee joins this bumble bee on the endangered species list, look out. Because if Monsanto and other pesticide companies can't be stopped, only they and their friends will be eating well. Fun times ahead.

Bayer-Monsanto Merger

A final note: Remember the two companies listed above? Guess who wants to merge — Bayer and Monsanto. The combined company would be "the largest agribusiness giant in the world, 'selling 29 percent of the world’s seeds and 24 percent of its pesticides.'"

And the $66 billion deal is done; it just needs regulatory approval:

[T]he proposed merger will likely face an intense and lengthy regulatory process in the United States, Canada, Brazil, the European Union and elsewhere. Hugh Grant, Monsanto's chief executive, said Wednesday the companies will need to file in about 30 jurisdictions for the merger.

I'm willing to bet that in the U.S. — even with a government fully controlled by Democrats — regulatory approval would be granted. Under a Republican administration, approval is a foregone conclusion. As to worldwide approval, stay tuned.

GP
 

Law Firm Files Suit on Behalf of Government Against Giant Chemical Firms; Government Declines to Join

Victims blinded by a methyl isocyanate gas leak from a chemical factory in Bhopal, India, 1984 (source).

by Gaius Publius

This news brought to you by the hashtag #CultureOfCorruption.

There's a fair amount to digest in the news story below, so I'll try to give you the short strokes first:

• Four huge chemical companies have been lying to the federal government about how dangerous some of its chemicals in consumer products are. These products include mattress foam.

• A whistleblower apparently went, not to the government, but to a law firm, Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman — or at least came to the attention of the law firm, then didn't go to the government.

• The law firm is bringing a lawsuit against these companies, on behalf of the federal government, which has decline to join.

• The damages sought — $90 billion.

I know there are questions around the way this is playing out. For example, why didn't the whistleblower(s) go to the government? Why isn't the government suing on its own behalf? And so on.

About the first question, I think there's an obvious explanation. The Obama administration treats whistleblowers with disdain, and it also tends to give corporations, especially those with a lot of money to spread around, a considerable pass. After all, today's sued company could be tomorrow's campaign contributor, or employer. For example, Eric Holder came from and went back to a law firm that lobbies for Wall Street banks he himself failed to prosecute as Attorney General.

About the second question, we'll have to see, as this story develops, what the Obama administration will do. But if they do decline to act, it may be time to look again at our hashtag.

Now the story, from Lorainne Chow at EcoWatch (my emphasis):

$90 Billion Whistleblower Suit Filed Against Four of the Nation's Largest Chemical Companies

Four of the country's largest chemical companies have been accused of selling billions of dollars worth of harmful isocyanate chemicals but intentionally concealing their dangers to consumers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the past several decades.

BASF Corporation, Bayer Material Science LLC, Dow Chemical Company and Huntsman International LLC have been named in a False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit brought by New York law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP on behalf of the U.S. government.

EcoWatch learned that the recently unsealed whistleblower lawsuit was served on the chemical companies on Wednesday. The lawsuit was originally filed under seal in federal court in Northern California.

Kasowitz brought this action on behalf of itself and the federal government to recover more than $90 billion in damages and penalties under the FCA, which imposes penalties for concealing obligations to the government.

According to a copy of the lawsuit seen by EcoWatch, "Each of these companies is separately liable to the United States Government for billions of dollars in civil reporting penalties, which continue to accumulate by tens of thousands of dollars daily, and for billions of dollars in similarly increasing breach of contract damages."

In the suit, the law firm said that the defendants manufacture and sell isocyanate chemicals such as methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), polymeric MDI (PMDI) and toluene diisocyanate (TDI). These raw materials make up polyurethane products such as liquid coatings, paints and adhesives; flexible foam used in mattresses and cushions; rigid foam used as insulation; and elastomers used to make automotive interiors.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) states that exposure to isocyanate can irritate the skin and mucous membranes, cause chest tightness and difficult breathing. Isocyanates also include compounds classified as potential human carcinogens and is known to cause cancer in animals.

The piece concludes with this:

According to Andy Davenport of Kasowitz, "The defendants' cover-up implicates major human health concerns. Thankfully, the whistleblower law allows us to assist the federal government in holding these companies responsible for their actions while we alert regulators and the public to the serious undisclosed hazards of these chemicals."

Assisting a government that may not want assisting creates an interesting situation. Because the lawsuit was brought privately, it's (a) civil, not criminal; (b) a potential generator of large fees for the firm (I've seen estimates as high as $27 billion); (c) a suit that may go nowhere.

About (a) — According to one of the links in the above piece, the federal government "has declined to intervene" in this suit, meaning, that it is not joining as a plaintiff. The site LawNewz.com states: "The firm brought the action as a qui tam complaint, which is when a whistleblower brings legal action on behalf of the U.S. government. These complaints typically remain under seal while the government reviews them and decides whether to join."

The government has declined the opportunity to join the suit, which means that the law firm is on its own.

About (c) — It may be difficult to sue for unpaid penalties if those penalties were never assessed. LawNewz.com reached out to an industry spokesperson and received this reply:

"This qui tam complaint is meritless. Dow has complied with all the federal laws and requirements referenced in the complaint. It is noteworthy that the law firm provided these allegations to the United States Department of Justice, which declined to intervene or take any action in support of the lawsuit. Moreover, the False Claims Act does not allow a claim for unassessed civil penalties."

It may well be that the strategy of the suit is to publicize this, if true, horrendous action and shame the government into acting, either by joining the suit or by suing on its own.

Culture of Corruption

I think it's fair to ask why the government declined to sue, either with the law firm or on its own — or more to the point, is failing to pursue criminal charges for the companies' failing to meet reporting requirements that keep the public from harm. If the allegations are true, and it seems pretty clear they could be, not only were the companies derelict in their duty to the public — in other words, corrupt — but so is the government in its response to this new information.

I don't know if this will go anywhere without greater publicity, but do stay tuned. I think being poisoned by isocyanates in your brand new foam mattress might be something the American consumer may care about.

Bayer and Monsanto

Oh, and if you weren't aware, Bayer, mentioned above, wants to buy Monsanto. Here's why that's a terrible idea. Bayer is also one of the companies whose pesticides are killing bees. None of the people running these companies has your health, or that of our species, at heart.

GP
 

Right Wing Paradise-- A World With No Regulations... Take Yaz And Bayer

Would Bayer put your life at risk? Well... that depends on how much profit they could make. The company was founded in Germany in 1863 and later became a key component of IG Farben, the biggest of the Nazi conglomerates that bankrolled Hitler, made mega profits off slave labor in concentration camps and manufactured all the chemicals needed to exterminate the Jews and anyone else the Nazis decided were untermeschen. Bayer also invented heroin. Bayer, like all the big pharmaceutical companies calculates the value of new drugs by including the inevitable wrongful death suits and fines, fines that more often than not result in their having hidden evidence from the FDA in the process of getting approval.

Bayer spends immense amounts of money on legalistic bribes-- overwhelmingly to Republicans (80%) and some conservative Democrats willing to vote against consumer interests with the Republicans. In he 2010 cycle Bayer spent $334,018 to help the Republicans take control of Congress, understanding full well the GOP attitude towards regulations that protect the public from predatory drug companies like itself.

Big Pharma has spent $121,637,009 on direct "contributions" to federal candidates, again, most of it to Republicans and most of the rest to corrupt conservative Democrats. Big Pharma's biggest friend in the House are all well-known for protecting drug manufacturers interests over the interests of the public, particularly 5 of Congress' sleaziest and most corrupt Members:

Joe Barton (R-TX)- $849,738
Fred Upton (R-MI)- $631,241
Dave Camp (R-MI)- $586,897
John Boehner (R-OH)- $582,280
Charlie Rangel (D-NY)- $570,402

I heard Mike Papantonio discussing the Yaz case with Sam Seder on the radio this evening. That's how I came to find the video above.

Lawsuits have been filed against Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceutical for the birth control drug Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella. Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella birth control pills all contain drospirenone, a synthetic form of progestin which works in combination with ethinyl estradiol (estrogen) to prevent pregnancy. Drospirenone is not contained in other forms of birth control and is believed to be the major cause of side effects from Ocella, Yasmin and Yaz. Two recent case-control studies published in the British Medical Journal show that patients on the birth control pills containing drospirenone have a 200% higher risk of serious injury than those patients using first or second generation oral contraception. The New York Times recently published a major news story on the growing safety concerns with Yaz. Bayer manufactures and markets Yaz and Yasmin. Ocella, meanwhile, is a generic form of Yasmin. Bayer manufactures Ocella which is then packaged and sold by Barr Laboratories, which has recently been acquired by Teva Pharmaceuticals.

Side effects of Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella may include:

• heart attacks
• strokes
• deep vein thrombosis
• pulmonary embolism
• blood clots in the legs and lungs
• cardiac arrhythmia
• gallbladder disease
• kidney failure
• sudden death

From the 2009 NY Times story by Natasha Singer:

The oral contraceptives Yaz and Yasmin are the top-selling pharmaceutical line for Bayer HealthCare, largely as a result of marketing that presents them as much more than mere pregnancy prevention.

Yaz, in particular, the top-selling birth control pill in the United States, owes much of its popularity to multimillion-dollar ad campaigns that have promoted the drug as a quality-of-life treatment to combat acne and severe premenstrual depression.

Yaz, a newer sister drug to Yasmin, contains less estrogen. The franchise had worldwide sales of about $1.8 billion last year, based on Bayer’s successful positioning of Yasmin and Yaz as the go-to drug brands for women under 35.

But recently, the Yaz line’s image has been clouded by concerns from some researchers, health advocates and plaintiffs’ lawyers. They say that the drugs put women at higher risk for blood clots, strokes and other health problems than some other birth control pills do.

Those critics, though, are up against a large European health study, sponsored by Bayer, the German pharmaceutical giant, that reported the opposite conclusion. The Bayer-financed study said that cardiovascular risks in women taking Bayer products were comparable to those taking an older formula of birth control pills.

But regulators are finding other faults with the Yaz franchise. The Food and Drug Administration early this year asked Bayer to correct misleading television commercials. Last month, the agency cited the company for not following proper quality control procedures at a plant that makes hormone ingredients.

In e-mail responses to a reporter’s queries, the American unit of the company said that its birth-control drugs had been and continued to be extensively studied and that the company stood behind their safety. The company also said it had responded to the F.D.A.’s questions about manufacturing practices, which it said it took very seriously.

But even if Bayer can adequately respond to the safety and other concerns, some industry analysts say that the avalanche of criticism could tarnish the Yaz line’s image. Other products by Bayer, like the erectile dysfunction drug Levitra and the intrauterine birth-control system Mirena, generate far less income than the Yaz product family.

“For Bayer, it is by far the highest margin and the fastest-growing brand,” Martin Brunninger, an analyst with the European investment bank Bryan, Garnier & Company, said in a phone interview from London on Wednesday. “Whether this turns out to be a serious issue or not, when a drug is stigmatized in public, people just withdraw from taking it.”

Bayer said that the company had been served with 74 lawsuits brought by women who charge that they developed health problems after taking Yaz or Yasmin. The company says it intends to defend itself vigorously against the suits.

...Lawyers suing Bayer on behalf of plaintiffs who claim that they developed blood clots, heart attacks and other health problems because they took the drugs said they intended to argue that the company knew or should have known that the pills entailed a higher risk.

One such plaintiff is Anne Marie Eakins, a history teacher in Grafton, Ohio, who developed blood clots in both lungs in 2007 and, as a result, she said, lost partial use of her right lung. She had used a variety of different birth control pills over more than a decade before starting Yaz in 2007, she said.
“To be perfectly honest, I asked my doctor about Yaz because I had seen the commercial and it mentioned helping control your period symptoms and acne, which was very attractive to me,” said Ms. Eakins, 34. “I didn’t think it was going to be worse than any other pill.”

Because drug labels for Yasmin and Yaz contain warnings about the risk of side effects like blood clots and strokes, plaintiffs may have a difficult time winning cases with the argument that the company should have issued stronger alerts. But, armed with F.D.A. warning letters to Bayer, lawyers may find more success with the argument that misleading Yaz commercials enticed women to take the drug, thereby exposing them to health risks they might not otherwise have incurred.

Last October, the agency sent Bayer a warning letter, citing the company for running two false and misleading television ads about Yaz. According to the letter, the ads overstated the drug’s efficacy, promoted it for conditions like premenstrual syndrome for which the drug is not approved, and minimized serious risks associated with the drug. In February, Bayer agreed to spend $20 million on a corrective advertising campaign to counteract misimpressions created by the original television spots.

Last month, the agency sent Bayer a warning letter about another problem-- deviations from quality control standards at a manufacturing plant in Germany that makes drospirenone and other hormone ingredients used in Bayer’s birth control pills sold in the United States. The letter said that the way in which the facility calculated variability in ingredients did not meet American standards.

Bayer said it was taking the matter seriously. Maintaining good manufacturing practices and patient safety continue to be top priorities at Bayer, the company said in a statement.

But Mr. Santoro of the Rutgers Business School said that drug companies should set higher standards for themselves than those set by the F.D.A.

“It tells me,” Mr. Santoro said of Bayer, “that it is not understanding the business that it is in, that it is not understanding the health risks that it is posing to the public or the financial risk that it is creating for its shareholders.”