Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–October 24, 2013. A team of scientists in Italy believe they have found the molecular mechanism through which neonicotinoid pesticides adversely impacts the immune system of honey bees. The team’s experiments suggest that exposure to neonicotinoids results in increased levels of a particular protein in bees that inhibits a key molecule involved in the immune response, making the insects more susceptible to attack by harmful viruses. Though previous studies have indicated that exposure to minute amount of neurotoxic pesticides like neonicotinoids severely impair the immune systems of bees, making them more susceptible to pathogens, the underlying mechanism has was not yet been fully understood. The study, Neonicotinoid clothianidin adversely affects insect immunity and promotes replication of a viral pathogen in honey bees, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). This work is the latest of several studies to add weight to the urgency of repeated calls from U.S. beekeeper and environmental groups for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, as the European Commission recently decided this past April.
