# "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.



## Vance G

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Anytime you attach ECO to a word it loses all credibility. Makes you wonder who paid her to find what she says she found and who drew the conclusions. Not applauding the compound as I do not know enough about it. Just saying I do know enough about people attaching ECO to their credentials. They are corrupt almost always.


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## Ian

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

As far as I have been told, she is legit


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## Dominic

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Right, because only nutjobs care to study ecosystems, and the vast amounts of power and wealth to be had in studying ecology is sure to corrupt everyone who pursues the path...


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## WLC

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

She's an environmental scientist.

I would characterize the numbers she's reporting as being at a background level.

Frankly, I was expecting that she had found much higher levels of neonics from all of the previous hubbub.


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## Haraga

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

I heard that she aquired most of her experience studying the wetlands of SE Alberta before she moved east.


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## WLC

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

From a beekeeping perspective, she would have to have detected neonic concentrations that were 1,000 to 10,000 times what she has found for anyone to be concerned.

While it may be a Canadian drinking water standards issue, I wouldn't call it a cause for concern for beekeepers.


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## Chemguy

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

A toxicologist is someone who understands the effect that a substance and its metabolites can have on an organism. An ecotoxicologist is someone who understands the effects that a substance and its decomposition products can have on an ecosystem. Sure, I can see how some might use the "eco" to trump things up, but the field of study in this case is legit. Sometimes terminology does mean something.


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## shinbone

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



WLC said:


> I would characterize the numbers she's reporting as being at a background level.


What does a "background level of neonicotinoids" means? I would think since neonicotinoids do not occur naturally in the environment, there should be no "background level"?


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## Dominic

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



shinbone said:


> What does a "background level of neonicotinoids" means? I would think since neonicotinoids do not occur naturally in the environment, there is no "background level"?


Agreed. And if we consider how quickly these molecules tend to break down when exposed to light, the levels detected are but the tip of the iceburg. It also suggests a chronic poisoning.


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## irwin harlton

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

the question still is,what are the sub lethal effects of neonic's on bees, humans and the rest of the environment?

"While it may be a Canadian drinking water standards issue" SO it its not good for humans but ok for bees or anything else?

The game plan for the suppliers of these pesticides seems to be , to bring new poisons on to the market quicker , thereby nobody sees the effects the older pesticides have been having in the long term.They are quick untested solutions...just my opinion


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## Ian

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Irwin, these neonic canola seed treatments replaced Counter-5-G. The effects of Counter-5-G had already been seen, the reason why they pulled that chemical off the market and replaced it with these Neonics. Pretty much all canola used over the last 15 or 20 years has been treated with clothianidin or thiamethoxam. I have only heard complaints about Neonic seed treated canola this past year or so. 
So lets ban clothianidin and thiamethoxam canola seed treatments. Then I go on a broadcast spray campaign every spring, there will be no place to hide and the country side will be absolutely DEAD. With neonics I have animal life within my field rows.


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## Bmango

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Sorry guys, but we all live in an ecosystem. This is not a made up word, but a scientific term.


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## Ian

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



Bmango said:


> Sorry guys, but we all live in an ecosystem. This is not a made up word, but a scientific term.


the point that was being made was "eco" has turned into one of those buzz words,
yesterday I bought some eco green toilet paper... what the heck does that mean???


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## Haraga

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

I read the report and I am surprised the levels are that low.


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## lazy shooter

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

I was driving by a grass farm last week and saw a sign that stated, "eco turf for sale." i have no idea what eco turf is.

I'm a petroleum engineer, and I drilled several shallow wells and tested them for absolute flow capacity. It was done to procure a uranium mining permit. I signed and stamped my reports as a professional engineer, but the mining company listed me as an eco scientist in their brochures. Of course, their brochures were designed to promote investors, and I surmised that they thought eco scientist trumped professional engineer. 

It is for sure a buzz word.


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## Nabber86

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



Haraga said:


> I read the report and I am surprised the levels are that low.


Anytime I see data reported to the nanogram (0.000000001 of a gram), I have to laugh, out loud, hysterically.. :lpf:


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## shinbone

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



Nabber86 said:


> Anytime I see data reported to the nanogram (0.000000001 of a gram), I have to laugh, out loud, hysterically.. :lpf:


Why?


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## nschomer

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

I use measurments in the nanogram range literally every day. Never really saw the humor in it, personally.


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## lazy shooter

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Is nanogram a measure of weight or volume? It's really small at one-billionth of gram.


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## nschomer

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

It is a measure of weight (actually, mass, if you want to be hard-line about it). And yeah, it is quite a small amount of mass, usually measured as a concentration in solution (nanograms per microliter, for instance, ng/uL). I occasionally get down into the picogram range, when dealing with very small things like siRNAs and PCR primers, and some of the guys upstairs deal with attograms (1 millionth of a nanogram).


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## Haraga

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

I don't think a gram is a volume measurement.


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## lazy shooter

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

I assume one doesn't measure nanograms on a balance scale.


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## nschomer

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

No, if it's in solution the easiest way is using a device called a nanodrop, which measures, I believe, light diffraction. And I apologize, I forgot the lowly femtogram in between pico and atto, so the guys upstairs are dealing with masses 1 Billionth the size of a single nanogram. This is a write-up on how they manage that, if you're interested:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/weighing-particles-at-the-attogram-scale-0113.html


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## Nabber86

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



nschomer said:


> It is a measure of weight (actually, mass, if you want to be hard-line about it). And yeah, it is quite a small amount of mass, usually measured as a concentration in solution (nanograms per microliter, for instance, ng/uL). I occasionally get down into the picogram range, when dealing with very small things like siRNAs and PCR primers, and some of the guys upstairs deal with attograms (1 millionth of a nanogram).


I see from you profile that you are in the medical research field and as you said, measure very small things. Environmental testing laboratories are completely different and are not equipped to get to that level of accuracy ($$). Microgram (µg) levels are the best that you can hope for. I typically see results reported as < 5 µg/L E (E = estimated qualifier) or ND (not detected) with a 5 µg/L reporting limit. That is kind of bad when the regulatory limit is 2 µg/L, as is the MCL for vinyl chloride. I have seen nanogram levels reported for dioxin testing and the QC is all over the place. After a thorough QC check by one of our chemists, the data is unusable. Percent recoveries, split samples, duplicates, MS and MSDs are all out of spec. And these would be EPA CPL (Contract Laboratory Program) environmental laboratories. 

That is why I laugh when I see _environmental results_ reported that are _3 orders of magnitude_ below the microgram level.

Not to offend anybody posting on this thread, but I also have to laugh when I see comments from people that do not know what the difference between milligram, microgram, and nanogram is; that they are all units of mass; and that concentration is reported in mass/volume.


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## Nabber86

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



lazy shooter said:


> I assume one doesn't measure nanograms on a balance scale.



Heisenberg could do it. It's just chemistry, yo.


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## shinbone

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Just seems kind'a broad to assume someone can't work at the nanogram level when you don't really know whether they can work at the nanogram level.

JMHO


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## lazy shooter

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Well my remarks were made "tongue in cheek." I've had that two semesters of chemistry that all the petroleum engineers and other science majors had to take in college, ant that was about 50 years ago. Compared to the average dog, I'm a pretty good at math and physic, but chemistry is not my thing. We have mud engineers and service companies to handle our chemistry needs.


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## Nabber86

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



shinbone said:


> Just seems kind'a broad to assume someone can't work at the nanogram level when you don't really know whether they can work at the nanogram level.JMHO


It's not an assumption. It is based on 25 years of interpreting hundreds of thousands of pages of environmental lab results. What people _think_ should be and the reality of the situation are to very different things. This happens way to offen when it comes to environmental issues.


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## lazy shooter

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

A large portion of science is influenced by internal politics, but environmental science is much more dictated by politics. So many environmental scientist are hired to prove a political view rather than pure science.


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## shinbone

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

lazy shooter - so you also don't believe the nanogram numbers?


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## muusu

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/ontario-bee-farmer-hoping-for-pesticide-ban-to-end-die-off-1.1354729

Food for thought

Important quote

"Last year, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency took samples from dead bees in Ontario and Quebec and found clothianidin, a type of neonicotinoid, in 70 per cent of the Ontario samples."


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## lazy shooter

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



shinbone said:


> lazy shooter - so you also don't believe the nanogram numbers?


No, that is not what I stated. If you read my posts, I said many environmental studies are tainted with politics. Can you say, "global warming" of "climate control?" Also, from my previous posts it's apparent that I don't know enough about nanograms to make a meaningful comment. Remember that my career has been in the oil field, and we work in barrels. Sometimes we go to quarts, and that is a delicate measure for us. I probably know less about neonicontinoids.


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## WLC

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



Nabber86 said:


> ...That is why I laugh when I see _environmental results_ reported that are _3 orders of magnitude_ below the microgram level...


Nabber,

I would not only question the precision and accuracy of her (Morrissey's) results, I would also question her judgement.

There's going to be a lot of angry folks out there, on both sides of the aisle, who don't like it when someone yells 'fire!', and there isn't one.

I hope that it really is just a false alarm, for everyone's sake, but her results need independent corroboration at this point.

I wouldn't trust those numbers either.


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## shinbone

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

A few people in this thread are saying Christy Morrissey's data is wrong, but offer no real justification why. I have no opinion on the accuracy of the results, and I am trying to get an explanation why the results are criticized by some, but no one can explain their position with any real scientific critic. Due to the lack of real justification, it seems like these people don't like the results simply because the numbers don't comport with how they wish the world to be.

jus say'n


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## Ian

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



WLC said:


> There's going to be a lot of angry folks out there, on both sides of the aisle, who don't like it when someone yells 'fire!', and there isn't one.
> 
> I hope that it really is just a false alarm, for everyone's sake, but her results need independent corroboration at this point.


Exactly exactly exactly , couldnt agree with you more WLC


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## Nabber86

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



shinbone said:


> A few people in this thread are saying Christy Morrissey's data is wrong, but offer no real justification why. I have no opinion on the accuracy of the results, and I am trying to get an explanation why the results are criticized by some, but no one can explain their position with any real scientific critic. Due to the lack of real justification, it seems like these people don't like the results simply because the numbers don't comport with how they wish the world to be.
> 
> jus say'n


Unless the raw lab data is provided in its entirety with all the QC assessments it is worthless to anyone, especially to people who know how to evaluate the results. If you don't know this, you have no business offering an uninformed opinion of data that is summarized in a table. Period. I have justification because I do this for a living. You are the one that can not explain your position without scientific critic. 

You simply do not have the knowledge and experience to comment on the subject.

just sayin.


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## shinbone

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Attack me all you want, you still offer no reason beyond vague generalities on why the data is bad.


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## jonathan

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



muusu said:


> http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/ontario-bee-farmer-hoping-for-pesticide-ban-to-end-die-off-1.1354729
> 
> Food for thought
> 
> Important quote
> 
> "Last year, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency took samples from dead bees in Ontario and Quebec and found clothianidin, a type of neonicotinoid, in 70 per cent of the Ontario samples."


This is describing the incident where hundreds of colonies were killed by planter dust during corn planting. Noone disputes that planter dust is highly toxic. The main issue is whether these products cause problems for bees and other pollinators at field realistic levers under normal usage. The pesticide companies have a group set up to look at this planter dust issue with regard to the seed binding agents, lubricants and mechanical modifications of the planter. This has nothing to do with measuring incredibly small amounts of clothianidin in the environment as it is more like old fashioned spray kill.


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## WLC

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

shinbone:

The critique of the accuracy and precision of the measurements has to do with the inherent noise in the sensor technology.

Any reading below 10 ug/L (10ppb) is suspect. The measurements reported are in the 10ng/L (0.01ppb) range, that's a thousandth of 10ug/L.

Government agencies are almost certainly going to ask for the raw data since they're going to have to spend a lot of resources chasing down possible freshwater contamination.


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## shinbone

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

WLC - thank you for being the first person to provide a reasoned response to my question.

I understand you to say that measuring at the nanogram is so hard, there is no way the author has done it in this paper.

And now I think I understand you comment about "background noise" better. You meant background noise in the instrument, not background noise of neonicotinoids in the environment, correct?

Am I correct in understanding your position is that such a measurement is simply too hard for anyone to make?


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## WLC

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

shinbone:

First, they're claiming detection limits for the different neonicotinoids in the study in the 1ng/L range.

Secondly, after examining their materials and methods, ...

"A four-level calibration curve (5 to 50 mg) was analyzed before
and after each batch of 10 samples which also contained a
laboratory or field blank and a fortified sample. Limits of
quantification (LOQ) in water were as follows: thiamethoxam,
1.8 ng/L; clothianidin, 1.2 ng/L; imidacloprid 1.1 ng/L; and
acetamiprid, 0.5 ng/L."

The range of concentrations for their callibrations are a thousand to a million fold+ too high for the levels of neonics they're claiming to have detected.

There's a very strong possibility that they've contaminated their own samples as well.

Someone is going to have to face the music for that.


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## nschomer

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Fair enough, I took your original comment to be mocking the ability of things on the nanogram scale to affect macroorganisms, I guess I just see too many ill-informed swipes at science in general out there, sorry if I misinterpreted your comment.

On a side note, I'm a little more forgiving of people just learning (or re-learning) basic science, it is never too late to aquire or re-aquire knowledge. The metric system is a particular blind spot in our educational system, and most people don't make too much use of it in their day to day lives (at least, here in the U.S.). If I don't learn at least a dozen new things in a given day, I consider it a waste.


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## shinbone

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

WLC - Again, good points. Thanks.

Is the PLOSOne journal peer reviewed? If yes, how could the reviewers let pass such an obvious and fundamental error?


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## Ian

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

There has been very little time for review, so I doubt it.


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## Dave Burrup

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Ian is it flea beetle that you are trying to control with the neonic seed treatments, or are there other major pests for Canola?
Dave


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## Ian

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



Dave Burrup said:


> Ian is it flea beetle that you are trying to control with the neonic seed treatments, or are there other major pests for Canola?
> Dave


the target is two weeks during emergence to control flea beetle damage. Its when the plant is in its tiny cotyledon stage when its extremely vulnerable. Soon as the plant hits it first true leaf it can grow out of insect damage. I have seen, in years when the treatment period wears off because of delayed weather (and yes, the treatment is only effective for two weeks during early growth), when the plant sits in its cotyledon stage for nearly three weeks, flea beetles shear fields of in that third week. During these years we have to follow with a broad cast spray,... and I have my brother turn the boom off next to my yards to manage drift...we can see exactly where he turned the sprayer off and back on again.

Id say we lean pretty heavy on these canola seed treatment. And that is the reason why I'm always on the side of Neonics during these discussions. We have been using them for 15 or 20 years already and its not til just last year anyone has ever mentioned canola...

ask some old farmers about Counter5G...see what they say... that treatment has been known to actually kill cattle which get out into those treated fields... I can just imagine the bees... This is the treatments that had been replaced by this Neonic


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## Richard Cryberg

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



WLC said:


> shinbone:
> 
> First, they're claiming detection limits for the different neonicotinoids in the study in the 1ng/L range.
> 
> Secondly, after examining their materials and methods, ...
> 
> "A four-level calibration curve (5 to 50 mg) was analyzed before
> and after each batch of 10 samples which also contained a
> laboratory or field blank and a fortified sample. Limits of
> quantification (LOQ) in water were as follows: thiamethoxam,
> 1.8 ng/L; clothianidin, 1.2 ng/L; imidacloprid 1.1 ng/L; and
> acetamiprid, 0.5 ng/L."
> 
> The range of concentrations for their callibrations are a thousand to a million fold+ too high for the levels of neonics they're claiming to have detected.
> 
> There's a very strong possibility that they've contaminated their own samples as well.
> 
> Someone is going to have to face the music for that.


It is obvious that Victor knows nothing about analytical chemistry. I will say one thing in his favor. He is consistent in knowing nothing about many topics he tries to claim to understand. I guess Barry likes lies or he would have long since taken action to stop this behavior. There is nothing wrong with the analyses reported in this paper unless you wish to claim the paper is simply fabricated data. Doing analyses at these detection limits is routine and accurate in skilled hands. Twenty years ago when I ran a lab we did such detection limits all the time. Even detection limits far lower. I will admit it got hard when you wanted a detection limit three orders of magnitude below what is required in this rather routine paper. Can any old back alley environmental lab do such work? No they can not. They do cook book, routine, boring crap with generally unskilled workers as in the business they are in any old crap for an answer is acceptable. I know of such labs that reported results claiming they had been performed on instruments that lab did not even have available and had never owned. If you want cheap, crap results that is what you get.

There is also nothing in this paper to show it was done in compliance with good laboratory practices (GLP). I suspect it does not comply with GLP and if this is correct the agencies will not consider the data anyhow as they consider it meaningless. In order to get agency consideration you must sign a statement that the work complies with GLP. No weasel words allowed in that compliance statement. Nothing like complies to the best of my knowledge. Falsification of a GLP compliance statement in any way is a potential jail sentence. At minimum the penalty for a false statement of consequence is to be barred for life from working in the area. Generally people who run into such a bar leave the US as no reputable US company will hire them for any professional job.


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## Haraga

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

I am assuming the numbers are true. Why wouldn't the researcher find these chemicals? In the end what does it mean for the beekeeper? Are the levels too high? Are they very low? What is acceptable?


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## Nabber86

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



WLC said:


> Nabber,
> 
> I would not only question the precision and accuracy of her (Morrissey's) results, I would also question her judgement.
> 
> There's going to be a lot of angry folks out there, on both sides of the aisle, who don't like it when someone yells 'fire!', and there isn't one.
> 
> I hope that it really is just a false alarm, for everyone's sake, but her results need independent corroboration at this point.
> 
> I wouldn't trust those numbers either.


Let me back up a little bit here. 

I do not deny that nanograms (or even picogram and femtogram) units of mass can be accurately measured in other fields (such as cancer research) using extremely expensive equipment. All I am saying is that I distrust nanogram numbers from a long history of personal experience in the _environmental testing field_. There is a mass unit called a yoctogram that is 10−24 g (0.000000000000000000000001 of a gram). Just because a unit is defined, it does not mean that it can actually be measured. 

If I had access to the full lab reports with the QC data intact, I may be convinced that the data from the study is good. Until that happens, I have to trust what I know.


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## WLC

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Richard:

First you insult me, then you agree with me. 

My background includes quite a bit of analytical chemistry for proteins, nucleic acids, and chromophores.

nschome describes the Nanodrop 1000, which I've used. Nowadays, we use the Qiubit fluorometer since it is cost effective and perhaps even more accurate.

I don't believe that they calibrated their equipment correctly since I understand the limits of the sensors themselves.

They're simply too noisy at low concentrations to calibrate them with any degree of precision and accuracy.

Richard, just read their M&Ms and you'll see what I'm mean.


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## Nabber86

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



Haraga said:


> I am assuming the numbers are true. Why wouldn't the researcher find these chemicals? In the end what does it mean for the beekeeper? Are the levels too high? Are they very low? What is acceptable?


OK, let’s forget about units and assume that the data has passed all QC checks and the numbers are true. Allow me to demonstrate how really small numbers are tricky to work with:

Table 2 shows a mean value of 1.5 ng/l imidacloprid for surface water samples collected early barley fields. The LD50 for imidacloprid on honeybees is 0.024 µg per bee. At 1.5 ng/l, a single bee could drink 16 liters (4.2 gallons) of contaminated water and still have a 50% chance of survival. I don’t know of any bee that drinks that much water, so it is hardly anything to get excited about. 

Everybody seems to think that science is absolute and only gives the truth. The problem that most people do not understand that there is no single number or answer. Look at the above example involving just two parameters (concentration of imidacloprid, and LD50). Neither of these numbers are really correct. The concentration of imidacloprid is more like 1.5 ng/l plus or minus say 5%, so the range is really 1.425 to 1.575 ng/l (the careful observer would note the last digit in each number that brackets the range has slipped into the pictogram range meaning more trouble in accuracy). LD50 is really hard to measure; depending on the source, the values can vary by more than 25% (and that would be very conservative). So let’s say the LD50 ranges from 0.018 to 0.03 µg per bee. I will leave out the possible 100's of other variables that although small, add up to more inaccuracies. 

Sooooo, the amount of contaminated water that _some_ number of bees (theoretically 50%) would have to drink to die lies somewhere from less than 3 gallons to more than 5 gallons per bee. That’s about as accurate as it gets folks. Does anyone care to make multibillion dollar policy decisions based on this kind of data?

So Haraga the question goes back to you. In the end what does it mean for the beekeeper? 

The answer: absolutely nothing.


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## WLC

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Agreed. It's a water quality issue, and it's the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency's problem now.


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## Ian

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



Ian said:


> There has been very little time for review, so I doubt it.


according to our provincial apiarist, her paper has now been published on Plos One, which is regarded as peer reviewed


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## BernhardHeuvel

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

And because neonics do not cause any trouble in surface water, the Netherlands banned neonics forever just recently. Some of the surface water was so drenched in neonics you could use it as an insectide right away. Dr. Tennekes from the Netherlands found the high concentrations in surface and ground water.


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## camero7

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

And what have they replaced them with? I wonder how those European beekeepers are liking the organophosphates?


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## BernhardHeuvel

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Good ol' DDT I guess. Since neonics are 10,000 times more toxic as DDT one can ask what is better for bees.

Personally I prefer sprayed pesticides over systemic pesticides, because I can move my bees away from any spraying. Also they damage is more visible which is easier to handle as chronic damage. 

A new fashion is pesticide free agriculture. As can be found in beekeeping. You just keep your corn and canola in small cells and it works right away. More seriously, there are good developments in organic agriculture. A problem for us here is the race between traditional agriculture, that produces food and new agriculture that produces engery (biogas...). As the stuff is not used to be eaten, one can use stronger pesticides on it. On the other hand, there are new developments using wild herbs and plants for biofuel production, which do not need pesticides applications and which also provide plenty of flowers for our bees. 

Well, the hope dies last, as we say.


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## Ian

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



BernhardHeuvel said:


> Well, the hope dies last, as we say.


I like that saying


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## camero7

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*



> Personally I prefer sprayed pesticides over systemic pesticides, because I can move my bees away from any spraying. Also they damage is more visible which is easier to handle as chronic damage.


When you've lost 50 -100 hives at a time because someone sprayed the wrong field you might feel differently. I have yet to see any damage from neonics.


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## BernhardHeuvel

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

Sure I hate to see posionings of all sorts. I really do, it is a sad sight. But visible damage leads to sueing the farmer and the insurance compensates the financial loss. With systemics hives die months later and who can be blamed then? Nobody. The cause is hidden by the delayed impact. Also it is very unreliable, sometimes it does have effects, sometimes doesn't. You never know. This uncertainty produces sleepless nights.


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## camero7

*Re: "...Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Wetlands of Canada." Paper in PLOSOne.*

What insurance? Which farmer do you sue? Which crop duster? this is the US, those things don't happen here. We just have to suck it up and move on. No wonder you like sprays.


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