Bees and Beekeepers Feel the Sting of Trump Administration’s Anti-Science Efforts

By Jessica A. Knoblauch
It's been a particularly terrible summer for bees. Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is allowing the bee-killing pesticide sulfoxaflor back on the market. And just a few weeks prior, the USDA announced it is suspending data collection for its annual honeybee survey, which tracks honeybee populations across the U.S., providing critical information to farmers and scientists.
The Trump administration pushed for these two anti-bee actions, even though our nation's honeybee populations have been nosediving for years. Last winter, beekeepers reported a record 40 percent loss of their colonies.
Longtime beekeeper Jeff Anderson, owner of California-Minnesota Honey Farms, says the picture is even grimmer if you look at bee losses across the entire year, particularly in the spring and summer when farmers are spraying pesticides. It's not just bees that are suffering, he says. Beekeepers are also feeling the sting of the Trump administration's anti-bee and anti-science efforts. And consumers of healthy, fresh foods are next.
A honey bee alights on a cherry blossom in Stockton, California.
CHRIS JORDAN-BLOCH / EARTHJUSTICE
Were you surprised to learn that the USDA pulled its honeybee colonies report?
No. The USDA quit doing the honeybees survey because they absolutely don't want to document what's happening, because then they'd have to do something about it.
How do you feel about the EPA reregistering sulfoxaflor?
One thing that stood out to me in the EPA's notice is that it said it's "providing long-term certainty for U.S. growers to use an important tool to protect crops and avoid potentially significant economic losses, while maintaining strong protection for pollinators. The wording, "long-term certainty … to use," seems totally wrong for a regulatory agency to make a promise like that. It predisposes a defensive position for all decisions going forward.
Basically, the EPA's buddies at Dow AgroSciences want to make billions on this pesticide, and the EPA is going to let them. But please don't lie to us and say that sulfoxaflor is somehow pollinator safe. I'm not buying.
Why do bees get such short shrift by regulators and legislators?
Beekeeping has always been the ugly stepchild in agriculture. Agriculture needs us, but not everybody in agriculture needs us. Corn growers and wheat growers don't need my bees. Cherry, almond and blueberry growers need my bees. Any of the healthy foods that are in our diet need insect pollination, and if you want to eat chicken, beef, whatever, most of that doesn't need my bees. But when it comes to our healthy, nutritious foods like nuts and fruits, almost all of those need insect pollination.
Farmers know that pesticides are a problem. In Minnesota, the standard question I get from farmers when I walk into a room or get gas at a gas station is, "How are the bees doing?" I tell them, "Well, not so good." And it's getting to be that most farmers these days will say, "It's all these chemicals, isn't it?" I tell them, "It should give you some pause to think about that because you and I are next. We just haven't started coughing as much yet."
Our environment is sick and our bees are a good indicator when that's the truth. When my beehive gets sick, there's something not right within the flight range of those bees. But the chemical industry is the one who speaks for everybody on the Hill, so it doesn't matter what farmers think. That's the reality.
Beekeeper Jeff Anderson says the Trump administration's anti-bee and anti-science efforts are hurting his business.
CHRIS JORDAN-BLOCH / EARTHJUSTICE
How are your honeybees faring this year?
I've had about 90 percent honeybee loss between last spring and this spring. I typically run about 3,000 colonies in our spring count and we instead we had 300.
If you want to look at my winter losses, they were probably about like what the Bee Informed Partnership survey is claiming, around 40 percent. And that is almost exclusively painted up in the press like that's the annual number that the industry is losing, which is absolute hogwash because it isn't the full story. The spring losses are greater than the winter losses because generally most things die when they're most exposed to pesticides. Is that rocket science? No. It's just that nobody talks about it.
Has the bee die-off impacted your ability to do business?
I used to have all of my adult children working for me. My oldest, Jeremy, has worked with bees ever since he got out of diapers. He's been my foreman for 20 years. Now, with honey production way down, he's barely getting paid enough to put food on the table. Things are getting tight because our honey crops are way off. The most barrels of honey I ever produced was about 450. Last year, I had about 68 barrels. Sick bees don't make honey.
That's the other part of the bee story. I run a family operation and I can't keep my kids employed anymore. When you can't keep hives alive, you can't keep income coming in. We all talk the demise of bees, but the demise of the beekeepers gets overlooked a lot of times. Beekeepers all have a form of PTSD. We just don't get it in the military.
Is climate change impacting your bees?
Yes, but not like you're thinking, where it's too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter.
Neonicotinoid pesticides like sulfoxaflor cause problems with thermoregulation in affected insects. One of the problems we have with overwintering our bees is that the cold will now kill a beehive. That didn't used to be normal. Before, most of the bees in the Midwest stayed all winter. The beekeeper would wrap them with insulation and give them a top entrance, so they could ventilate the moisture out of the colony. And the bees would be just fine, coming out in the spring big enough to split into separate hives. If you try to do that with a bee colony now, it's dead by November.
It's not the extreme temperatures. It doesn't even have to get that cold. They have bee mortality in Florida at 40 degrees. The hive simply can't thermoregulate.
Anderson minds his colonies in a California cherry orchard.
CHRIS JORDAN-BLOCH / EARTHJUSTICE
Do you plan on continuing as a beekeeper?
My plan today should have been to go up to Fargo, North Dakota, for the bee convention with a for sale sign for anyone who wants my operation. That's what I should have been doing.
My parents' generation, they would have stuck with it because they knew you might have a bad year, but it was an anomaly, and the next year was going to be better. That's what farmers always think. For the most part, that's true. In the grand scheme of things, you've usually got one year in 20 that's down, so it really wasn't a stupid decision to dip into your savings to push things forward.
But in year after year after year we keep setting records for low honey production in the U.S. This year, we were down to 300-some hives. You don't just take 300-some hives and magically sneeze and all of a sudden you've got 3,000. You work your tail off, you buy bees from other beekeepers, you get extra queens, etc. It costs a lot of money, and I decided I'm not gonna throw good money after bad in this operation. If Honey Farms can't pay its way, then it's going to cease to exist. I see no reason to put the 50 cents I have set aside for retirement into trying to manage a bee operation when I'm 62.
What can people do to support bees?
Consumers are starting to understand that what they put in their mouth has a great deal to do with how often they see their doctor. There's a direct connection between your health and what you eat. It's not rocket science. Vote with your checkbook. The chemical industry is in charge on the Hill, unless we can un-buy Congress.
Editor's note: In 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that sulfoxaflor could not be used in the United States, following an Earthjustice lawsuit. The court found the EPA violated the law by approving sulfoxaflor without reliable studies regarding the impact that the insecticide would have on honeybee colonies.
"At a time when honeybees and other pollinators are dying in greater numbers than ever before, Trump's EPA decision to remove restrictions on yet another bee-killing pesticide is nothing short of reckless," said Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie, who litigated the sulfoxaflor case. "Scientists have long said pesticides like sulfoxaflor are the cause of the unprecedented colony collapse. Letting sulfoxaflor back on the market is dangerous for our food system, economy, and environment."
.@EPA just okayed "emergency" use of bee-killing pesticides on nearly 14 million acres of land known to attract bees.
— Friends of the Earth (@foe_us) July 9, 2019
40% of insect species are on the brink of extinction. This is inexcusable. #SaveTheBeeshttps://t.co/ga60bZMvEI
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A Healthy Microbiome Builds a Strong Immune System That Could Help Defeat COVID-19
By Ana Maldonado-Contreras
Takeaways
- Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria that are vital for keeping you healthy.
- Some of these microbes help to regulate the immune system.
- New research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, shows the presence of certain bacteria in the gut may reveal which people are more vulnerable to a more severe case of COVID-19.
You may not know it, but you have an army of microbes living inside of you that are essential for fighting off threats, including the virus that causes COVID-19.
How Do Resident Bacteria Keep You Healthy?
<p>Our immune defense is part of a complex biological response against harmful pathogens, such as viruses or bacteria. However, because our bodies are inhabited by trillions of mostly beneficial bacteria, virus and fungi, activation of our immune response is tightly regulated to distinguish between harmful and helpful microbes.</p><p>Our bacteria are spectacular companions diligently helping prime our immune system defenses to combat infections. A seminal study found that mice treated with antibiotics that eliminate bacteria in the gut exhibited an impaired immune response. These animals had low counts of virus-fighting white blood cells, weak antibody responses and poor production of a protein that is vital for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1019378108" target="_blank">combating viral infection and modulating the immune response</a>.</p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184976" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">In another study</a>, mice were fed <em>Lactobacillus</em> bacteria, commonly used as probiotic in fermented food. These microbes reduced the severity of influenza infection. The <em>Lactobacillus</em>-treated mice did not lose weight and had only mild lung damage compared with untreated mice. Similarly, others have found that treatment of mice with <em>Lactobacillus</em> protects against different <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep04638" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">subtypes of</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17487-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">influenza</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008072" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">virus</a> and human respiratory syncytial virus – the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39602-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">major cause of viral bronchiolitis and pneumonia in children</a>.</p>Chronic Disease and Microbes
<p>Patients with chronic illnesses including Type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease exhibit a hyperactive immune system that fails to recognize a harmless stimulus and is linked to an altered gut microbiome.</p><p>In these chronic diseases, the gut microbiome lacks bacteria that activate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1198469" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">immune cells</a> that block the response against harmless bacteria in our guts. Such alteration of the gut microbiome is also observed in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1002601107" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">babies delivered by cesarean section</a>, individuals consuming a poor <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12820" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">diet</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11053" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">elderly</a>.</p><p>In the U.S., 117 million individuals – about half the adult population – <a href="https://health.gov/our-work/food-nutrition/2015-2020-dietary-guidelines/guidelines/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">suffer from Type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease or a combination of them</a>. That suggests that half of American adults carry a faulty microbiome army.</p><p>Research in my laboratory focuses on identifying gut bacteria that are critical for creating a balanced immune system, which fights life-threatening bacterial and viral infections, while tolerating the beneficial bacteria in and on us.</p><p>Given that diet affects the diversity of bacteria in the gut, <a href="https://www.umassmed.edu/nutrition/melody-trial-info/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">my lab studies show how diet can be used</a> as a therapy for chronic diseases. Using different foods, people can shift their gut microbiome to one that boosts a healthy immune response.</p><p>A fraction of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, develop severe complications that require hospitalization in intensive care units. What do many of those patients have in common? <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Old age</a> and chronic diet-related diseases like obesity, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.</p><p><a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jada.2008.12.019" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Black and Latinx people are disproportionately affected by obesity, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease</a>, all of which are linked to poor nutrition. Thus, it is not a coincidence that <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6933e1.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">these groups have suffered more deaths from COVID-19</a> compared with whites. This is the case not only in the U.S. but also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/blacks-in-britain-are-four-times-as-likely-to-die-of-coronavirus-as-whites-data-show/2020/05/07/2dc76710-9067-11ea-9322-a29e75effc93_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in Britain</a>.</p>Discovering Microbes That Predict COVID-19 Severity
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has inspired me to shift my research and explore the role of the gut microbiome in the overly aggressive immune response against SARS-CoV-2 infection.</p><p>My colleagues and I have hypothesized that critically ill SARS-CoV-2 patients with conditions like obesity, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease exhibit an altered gut microbiome that aggravates <a href="https://theconversation.com/exercise-may-help-reduce-risk-of-deadly-covid-19-complication-ards-136922" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">acute respiratory distress syndrome</a>.</p><p>Acute respiratory distress syndrome, a life-threatening lung injury, in SARS-CoV-2 patients is thought to develop from a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cytogfr.2020.05.003" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fatal overreaction of the immune response</a> called a <a href="https://theconversation.com/blocking-the-deadly-cytokine-storm-is-a-vital-weapon-for-treating-covid-19-137690" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cytokine storm</a> <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30216-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">that causes an uncontrolled flood</a> <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30216-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">of immune cells into the lungs</a>. In these patients, their own uncontrolled inflammatory immune response, rather than the virus itself, causes the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-020-05991-x" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">severe lung injury and multiorgan failures</a> that lead to death.</p><p>Several studies <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trsl.2020.08.004" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">described in one recent review</a> have identified an altered gut microbiome in patients with COVID-19. However, identification of specific bacteria within the microbiome that could predict COVID-19 severity is lacking.</p><p>To address this question, my colleagues and I recruited COVID-19 hospitalized patients with severe and moderate symptoms. We collected stool and saliva samples to determine whether bacteria within the gut and oral microbiome could predict COVID-19 severity. The identification of microbiome markers that can predict the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 disease is key to help prioritize patients needing urgent treatment.</p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.05.20249061" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">We demonstrated</a>, in a paper which has not yet been peer reviewed, that the composition of the gut microbiome is the strongest predictor of COVID-19 severity compared to patient's clinical characteristics commonly used to do so. Specifically, we identified that the presence of a bacterium in the stool – called <em>Enterococcus faecalis</em>– was a robust predictor of COVID-19 severity. Not surprisingly, <em>Enterococcus faecalis</em> has been associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2011.05.035" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">chronic</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9440(10)61172-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">inflammation</a>.</p><p><em>Enterococcus faecalis</em> collected from feces can be grown outside of the body in clinical laboratories. Thus, an <em>E. faecalis</em> test might be a cost-effective, rapid and relatively easy way to identify patients who are likely to require more supportive care and therapeutic interventions to improve their chances of survival.</p><p>But it is not yet clear from our research what is the contribution of the altered microbiome in the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. A recent study has shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.11.416180" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SARS-CoV-2 infection triggers an imbalance in immune cells</a> called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/imr.12170" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">T regulatory cells that are critical to immune balance</a>.</p><p>Bacteria from the gut microbiome are responsible for the <a href="https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.30916.001" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">proper activation</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1198469" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">of those T-regulatory</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nri.2016.36" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cells</a>. Thus, researchers like me need to take repeated patient stool, saliva and blood samples over a longer time frame to learn how the altered microbiome observed in COVID-19 patients can modulate COVID-19 disease severity, perhaps by altering the development of the T-regulatory cells.</p><p>As a Latina scientist investigating interactions between diet, microbiome and immunity, I must stress the importance of better policies to improve access to healthy foods, which lead to a healthier microbiome. It is also important to design culturally sensitive dietary interventions for Black and Latinx communities. While a good-quality diet might not prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection, it can treat the underlying conditions related to its severity.</p><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ana-maldonado-contreras-1152969" target="_blank">Ana Maldonado-Contreras</a> is an assistant professor of Microbiology and Physiological Systems at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.</em></p><p><em>Disclosure statement: Ana Maldonado-Contreras receives funding from The Helmsley Charitable Trust and her work has been supported by the American Gastroenterological Association. She received The Charles A. King Trust Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. She is also member of the Diversity Committee of the American Gastroenterological Association.</em></p><p><em style="">Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-healthy-microbiome-builds-a-strong-immune-system-that-could-help-defeat-covid-19-145668" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>By Jeff Masters, Ph.D.
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