EU Banned Fipronil Insecticide on Some Seeds to Protect Bees.

Fipronil is one of the main chemical causes blamed for the spread of colony collapse disorder among bees. It has been found that even at very low nonlethal doses for bees, the pesticide still impairs their ability to locate their hive, resulting in large numbers of forager bees lost with every pollen-finding expedition. The European Food Safety Authority identified fipronil as a "a high acute risk to honey bees when used as a seed treatment for maize.

A Commission proposal to restrict the use of Fipronil, an insecticide which has recently been identified as posing an acute risk to Europe’s honey bee population. This proposal follows a scientific risk assessment carried out by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that was published on 27 May 2013 which identified that seeds treated with pesticides containing Fipronil pose an acute risk to Europe’s honey bee population.

The measures:

• Restrict the crops where Fipronil can be used as a seed treatment;
• Authorisations may be granted for the treatment of seeds that will only be sown in greenhouses. However, this exception does not apply to leeks, shallots, onions and brassica vegetables (such as Brussel sprouts, cauliflower or broccoli), where treated seeds can also be sown in the field, as the harvest of these crops takes place before flowering;
• The treatment of maize and sunflower seeds will no longer be authorised;

This latest EU-wide restriction comes in the wake of a recent Commission decision to restrict the use of three pesticides belong to the neonicotinoid family which will come into force on 1 December 2013 Today’s measure forms part of the Commission’s overall strategy to tackle the decline of Europe’s bee population.

Pesticides have been identified as one of several factors which may be responsible for the decline in number of bees. Other factors also include parasites, other pathogens, lack of veterinary medicines or sometimes their misuse, and environmental factors such as lack of habitat and feed and climate change

There are some danger to humans from Fipronil

After ingestion of fipronil by humans symptoms include sweating, nausea, vomiting, headache, abdominal pain, dizziness, agitation, weakness, and  seizures. Clinical signs of exposure to fipronil are generally reversible and resolve spontaneously.

In one case report, a 50-year-old man complained of headache, nausea, vertigo, and weakness after spraying his field with a fipronil product for five hours. Symptoms were reported to have developed after two hours and resolved spontaneously.

It is suggested inhalation or skin contact as the routes of exposure, although there were no signs of conjunctivitis or skin irritation.