Bayer, the global chemical company, is manufacturing a chemical that new evidence shows is killing off bees. The global die-off of bees represents an enormous danger to the planet. 30% of our crops -- and 90% of wild plants -- rely on bees to thrive. Without bees, our entire global food supply is in serious trouble.

Bayer has gone so far as to fund biased studies that it claims "prove" its chemical isn't a problem, but scientists at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have just this month discovered that Bayer's chemical, part of a class of toxins known as neonicotinoids, is a high risk to bees.

Bayer is a public-facing company that sells everything from aspirin to vitamins to flea and tick medicine for our pets, and it cares what we think. If Bayer senses that its global customer base is up in arms about this EFSA report directly tying Bayer to the global die-off of bees that threatens our food supply, then it will have to pull its chemical from the market.

We may be able to save the bees, if we can remove a toxic pesticide from the market before it wipes out bee populations beyond recovery.

Tell Bayer it needs to pull its bee-poisoning pesticide off the market now.

Neonicotinoids are just one class of pesticide -- a type that is soaked into seeds, permeating the plant and killing insects which stop by for a snack. These pesticides can easily be replaced by other types which don't soak down into the center of our crops. However, neonicotinoids are highly profitable for companies like Bayer, with billions of dollars of sales a year, so companies are doing everything they can to protect their chemical profit.

These chemicals aren't just hurting bees. Studies conducted on rats suggest that neonicotinoids may adversely impact human health, especially the developing brain. Like the study on the impact on insects, however, our knowledge of how this pesticide interacts with our bodies is heavily influenced by industry spending, often obfuscating the truth. For companies like Bayer, their primary concern is returning profits to their shareholders, with the impact of their chemicals on our planet -- and on us -- being a distant second.

Members of the European Parliament are calling for an outright ban on these toxic chemicals. But we don't know when or if they'll pass the ban, and Bayer's global reach threatens bees across the planet. That's why we need to use our power as citizen-consumers to push Bayer to pull the poison now.

Bayer: Take your bee-poisoning pesticide off the market, before it's too late.

Thank you,

Claiborne and the rest of us

P.S. Want to do more? Share this campaign on Facebook or forward this email to your friends and family.

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Further reading:

Public Service Europe: Crop pesticides are 'killing our bees' says MEP, 25 January, 2012

Natural News: Deception causes honey bees to disappear and threatens crops, 07 January, 2011

EFSA Journal: RSS Conclusion on the peer review of the pesticide risk assessment for bees for the active substance clothianidin 16 January, 2013

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