According to a new report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), BASF’s seed treatment pesticide Fipronil poses a “high acute risk to honeybees when used as a seed treatment for maize.” This report comes after the temporary banning of the neonicotinoids clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam in the EU.
EFSA’s findings identify three potential areas of risk. The first potential risk, dust drift, is said to include sunflower applications. Full risk assessments for dust drift could not be completed so the level of dangerous exposure to honeybees could not be established.
第二个关注领域，花蜜和花粉，已确定对蜜蜂构成低风险，但田间和半田间试验被认为薄弱，因此不足以确定实际风险。 EFSA 关注的最后一个领域在于其他潜在接触途径（如滴液）的可用数据中的几个确定的差距。
According to a statement released by BASF, these findings do not uncover any new risk to bee health from approved uses of the insecticide. Jürgen Oldeweme, senior vice president global product safety and regulatory affairs for BASF’s Crop Protection division, said, “Bees play an important role in agriculture, as they are major pollinators for plants and crops. Our business is very dependent on bees; therefore, it is in our best interest to understand the real causes of the decline in bee health and act upon them. Nonetheless,” he continued, “The problem of declining bee health must be addressed via a holistic approach and not by singling out certain technologies that have a solid record of safe use, such as fipronil.”
氟虫腈自 1993 年上市以来，在 70 多个国家/地区的 100 种不同作物上使用。巴斯夫表示，他们愿意与 EFSA 和欧盟委员会讨论潜在的数据收集工作，以直接解决蜜蜂健康问题。