Abuzz over a bee virus: [1 All-round Country Edition]
Leigh Dayton, John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 19 Sep 2007: 26.
Show highlighting
Abstract
FEDERAL Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran has dismissed calls from a US senator for an immediate ban on the export ofAustralian bees after research suggested they could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of bees in North America.Australian honey bees were singled out by US scientists as the possible carriers of a virus linked to the disappearance of large numbers of bees, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.
CSIRO bee pathologist Denis Anderson dismissed the claims reported earlier this month in the journal Science as unsubstantiated and based on poor methodology. “There’s something fishy going on here,” he said about the unwillingness of the co- authors and thejournal editors to respond to scientific criticism. “Someone’s not telling the truth.”
Full Text
FEDERAL Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran has dismissed calls from a US senator for an immediate ban on the export ofAustralian bees after research suggested they could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of bees in North America.Australian honey bees were singled out by US scientists as the possible carriers of a virus linked to the disappearance of large numbers of bees, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.
CSIRO bee pathologist Denis Anderson dismissed the claims reported earlier this month in the journal Science as unsubstantiated and based on poor methodology. “There’s something fishy going on here,” he said about the unwillingness of the co- authors and thejournal editors to respond to scientific criticism. “Someone’s not telling the truth.”
The scientific squabble escalated into a potential trade row late last week after Pennsylvania senator Robert Casey called for a halt to imports of Australian honey bees into the US.
But Mr McGauran said the disorder was not found in Australian bees and more research was required before conclusions could be reached about its origins.
“Any trade restrictions imposed by the US on the basis of its recent research would be inconsistent with America’s international trade obligations because there is insufficient scientific evidence to justify such action,” he said.
The disorder is blamed for devastating losses of upto 23 per cent of all beekeeping operations during 2006-07.
Experts meeting in Melbourne last week said a ban would cripple Australia’s burgeoning bee export business, already worth nearly $5 million a year in US sales.
In the Science report the multidisciplinary US team claimed they had genetic evidence linking CCD to a recently discovered bee virus called Israeli acute paralysis virus. They suggested IAPV arrived in the US on Australian bees, imported to bolster already flagging colonies.
They argued Australian bees did not show the disease because, unlike the US, the country is free of the varroa destructor mite that reduces bee fitness and may be a factor in colony collapse.
Senator Casey wrote to the USDA just as the agency’s own Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service ruled there were no grounds to halt imports of Australian queen bees and worker bees.
The USDA will fund a five-year $US4.5 million project to follow up the contested findings. Scientists would retest colonies affected and unaffected by CCD in the US and Australia.
Word count: 396
Copyright News Limited Sep 19, 2007