A senior scientist at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service filed a whistleblower complaint that accuses the department of “suppressing research findings that could call into question the use of a popular pesticide class that is a revenue powerhouse for the agrichemical industry,” said Harvest Public Media. The researcher, Jonathan Lundgren, says he was subjected to retaliation and harassment after interviews that he gave in March 2014 about his research on neonicotinoids. The pesticides are sprayed onto plants or applied as a coating on seeds to protect them from subsoil parasites. Neonic use has increased with widespread use of them as seed treatment.
“Neonicotinoids are a particularly sensitive topic because some scientists have linked them to dramatic declines in honey bee colonies, which help pollinate roughly a quarter of the food consumed annually in the United States,” said the story by Carey Gillam. “Two research reports by Lundgren concluded that farmers received no yield benefit at all in using the costly neonic seed treatments.”
The complaint, filed with the Merit Systems Protection Board, alleges that USDA managers blocked publication of Lundgren’s research, barred him from talking to reporters and disrupted operations of the South Dakota laboratory where he worked. In March, the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a petition with USDA that called for stronger protection of scientists from “political suppression or alteration of studies.”