France urges move to ban insecticide because of potential toxicity to bees

France’s Agriculture Ministry has asked the country’s food-security and environment agency to study revoking approval of Syngenta’s Cruiser insecticide following research on the pesticide’s toxicity to honeybees.

The ministry said it would start a procedure to withdraw approval for Cruiser, the active ingredient of which is the chemical thiamethoxam, in case new science raised questions about the insecticide, said a statement on the French government’s website.

Honeybees fed a dose of thiamethoxam were about twice as likely as untreated bees to die away from the hive, suggesting that the chemical interfered with the insects’ ability to find their way back home, says a study led by Mickael Henry of France’s National Institute for Agricultural Research, which was published in the journal Science.