Corn Refiners Association Responds to Colony Collapse Disorder Claims

• There have been many prominent theories to explain colony collapse disorder (CCD), including the 7 enumerated in the authors’ cited UN News Center 2011 reference. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is not among any of them.

• The authors used HFCS as a vehicle to carry added, incremental doses of imidacloprid, an insecticide, to bees in test hives. Accordingly, the authors spiked HFCS with 4 different doses of imidacloprid and untreated HFCS was used as a control.

• The authors disproved their own hypothesis by reporting that they found anticipated levels of imidacloprid in the 4 spiked variables, but found NONE in the untreated HFCS control.

• The study seems to have affirmatively refuted the authors’ HFCS hypothesis because the untreated HFCS used for the experiment’s controls showed no comparable lethal effect. This presumably demonstrates that effect-level traces of imidacloprid could not be present in HFCS.

• And finally, there is considerable doubt that the failed hives succumbed to CCD. In fact, field observers reported “scattered dead honey bees in front of individual hives” and admitted “this observation is not quite reminiscent of the reported CCD symptoms.” This, too, was vindication for HFCS.

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The Corn Refiners Association (CRA) is the national trade association representing the corn refining (wet milling) industry of the United States. CRA and its predecessors have served this important segment of American agribusiness since 1913. Corn refiners manufacture sweeteners, ethanol, starch, bioproducts, corn oil, and feed products from corn components such as starch, oil, protein, and fiber.