Society

Increasing insecticides in crops, decreasing numbers of bats, rising deaths among children… It's the environmental economist Eyal Frank, from the University of Chicago, who establishes the links in the journal Science.

In the United States, farmers are increasingly using insecticides to save their crops. The origin of their problem? The decline of bats, great insect lovers. In the 2000s, bats began to be affected by what is called “white-nose syndrome”. In New York, the phenomenon was first identified in 2006.

“White-nose syndrome” is caused by a fungus and causes animals to wake up prematurely during their hibernation season, reports the Agence Science-Presse. During this period, bats who awake prematurely don't find enough food to survive. In the United States, the disease has affected 11 of the 50 species of bats present in the country. Of the 11 species affected, a reduction of 70% (on average) has been recorded.

The decline in question has forced farmers in counties where the disease was raging to increase their use of insecticides by 31%, their income having experienced an unprecedented drop. These are calculations made by economist Eyal Frank. The latter was able to conclude that there was an excess of mortality among infants under one year old, or more than 1,300 deaths in the counties concerned. In this segment of the population, this means an average increase of 8% in infant mortality.

As for whether there is a cause and effect link... As Roel Vermeulen, a Dutch specialist in environmental epidemiology, points out, the drop in farmers' income, caused by the decline in bats, may also be at the origin of this increase in infant mortality.

(MH with AsD - Source: Agence Science-Presse - Illustration: Unsplash)