A USDA scientist claims that the U.S. government suspended him from his job as an entomologist due to the fact that he uncovered information linking worldwide bee deaths to the use of pesticides. Jonathan Lundgren claims that the U.S. Department of Agricultural Research Service attempted to suppress his research when he discovered that the overuse of pesticides in farming accounted for a loss of 42 percent of bees. Washingtonpost.com reports: As a USDA-ARS employee, Lundgren has run his own lab and staff for 11 years, wrote a well-regarded book on predator insects, published nearly 100 scientific papers and acted as a peer reviewer for dozens of publications. For years, his body of research was either neutral or favorable to farming policy and the chemical industry. But three years ago, he started cautioning against the overuse of pesticides. That shift, he says, triggered his suspensions and the downturn in his professional fate. He believes the problem began in 2012, when he published findings in the Journal of Pest Science suggesting that a popular class of pesticides called neonicotinoids don’t improve soybean yields. He also served as a peer reviewer for a Center for Food Safety report on the dangers of neonics. The next [...]