Acetamiprid is an organic compound

Chemical compound

A chemical compound is a pure chemical substance consisting of two or more different chemical elements that can be separated into simpler substances by chemical reactions. Chemical compounds have a unique and defined chemical structure; they consist of a fixed ratio of atoms that are held together...

 with the chemical formula

Chemical formula

A chemical formula or molecular formula is a way of expressing information about the atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound....

 C₁₀H₁₁ClN₄. It is an odorless neonicotinoid insecticide

Insecticide

An insecticide is a pesticide used against insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against the eggs and larvae of insects respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and the household. The use of insecticides is believed to be one of the major factors behind...

 produced under the trade names Assail,, and Chipco by Aventis

Aventis

Aventis was a pharmaceutical and lab assay testing company. It was formed in 1999 when Rhône-Poulenc S.A. merged with Hoechst AG. The merged company was based in Strasbourg, France. With its headquarters in Strasbourg, Aventis was the product of the first transnational merger to combine large...

 CropSciences. It is systemic and intended to control sucking insects on crops such as leafy vegetables, citrus

Citrus

Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. Citrus is believed to have originated in the part of Southeast Asia bordered by Northeastern India, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China...

 fruits, pome

Pome

In botany, a pome is a type of fruit produced by flowering plants in the subfamily Maloideae of the family Rosaceae.A pome is an accessory fruit composed of one or more carpels surrounded by accessory tissue...

 fruits, grapes, cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

, cole crops

Brassica

Brassica is a genus of plants in the mustard family . The members of the genus may be collectively known either as cabbages, or as mustards...

, and ornamental plants. It is also a key pesticide in commercial cherry

Cherry

The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy stone fruit. The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species, including especially cultivars of the wild cherry, Prunus avium....

 farming due to its effectiveness against the larvae

Larvae

In Roman mythology, lemures were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead, and are probably cognate with an extended sense of larvae as disturbing or frightening...

 of the cherry fruit fly

Rhagoletis cerasi

Rhagoletis cerasi is a species of tephritid fruit fly known by the common name cherry fruit fly. It is a major pest of cherry crops in Europe....

.

Safety

Acetamiprid is classified as unlikely to be a human carcinogen

Carcinogen

A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that is an agent directly involved in causing cancer. This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes...

. Acetamiprid has a low acute

Acute toxicity

Acute toxicity describes the adverse effects of a substance that result either from a single exposure or from multiple exposures in a short space of time...

 and chronic toxicity

Chronic toxicity

Chronic toxicity is a property of a substance that has toxic effects on a living organism, when that organism is exposed to the substance continuously or repeatedly. Compared with acute toxicity.Two distinct situations need to be considered:...

 in mammals with no evidence of carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity

Neurotoxicity

Neurotoxicity occurs when the exposure to natural or artificial toxic substances, which are called neurotoxins, alters the normal activity of the nervous system in such a way as to cause damage to nervous tissue. This can eventually disrupt or even kill neurons, key cells that transmit and process...

 or mutagenicity. It is classified as toxicity category rating

Toxicity category rating

Section 156.62 of Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations establishes four Toxicity Categories for acute hazards of pesticide products, Category I being the highest toxicity category. Most human hazard, precautionary statements, and human personal protective equipment statements are based upon...

 II in acute oral studies with rats, toxicity category III in acute dermal and inhalation studies with rats, and toxicity category IV in primary eye and skin irritation studies with rabbits. It is mobile in soil, but degrades rapidly via aerobic soil metabolism

Metabolism

Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...

, with studies showing its half life between <1 and 8.2 days. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not consider it to be environmentally persistent. The EPA considers it "only moderately toxic" to bees; however, some media sources and the recent documentary Vanishing of the Bees

Vanishing of the Bees

Vanishing of the Bees is a 2009 documentary film by Hive Mentality Films & Hipfuel films, directed by George Langworthy and Maryam Henein and released in the United Kingdom on October 9. The story centers around the sudden disappearance of honey bees from beehives around the world, caused by the...

have blamed neonicotinoids

Neonicotinoids

Neonicotinoids are a class of insecticides which act on the central nervous system of insects with lower toxicity to mammals. Neonicotinoids are among the most widely used insecticides worldwide, but recently the uses of some members of this class have been restricted in some countries due to a...

 like acetamiprid for colony collapse disorder

Colony Collapse Disorder

Colony collapse disorder is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term colony collapse disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of...

.