Popular Pesticides Keep Bumblebees From Laying Eggs (npr.org) 137
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Wild bees, such as bumblebees, don't get as much love as honeybees, but they should. They play just as crucial a role in pollinating many fruits, vegetables and wildflowers, and compared to managed colonies of honeybees, they're in much greater jeopardy. A group of scientists in the United Kingdom decided to look at how bumblebee queens are affected by some widely used and highly controversial pesticides known as neonicotinoids. What they found isn't pretty. Neonics, as they're often called, are applied as a coating on the seeds of some of the most widely grown crops in the country, including corn, soybeans and canola. These pesticides are "systemic" -- they move throughout the growing plants. Traces of them end up in pollen, which bees consume. Neonicotinoid residues also have been found in the pollen of wildflowers growing near fields and in nearby streams. The scientists, based at Royal Holloway University of London, set up a laboratory experiment with bumblebee queens. They fed those queens a syrup containing traces of a neonicotinoid pesticide called thiamethoxam, and the amount of the pesticide, they say, was similar to what bees living near fields of neonic-treated canola might be exposed to. Bumblebee queens exposed to the pesticide were 26 percent less likely to lay eggs, compared to queens that weren't exposed to the pesticide. The team published their findings in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The market can handle this (Score:3, Funny)
No bees means no pollination. Farmers recognizing this will voluntarily reduce their use of these pesticides once they consider what manual pollination would entail.
Re:The market can handle this (Score:5, Interesting)
Corn, Soy and canola are all heavily subsidised in both Europe and the US.
Interestingly the Shorthaired Bumblebee was extinct in the UK, but because it had been introduced to New Zealand in the 1880's a new population could be started.
That might not be that interesting actually.
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More of a market than Wall St, so long as they continue to accept giant bail-outs.
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Re:The market can handle this (Score:5, Insightful)
The statistic is somewhere around 70% of the foods in the typical American Diet need pollinators. No pollinators then pretty limited menus.
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But the plants most homeowners use pesticides on are not the flowering kinds that most bees go for. Lawn grass is rarely, if ever, allowed to flower because it is mowed (save maybe some low-growing clover... which is not grass anyway).
I know in my yard, the ONLY thing I use neonicotinoids on are my non-flowering ornamental bushes (which are trimmed enough to keep from flowering). Without it, unfortunately most would all be dead due to scale. Yes, I tried everything else and nothing worked until I applied
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My thought is that no plant in the right environment should need any *cide's. Even if every neighbor only doses one bush, it does have a cumulative effect large enough to matter. Most would use the same argument, a smart guy like me should be able to use it so... Think about the people you hear say that and roll your eyes at. Just because bees aren't in there, others are, and just because they aren't bees, doesn't mean they aren't having the same effects on them. This stuff is just bad. So while you
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With that said, I get the shortcuts. It is hard to do. We are not setup for it in this country for many reasons. Everyone wants a nice looking piece of grass, but no one has the time.
Its kind of amusing. I live in a village where the two best lawns are our neighbor across the street and ours. Theirs is definitely the winner. And neither of us use any of that poisonous crap on our lawns.The biggest thing for lawns in our area is lime to make the soil alkaline enough, and corn gluten in the spring. Every so often spread a little finely shredded compost - just beware that it needs to be tested for pesticides depending on where it came from. I have a fireplace and get wood ashes to spread a
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I landscaped our front yard from a lawn with rose bushes, to a stone path with succulents and rose bushes. The yard needs about 1/4 or less as much water now, and no pesticides nor herbicides. A little bit of miracle grow (nitrogen mostly) used in water pots for quicker rooting for succulent cuts.
Re: The market can handle this (Score:2)
All, eh? Hmm... I wonder what you'd say if you saw a commercial wild blueberry harvest?
They are just as nature made them.
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All, eh? Hmm... I wonder what you'd say if you saw a commercial wild blueberry harvest?
They are just as nature made them.
It has been another great year for the Blueberries and Huckleberries here in the Northeast.
But that Beau idjit doesn't know what it's talking about. Larger "fruit" is not the only criteria - not even the crop in all cases - and the breeding itself doesn't make the crops need pesticides any more than wild, other than monoculture issues. But much of the breeding is designed to create a crop that doesn't fall off the plant and to the ground at harvest time. Genetic modification.
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Here on the west coast, the wild blueberries, huckleberries and salmonberries have had horrible crops the last 2 years. In the last couple of springs there has been close to no bees out fertilizing the berries. Used to be a few on each bush, usually big bumblebee types as well as smaller ones, but not lately. Really feel sorry for the bears.
I doubt that it is pesticides here as it is very rural with no farms locally, but the winters and springs have been weird. On the other hand there are also almost no mot
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So you go back to eating your corn that is size of thumb nail and eating beans with a 1mm shell that cannot be cooked through and picking peas that cannot be taken out of their pods. I will use pesticides!
I think you might have been drinking those pesticides.
Show the evidence (Score:5, Interesting)
I know in my yard, the ONLY thing I use neonicotinoids on are my non-flowering ornamental bushes (which are trimmed enough to keep from flowering). Without it, unfortunately most would all be dead due to scale. Yes, I tried everything else and nothing worked until I applied Merit and that stuff is magic. Applied only once a year and the problem is gone.
Maybe the fact that they cannot survive without putting toxic chemicals on them is a hint you should take. How about planting something that doesn't require special toxins to survive. Native plants are usually a good start.
I don't think the casual use by homeowners seeking protection of some established ornamentals is much (if any) exposure to bees.
Based on what evidence? You "don't think" it is a problem why exactly? And we're not talking about one or two homeowners. We're talking about millions of them all across the country using quite a lot of the stuff. Furthermore the chemicals don't just stay were you spray them and they don't magically disappear.
I would not be in favor of any type of across-the-board ban of neonicotinoids if it would mean taking it out of the hands of responsible use in ways that can't possibly be much danger.
Given that there appears to be substantial evidence of important negative effects on critical pollinators, exactly what is the basis of your argument? Because you think your are being "responsible" with them? Particularly in regards to plants that are purely ornamental. There is such a thing a responsible use in the food supply but no such thing exists for ornamental plants including lawn grass. If your lawn requires even occasional spraying then you are Doing It Wrong.
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"Native weeds"? Which species, exactly? And what region are we discussing?
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Mums won't do much of anything to keep bugs out. Yes we get pyrethrin from them but whatever amounts are in the flower are pretty small. This time of year western flower thrip and two spotted spider mite are a problem in mums. While both can be treated with pyrethrins/pyretheroids according to product labels they basically stopped working a few years back. If going after them with concentrated synthetic versions of pyrethrin doesn't work the natural amount in the plant certainly won't.
I've got around 50,0
Re:The market can handle this (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the problems with residential use is all the idiots who can't follow directions. Label says 50:1 mixture, they say that 10:1 must be better. Don't know much about neonicotinoids but do know that with most systematic herbicides, it's actually self defeating as it kills the tops before it transfers to the roots.
Took a pesticide applicators course a long time ago and it was consistently stressed that pesticides are a last resort.
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The statistic is somewhere around 70% of the foods in the typical American Diet need pollinators. No pollinators then pretty limited menus.
Out of work coal miners will be given Q-Tips and sent into the fields to pollinate, just like Jesus would have done.
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If only we could make a pesticide that wasn't harmful to bees, but fatal to hornets. Those assholes.
Re: The market can handle this (Score:1)
Yes but those bees are neo-nazis, now what????
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AFAIK these kinds of pesticides are used the most by organic farmers because they are pretty much the only "natural" ones that work, with the others being synthetic pesticides. May not be a coincidence that the organic industry's rise has coincided with the decline in bee populations.
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You REALLY need to re-do your research. Neonics are synthetic and NOT used by organic farmers. You might be thinking of nicotine.
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Yep, I misread TFS. It's rotenone and azadirachtin (neem) that do, and somehow I thought I saw the later in TFS rather than just neonics. Nonetheless, these are highly toxic to bees and organics can't go without them. Because they're "natural" they're legal everywhere.
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I don't think that list is comprehensive, rather there is an explicit allowed and explicit disallowed with definitions for each, but none of that excludes these from being used. And these particular pesticides have no alternative for certain organic crops that would be allowed under the current rules in both the US and the EU, as stated by the organic lobby itself to the EU:
http://www.ifoam-eu.org/sites/... [ifoam-eu.org]
A whitepaper about their toxicity to bees can be found here:
https://academic.oup.com/jinse... [oup.com]
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AFAIK these kinds of pesticides are used the most by organic farmers because they are pretty much the only "natural" ones that work, with the others being synthetic pesticides. May not be a coincidence that the organic industry's rise has coincided with the decline in bee populations.
Neonicitinoids. Just as natural as arsenic and Death Angel Mushrooms? Natural doesn't equal safe, and even then, these compounds, which are similar to nicotine - hence the name - are quite synthetic.
They were introduced mainly because they are less toxic to mammals and birds than organophosphates. It was also thought that they would break down fairly quickly. As it turns out, they don't, and they are proving to be very toxic to some beneficial insects.
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Commenting here to undo a wrong moderation. Your post wasn't funny. It was informative to me. Come on, Slashdot, please fix this 10 year old bug [sourceforge.net]!
No problem Curupira. At least it isn't deniers claiming I'm a troll! 8^)
And if you want to see something interesting, its when you see how many bees and bumblebees there are when you don't use that stuff. Especially with the bumbles, since they don't have as far a range and stick nearby with non-toxic plants and flowers.. We have a slew of them in our local yards.
Re:The market can handle this (Score:5, Interesting)
No bees means no pollination.
Wrong. Many crops don't require bees for pollination. For instance, corn pollen is carried in the wind. Other crops, such as alfalfa are pollinated by bees, but don't need pollination to produce the crop (the leaves and stems) and may produce more foliage without pollination. So why should these farmers give a crap about a beekeeper a mile away that they don't even know? Hint: They don't.
It is already ILLEGAL to spray these pesticides without notifying the beekeepers, but enforcement is lax, and when a beekeeper finds a million dead bees in her hives, it is almost impossible to find out which farmer was responsible.
These pesticides should be banned except for some very narrow uses.
Disclaimer: My mom is a beekeeper. I help her with her hives, so I know a bit about these issues.
Re:The market can handle this (Score:5, Interesting)
The investigation of pesticides is more driven at colony collapse which is the sudden disappearance of the workers leaving the queen and a few nurses the reasoning for it are still misunderstood. This research at least provides some path to explain why the bees disappeared. If the queen is producing fewer eggs, the workers may be able to sense that is occurring and leave the hive either going feral, dying, or attempting to merge with another colony with a healthy queen because it is very rare that the bees in a hive will leave while there's still brood in cells.
When the colony dies, a bunch of dead bees in the hive, it's far easier to autopsy the hive and determine a cause. You could find the presence of varroa mites, indicators that the bees are suffering from dysentery or nosema, American/European foulbrood, starvation, or a loss of a queen which could not be replaced. There's numerous other reasons as well but unless you perform the autopsy on what you find you can't determine the cause. Blindly blaming pesticides for a bunch of dead bees is pointless when you have the option to find the cause of the colony death.
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I will admit that it's difficult to search for info on wild bee hives. A majority of search results will go to beekeeping links. That said, beekeepers can and do merge hives together but doing so requires one hive to be queenless and this is obviously different from bees voluntarily leaving one hive and finding another in the wild. Colonies will also respond differently when a frame of brood cells is introduced to the hive. If the hive has a queen they will not accept the brood but they will accept it if th
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I consider it more likely that bees that abandon a queen do so because there's a virgin queen in the mix and there's something inherently wrong with the old queen or reproductive workers in bees that flee lay eggs which are used to raise a new queen in a new hive.
If that were true then bee keepers would have known about it, and reacted accordingly. Since the drastic damage to bee hives is new, you would assume that there is something occurring within the environment (whether is pesticides, herbicides, pollution, disease, or combination of them) that is causing it.
The impact of domesticated bees on farming can be quite large,.I would hesitate to go with a simple answer without significant supporting evidence.
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You could find the presence of varroa mites, indicators that the bees are suffering from dysentery or nosema, ...
I don't think these are separate issues from the neonicotinoids. Exposure to pesticide weakens the bees, and that can make them more vulnerable to these other afflictions.
Neonicotinoids and Varroa Mites [buzzaboutbees.net]
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Yeah, that works out so well with pollution in general, see how people avoid wasting gas, voluntarily install filters and forgo using air condition to make a smaller eco footprint because else we can't breathe anymore? No regulation required.
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If MPG is what you're going for, buy a Diesel.
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Hahaha - nice one.
Here's another...
Nuclear wars means no people. Countries recognizing this will voluntarily reduce their use of these nukes once they consider what nuclear fallout would entail.
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No bees means no pollination.
Pollination is carried out by insects, not just bees. Bees are just the public friendly face of pollination, probably because they also provide honey, while all flies do is, in popular perception, eat shit and carry diseases.
Farmers recognizing this will voluntarily reduce their use of these pesticides once they consider what manual pollination would entail.
Possible, though, since there are other insecticidal options, regulation might work better - the EU wide ban on neonics being a case in point.
Long term, I suspect species migration will also be a telling factor. Evolution might also have a say in the matter.
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Bees aren't native to North America and aren't the only pollinators. Also, it might be important to note that something like 40% of bee hives are transported to California yearly solely for the purposes of running on the gigantic food industry there. Maybe we should be re-thinking how we do food and why bees are such a critical part of it. I eat beef and cows don't need bees.
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wrong [bugguide.net]
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From the thing you tried to defeat me with:
"Most people don’t realize that there were no honey bees in America until the white settlers brought hives from Europe."
We call them native because we are stupid.
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No bees means no pollination. Farmers recognizing this will voluntarily reduce their use of these pesticides once they consider what manual pollination would entail.
+1 Funny
You were making a joke at Libertarians' expense, right?
Re:Cue the bee decline denialists (Score:5, Informative)
The bee population increased 3% in 2017, after dropping 33% in 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-... [phys.org]
In the stock market, and in statistics, that's what's known as a "dead cat bounce".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Why you are an idiot (Score:5, Informative)
I'll bet you didn't know that Rhonda Brooks, the editor of aggprofessional.com, worked in marketing communications for DuPont for a few decades. DuPont manufactures one of the pesticides that's blamed for killing bees.
I see you also linked to a USDA report from August 1. Donald Trump appointed Sam Clovis, who has no science background at all to be the head scientist at the USDA. His work experience was as a campaign staffer for Rick Perry (noted idiot who now heads the Department of Energy). This after the Administration announced that all scientific publications from government agencies could not be released until they were vetted by the White House.
Then, the one actual scientific article you link to actually refutes your points.(read the article, it's short)
You believe what you want to believe, bucko. You're entitled to your own reality and don't let anybody tell you different.
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Quoting the number of managed beehives, which number people work hard to maintain because they need that many hives for their business, says nothing about the survival of individual bees or individual hives.
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Actually the bee population is increasing now. OH! - does that not serve your purpose? I guess you're not paying attention to the latest news.
Fuck off.
And he was right! There you are, right on cue!
Re:Oh (Score:3)
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in868 [ufl.edu]
http://www.hhmi.org/biointerac... [hhmi.org]
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Bees consume pollen. Some even call it 'bee bread'...
How....how do we know? Who speaks "Bee" ?
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When we open their hives and see that they actively store and eat pollen. Because we can see it with our eyes. Our eyes speak bee.
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1) Whooosh
2) There are small signs in the bee-hives saying "bee bread"?
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Beesexuals? Hard to get laid without talking first...
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Bees do consume pollen [orkin.com], but I think you were talking about the worker bees.
The worker bees consume nectar [wesavebees.com] and store the excess to feed the rest of the bees. In the meantime, they bring their pollen basket around which pollinates other flowers.
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there are other pollinators out there.
We could switch to robotic pollinators [newscientist.com].
The robots pollinate, but they don't produce honey.
Re:this is great (Score:5, Informative)
Bumblebees are the most peaceful kind of Apidae. And also one of the most important polllinators because they fly out when other insects are still hibernating due cold temperatures.
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Bumblebees are the most peaceful kind of Apidae. And also one of the most important polllinators because they fly out when other insects are still hibernating due cold temperatures.
They are indeed passive, but they aren't above using their greater size to bulldoze smaller insects out of the way when they decide they want to visit a particular bloom. It can be entertaining sometimes to watch them work.
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What I meant, of course, is that they generally only attack people if hurt. And even then they might just as well bite instead of stinging. I really have a lot of fondness for bumblebees.
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this is "Great" (Score:2)
Re:Watch your language please (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow you debunked a scientific claim with an anecdotal claim that looks like nothing more than casual observation. I'm sure you're Nobel is in the mail
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The world is bigger than a town or a country, we still not know enough about this planet (and we have a lot of studies and information) and more less about the invisible relationships that ties all together to determine if the demise of a bee specie might no react in other parts of the ecosystem.
Might sound incredible but animals can affect ecosystems across the world and huma interaction might bring uncontrollable changes that might bring a chain of problems that we might not be able to solve.
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bees have different preference. There are some flowers [wildaboutgardens.org.uk] that attract more bumblebees.
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Mostly.because bumblebees wake up earlier. They are also the first ones to get out in the early spring when bees would freeze to death. That is why bumblebees are so furry.
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from TFS: "They play just as crucial a role in pollinating ... [as honeybees]"
That's not what TFS says. "They" refers to wild bees in general (and arguably feral bees too), not specifically the bumblebees from the study - and they are being compared only to "managed colonies of honeybees" rather than honeybees in general.
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Last I checked homo sapiens sapiens was part of the animal world too, no?
For our own benefit, what else?
I presume the implication here is that had we never had the green revolution no unborn humans would've been harmed as the population would've simply never grown to its current size and therefo
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As do I.
Re: The Pesticide is Neonicotin in Monsanto's Roun (Score:1)
RoundUp is glycophosphate, not a neonic.
Glycophosphate is a major reason you're as likely to kill your plants as to fertilize them if you dump "free" manure on them... the cows & horses eat grain with RoundUp in it, and their shit ends up being poisonous to plants for a few months until the glycophosphate breaks down.
Re: The Pesticide is Neonicotin in Monsanto's Roun (Score:2)
RoundUp is a herbicide. Neonics are pesticides, and are not among the active ingredients in RoundUp.
CCD? (Score:2)
Any relation to Colony Collapse Disorder?
Well, look on the bright side (Score:2)
With Bumblebee gone, we might be spared another Transformers movie...
Where Was The Testing? (Score:3, Insightful)
In essence, what has happened here is that a pesticide supplier, i.e. a commercial organisation that is required by law to have their products tested and approved by a Federal agency, developed and tested a product which has now been shown to be detrimental to the environment in a pretty significant way.
But what would have happened if the detrimental impact from this chemical had caused sterility in men, for instance? Or early onset dementia? Or some other unpleasant, irreversible side effect? The whole point behind having Federal agencies and licensing requirements is to ensure that no chemicals released into the environment have such results.
It's easy to think that, in the 21st century, these are exaggerated or "doomsday" scenarios. If we thought that, we'd be wrong. Mankind does not learn from past mistakes in this regard. In the mid 1940s, the US released huge volumes of DDT into the environment. The chemical caused the shells of (wild) bird eggs to be super-thin and especially brittle and was responsible for the near-extinction of the Bald Eagle. In the 1950s, the drug thalidomide became widely available - resulting in literally thousands of individuals being born with mal-formed limbs, unable to care for themselves. The list goes on...
Bottom line: the moment we put profit ahead of public safety, scandals follow. As a sophisticated society, with a well-developed and functioning scientific community, there should be no excuses for the situation we see described in this article. The doubly sad and shocking thing is that it seems it will only be when we experience a potentially extinction-level event that we will see a determination to do something about this. By then it might be too late.
Re: Where Was The Testing? (Score:2)
Incorrect! The DDT study was bullshit, and worth googling.
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And the political reaction was hysterical: rather than a measured approach towards DDT use, we ended up effectively banning it, costing the lives of millions of people.
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Welcome to 2017.
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Asbestos (fire retardant - no longer deployed but much remains in places like land-fills, older buildings, etc)
Tetra-Ethyl Lead (the anti-knock additive in petrols)
Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (flame retardants)
Chlorofluro
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BPA in plastics (although some argue plastics in general are not food safe)
Lead in paint, gasoline, and metals
Re: Where Was The Testing? (Score:2)
DDT isn't dangerous. No science has ever shown it to be.
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Tell it to the raptors, moron.
For accuracy's sake... (Score:2)
So like nicotine and mammals (Score:4, Interesting)
Nicotine has been shown to have a similar effect on mammals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... [nih.gov]
I know its not the same, but they are part of the same family of chemicals, this should really have been investigated before they were approved for wider use.
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DDT (Score:1)
For the record, as an aside to this, let's set the record straight on DDT:
https://spectator.org/48925_dd... [spectator.org]
Other publications follow up on that.
We need less belief and more facts!
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Wowee, what an Authoritative, Scientific reference! I'm Ever So Convinced by this Amazingly Credible Site!!!
ROTFLMAO
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