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Most tap water is poisoned with fluoride.

Poisoned? You do know that every single substance, including water itself, is potentially lethal if ingested in excess?

That's the thing really. It's the dosage that makes something either healthy or unhealthy. The world health organization recommends a level of fluoride of 0,5 mg to 1.0 mg per litre because fluoride has proven benefits for dental health at low doses..

Now then, let's look at the numbers:

Referring to a common salt of fluoride, sodium fluoride (NaF), the lethal dose for most adult humans is estimated at 5 to 10 g (which is equivalent to 32 to 64 mg/kg elemental fluoride/kg body weight).[1][2][3] Ingestion of fluoride can produce gastrointestinal discomfort at doses at least 15 to 20 times lower (0.2–0.3 mg/kg or 10 to 15 mg for a 50 kg person) than lethal doses.

So to even get to the lower bound of gastrointestinal discomfort, someone would have to think anywhere from 10-30 litres of water, and to get to the lethal dose the number goes up to 30-60 litres. At that quantity you're in life danger even if you're drinking fluoride free water because of water intoxication.

There are understandable reasons for not drinking tap water in certain areas (taste, purity, etc). but fluoride is not one of them. The tap water here in Finland ranks among the best in the world and bottled water consumption is low compared to most western nations, yet do we see cases of people dropping because of the added fluoride? No.

You're claiming 3.8 million people die annually from car accidents? Citation needed for that one.

This artificial womb will save millions of lives each year and prevent millions more from suffering disabilities caused by premature birth.

Your numbers seemed high, so I looked it up.

Preterm birth complications are the leading cause of death among children under 5 years of age, responsible for nearly 1 million deaths in 2015.

Three-quarters of them could be saved with current, cost-effective interventions.

So if current, cost-effective interventions were applied we'd have about a quarter-million lives lost that could potentially be helped by this new technology.

Assuming it would be even more expensive than existing interventions, it would be available in an even smaller percentage of cases than those. But let's say it was equally available. That means ~62,500 lives saved.

It's just a first step. It doesn't need to be a miracle to be worth doing.

Missing from the summary (and of possible intereste here), it seems that some of the funding was by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

http://www.afro.who.int/en/med...

> So says greenpeace, the WHO, 'Doctors without frontiers

Let me copy-paste from WHO (World Health organization) for you:
--
A total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded.

As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster
--
http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

The only mention I found on the Doctors Without Borders site says "dozens of lives". If you want to, you can do a more thorough search of their publications.

You are a liar. USA has twice the amount of suicides.
http://apps.who.int/gho/data/n...

Sweden: 13.2
France: 15.8
United Kingdom: 7.0
Spain: 7.0
South Korea: 36.8
Canada: 11.4
United States: 13.7
Mexico: 4.1

Oh, and suicide rates strongly correlate to the latitude (because of the amount of sunlight in winter). United States shares most of its the latitude with Southern Europe, but its suicide rate is higher:

Spain: 7.0
Italy: 6.4
Portugal: 12.5
Greece: 4.9
Malta: 6.8

Malta is basically as far south as Southern Europe goes and it is on about the same latitude as Los Alamos, New Mexico, so USA goes even further south. Seriously, suicide rates in USA suck in comparison to what they ought to be.

You have some very weird numbers there. WHO claims that Spain is 7 or less, UK is 7 or less, France is 16 or less, whereas the US is 12 or more, depending on how you measure it. Source: WHO.

The EU-28 average is slightly below 12. Source: Eurostat.

So? We have been eating meat for thousands of years and it has always caused cancer. What if the lab grown meat causes less cancer than real meat? Why do you assume it will cause more?

Now this is different, but what if birds don't like to feed on the GMO mosquitoes, or fish don't like their larvae?

No Problem, we'll just let another 429 000 die horrible, painful death from malaria this year, They are mostly brown and black people anyway, nothing compared to a few bird deaths.

45% of all child deaths are simply down to malnutrition.

Since the linked article is still a few clicks away from the actual list, which is then a PDF, here is the actual list:

Priority 1: CRITICAL
Acinetobacter baumannii, carbapenem-resistant
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, carbapenem-resistant
Enterobacteriaceae, carbapenem-resistant, 3rd generation cephalosporin-resistant

Priority 2: HIGH
Enterococcus faecium, vancomycin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin-resistant, vancomycin intermediate and resistant
Helicobacter pylori, clarithromycin-resistant
Campylobacter, fluoroquinolone-resistant
Salmonella spp., fluoroquinolone-resistant
Neisseria gonorrhoeae, 3rd generation cephalosporin-resistant, fluoroquinolone-resistant

Priority 3: MEDIUM
Streptococcus pneumoniae, penicillin-non-susceptible
Haemophilus influenzae, ampicillin-resistant
Shigella spp., fluoroquinolone-resistant

Source: http://www.who.int/medicines/p...

I think it is about the same all over the world. The same as violence against women, it's about 30% everywhere, 1 of 3 women, by the WHO statistics:
http://www.who.int/reproductiv...

Recall what was in John Podesta email messages, which became known just by a mere accident, because he did not use two steps authentication on his Gmail. It is about the same everywhere, as it is a property of Homo Sapiens.

Please show me one credible study that shows animal fats are "good for you". There have been some recent studies indicating they may not be "as bad" as some other studies suggest, but I've not come across any that say they're "good", as-in, everyone should increase how much you eat. Every nutritional body (ADA, WHO, etc) recommends restricting animal fat consumption. For example:

Less than 30% of total energy intake from fats (1, 2, 3). Unsaturated fats (e.g. found in fish, avocado, nuts, sunflower, canola and olive oils) are preferable to saturated fats (e.g. found in fatty meat, butter, palm and coconut oil, cream, cheese, ghee and lard) (3). Industrial trans fats (found in processed food, fast food, snack food, fried food, frozen pizza, pies, cookies, margarines and spreads) are not part of a healthy diet. http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

Do a little research into how much egg is in mayo. (Spoiler: very little.)

You say milk is for kids, yet cheese is concentrated milk. It's like saying Kool Aid is for kids, but eating the packets without water is okay.

Fruits, vegetables, grains, etc, are typically cheaper than animal products. Here in Canada, animal products are heavily subsidized. So while someone might pay $4/lb for hamburger, the actual cost is a lot higher, and it's taxpayer money that makes it more 'affordable'. Produce doesn't get nearly the 'help' from governments. Still, with a little effort, you can save a ton buy sticking to plant-based foods. Certainly more than eating animal products. For a few dollars I can get enough brown rice to last me 15-20 meals. What animal product can you get that will add a substantial amount to 15-20 meals for a few dollars?

For the record I live below the poverty line, and 'consume' less than nearly anyone I know, but thanks for playing. Best you stay out of the profiling industry. ;)

So just how is someone under 65 going to survive on $500 a month? Or someone over 65 on $750? You would have to also bring in universal healthcare and pharmacare with no deductibles, no co-pays, no insurance premiums. Otherwise, you've signed the death warrants of honest people, while the crooks will always manage to survive and even prosper.

And saying "death warrants" is not an exaggeration.

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Remember, 26% of the US population will experience at least one depressive episode in their lifetimes. Economic distress doesn't help.

Your only example of a drug hurting others is alcohol. Show me the devastation caused to families by the scourge of marijuana. Oh, you can't. Cheers.

It's trivial to show pretty much any drug causing harm to others including marijuana. Some drugs are more dangerous than others and cannabis is less dangerous than many but there is clear data showing that its use can result in negative health and economic consequences to others in some circumstances. Used responsibly it presents little danger but it is perfectly possible for use of cannabis to result in harm to others. I would regard cannabis as less dangerous than tobacco cigarettes or alcohol but that shouldn't be interpreted as presenting no danger. Even something as safe as aspirin can be dangerous if used improperly or to excess.

Per the World Health Organization:

"Cannabis impairs psychomotor performance in a wide variety of tasks, such as motor coordination, divided attention, and operative tasks of many types; human performance on complex machinery can be impaired for as long as 24 hours after smoking as little as 20 mg of THC in cannabis; there is an increased risk of motor vehicle accidents among persons who drive when intoxicated by cannabis."

"Cannabis used during pregnancy is associated with impairment in fetal development leading to a reduction in birth weight;"

If it's trivial, then do it. This must be the same kind of "trivial" as showing a racist quote from Trump. Fucking bring it.

Your only example of a drug hurting others is alcohol. Show me the devastation caused to families by the scourge of marijuana. Oh, you can't. Cheers.

It's trivial to show pretty much any drug causing harm to others including marijuana. Some drugs are more dangerous than others and cannabis is less dangerous than many but there is clear data showing that its use can result in negative health and economic consequences to others in some circumstances. Used responsibly it presents little danger but it is perfectly possible for use of cannabis to result in harm to others. I would regard cannabis as less dangerous than tobacco cigarettes or alcohol but that shouldn't be interpreted as presenting no danger. Even something as safe as aspirin can be dangerous if used improperly or to excess.

Per the World Health Organization:

"Cannabis impairs psychomotor performance in a wide variety of tasks, such as motor coordination, divided attention, and operative tasks of many types; human performance on complex machinery can be impaired for as long as 24 hours after smoking as little as 20 mg of THC in cannabis; there is an increased risk of motor vehicle accidents among persons who drive when intoxicated by cannabis."

"Cannabis used during pregnancy is associated with impairment in fetal development leading to a reduction in birth weight;"

Exaggerations of petroleum externalities are some of the most blatant propaganda out there.

What exaggeration? Fossil fuels are generally burnt as they are consumed, and that pollution costs lives. If those lives were included in the purchase price of fossil fuel it would cost more than non-fossil fuel options.

There is a more detailed pdf available to this:
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitst...

Interactive Pollution Map shows Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, Beijing among a multitude of others:
http://maps.who.int/airpolluti...

Perhaps the wind and precipitation levels and disrupt the ability to measure the actual emitted pollutions in the regions, but my personal experience going to China varied. I was able to live happily there for 3 years and my immune system slowly deteriorated to the point had coughs, sore throats, ear aches and ultimately constant sinus congestion. The locals that live there adapted by eating various foods and intaking known remedies to allow them to cope, but everyone would agree there are overcast(low stratus cloud) days we all feel like zombies and everyone is suffering. I recently returned to China for a two-week vacation in Changchun, for roughly half the trip I was bed-ridden because of pollution-related and jetlag. Perhaps it's just because I'm getting older and my body can't take it as much, but as soon as I returned back to Canada, everything cleared up in a week or so and I was healthy again.

I appreciate all this research about those polluted cities. It's certainly progress to help these polluted cities in order for everyone to not cope, but to enjoy healthy lives. I believe a great number of people don't have the courage to speak up about this issue mainly because many believe "that's life...live with it" and don't try to fix it. People are more productive when they have their good health; it's in their interest to fix this problem.

Hats off for mentioning this issue on Slashdot.

There is a more detailed pdf available to this:
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitst...

Interactive Pollution Map shows Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, Beijing among a multitude of others:
http://maps.who.int/airpolluti...

Perhaps the wind and precipitation levels and disrupt the ability to measure the actual emitted pollutions in the regions, but my personal experience going to China varied. I was able to live happily there for 3 years and my immune system slowly deteriorated to the point had coughs, sore throats, ear aches and ultimately constant sinus congestion. The locals that live there adapted by eating various foods and intaking known remedies to allow them to cope, but everyone would agree there are overcast(low stratus cloud) days we all feel like zombies and everyone is suffering. I recently returned to China for a two-week vacation in Changchun, for roughly half the trip I was bed-ridden because of pollution-related and jetlag. Perhaps it's just because I'm getting older and my body can't take it as much, but as soon as I returned back to Canada, everything cleared up in a week or so and I was healthy again.

I appreciate all this research about those polluted cities. It's certainly progress to help these polluted cities in order for everyone to not cope, but to enjoy healthy lives. I believe a great number of people don't have the courage to speak up about this issue mainly because many believe "that's life...live with it" and don't try to fix it. People are more productive when they have their good health; it's in their interest to fix this problem.

Hats off for mentioning this issue on Slashdot.

The data is dodgy.

Limitations
Data from different countries are of limited comparability because of
a) Different location of measurement stations;
b) Different measurement methods;
c) Different temporal coverage of certain measurements; if only part of the year was covered,
the measurement may significantly deviate from the annual mean due to seasonal
variability;
d) Possible inclusion of data which were not eligible for this database due to insufficient
information to ensure compliance;
e) Differences in sizes of urban areas covered: for certain countries, only measurements for
larger cities were found, whereas for others also cities with just a few thousand inhabitants
were available. Heterogeneous quality of measurements;
f) Omission of data which are known to exist, but which could not yet be accessed due to
language issues or limited accessibility.

http://www.who.int/phe/health_...

If you untick the "Modeled annual mean" you'll get a better picture of where the data points are measured. The middle of Africa where it's entirely red has no data points.
It just happens to be hot and dry with some wind, so you get dust in the air. I guess that's "natural pollution"

Wow. I'm actually speechless. Next you'll be telling me that loud pipes save lives? Right?

Slow down.

Slow down.

Slow down.

Slow down.

Try not to fall for bullshit such as this from someone who thinks they are *much* smarter than they actually are.

> but hear of far fewer cases of drunk driving and I have a really hard time

You certainly may hear about it less. On the other hand, German men have a 27% higher rate of death from cirrhosis of the liver than US men. In fatal car crashes, alcohol is involved slightly more often in Germany than in the US.

There may be less media attention in Germany, but the policies aren't actually working any better than US policies.

See also:
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitst...

US numbers have improved greatly since the 1980s - DWI deaths have been cut in half.
https://report.nih.gov/nihfact...

One benefit of having 50 different states with different being enacted at different times is that you can compare the results. When California tries one law, Texas does it a bit different, Florida does a public awareness campaign without a new law, you can compare the changes in each state to see which approaches work. The National Institutes of Health determined the two things that worked best are a) enforcing DWI laws - unenforced laws are clearly useless and b) raising the drinking age.

Here's some data.

Country/ Legal Age / heavy episodic drinking %

Romania/18/ 7.5

Germany/16/12.5

USA/21/16.9

Bulgaria/18/19.6

Ukraine/18/22.6

UK/18/28.0

France/18/29.4

Greece/18/34.9

http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_report/profiles/en/

http://gamapserver.who.int/gho...

claims that the total for the whole world for 2013 is 1.25million. Assuming that for the whole period of the 20 years, that's 25 million. For it to be 'millions' implies > 2 million. Therefore over 8% or so are caused by mobile abuse. That seems conceivable; I must admit to assuming a lower rate of death on the roads.

Thank you for making me think - that's nearly the highest compliment I can pay to a person!

OK, numbers are hard to pin down so I am being conservative by merely claiming millions.

There are well over a million auto fatalities annually across this planet. The number of mobile phone related deaths is somewhere between 1%-10% of these.

Probably tens of millions, but I don't have the proof of that so I am going with millions.

The etymology notwithstanding

Facts be damned...

http://apps.who.int/gender/wha... [who.int]

You're quoting a political entity rather than a factual entity.

Not happening.

What?! You mean the propensity of skirts to be worn by women but not men, in our culture, is not universal? You mean construing skirt-wearing being feminine is a .... gasp ...social construct, and not biology? Aha!

What in the ever loving hell are you on? It's a cultural fashion, skirts are detached from Gender.

Let's get this clear. Gender is not a social construct. It is what you were born with. If you think that dressing or looking like a woman will make you a woman you are deranged. It is an insult of the highest order to women and all that they put up with that their body puts them through.

Gender is not a social construct, it's the X or Y that you were born with. There is no mental retardation that will change that fact. You will just have a echo-chamber full of retarded people that think they are special somehow. And bluntly, I can think of a lot more productive activities if I really wanted to feel special.

Bye.

We are done here.

You're not doing the LGBT / Feminist movement any justice.

Neither are you.

There is no distinction between sex and gender. Sex and gender are two words to describe the same thing.

They can be used to mean the same thing but generally are not. The etymology notwithstanding, a check of almost any contemporary dictionary will qualify that 'gender' is "typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones."

But more to the point, it is the very usage of gender as social construct in distinction to biological sex, not some other less formal use, to which you are objecting. This one:

"Sex" refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women.
"Gender" refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.
http://apps.who.int/gender/wha...

Roman Armor Skirts; Scottish Kilts; Arabic Thawb;

What?! You mean the propensity of skirts to be worn by women but not men, in our culture, is not universal? You mean construing skirt-wearing being feminine is a .... gasp ...social construct, and not biology? Aha!

Well done!

... they are going to identify the remains as male or female by the subtle differences unique to each and identify the person as 'male' or 'female' based on their physiology.

Male and female yes, but those are not genders. They are sexes.

The very point of the modern construct of 'gender' was to isolate that which is social construct (masculine/feminine) from physiological sex (male/female). This really is not a difficult concept to grasp. Why is this such a challenge for you? [Rhetorical question: I realise you are not too stupid to understand the distinction, you are motivated to misunderstand].

Gender is not a social construct.

Doublethink! Gender, at least in the usage you to which are objecting (not grammatical gender etc), is a social construct by definition . Of course you might object to the usefulness of the concept, or its impact on the object of study (i.e. society), perhaps even its theoretical coherence, but just stamping your feet and insisting "black is white" is simply unintelligent.

It is noteworthy that the first link you supply does not make the error of your second link of conflating 'gender' with 'sex.' The anthropologists understand they are determining sex (which is, of course, highly correlated with gender, particularly in traditional societies*, but thankfully** also in ours). The ignorant error in the second link, if it is not ideologically motivated ignorance (but merely sloppy English), is probably due to a lack of relevant education: that anthropologists would not make this error, but forensic scientists might is telling.

While social constructs such as gender are not directly to be determined by looking at bones --one cannot examine the pelvis of a body from the 1950s and tell that being a nurse was considered a normal form of employment for women but not men --if you have a knowledge of 1950s society, in addition to the bones, you might reasonably infer questions of gender. Eg. you may be able to exclude the probability that the male (and presumably also masculine) skeleton you are examining was not a nurse by occupation ... or that he ordinary wore a dress ... or all those other facts of gender which are not determined (outside of culture) by physiological sex.

[*But not all traditional societies, note the Polynesian and Indian traditions of tripartite genders.]

[**If tranny sex is your thing you may not be as thankful as I am.]

60 million die every year, which comes out to 160k every day. I found a few sources, but the WHO roughly agrees with that number.

GMOs could be a fantastic boon for humanity. the keyword is could. The sad fact is that current engineering efforts directed toward making food have all been toward making food more addictive. They want people to buy more and more food even if it kills them and guess what, it is killing people.

I fear we may end up with monstrosities like sugary vegetables and based on what I've seen in the market, this fear is justified.

Probably not. Rotting cadavers are nauseating, and stressful to the living, but they are not health threats. Really, they are not.

So, what you're saying is that you have evidence that a drug manufacturer's advertisement is criminally fraudulent, and therefore we should not allow anyone in that line of work to spend money promoting their businesses, and instead they should put all of their money into research on new drugs until they run out of money, at which some other person who knows you won't allow them to advertise will of course invest billions of dollars in the same area because even though they're smart enough to come up with new drugs that you personally can't produce, they're too dumb to realize you want them to fail, financially. Do you even listen to yourself?

Oh, you want to see documented instances of misconduct in by pharmaceutical companies?? Try here for all sorts of legal settlements, you can review their specific conduct in the settlement agreements. What, did you think nobody's ever caught them misbehaving before? Hardly. And even aside from legal settlements, other investigations exist that do bring up a share of worries. And no, their questionable conduct isn't just limited to questionable marketing, there have been other problems.

As I said, you don't want to examine their conduct in its full scope, you want to avoid even considering the questions. Unfortunately for you, others have already.

That you present this hysterical idea of an absolutist sentiment as an objection just makes you sound silly, and what causes you to say such a silly thing, I don't know, but I'm guessing it's something in your own psyche. Of course, there are other options, for example, Europe does forbid DTC marketing of drugs, and the various companies don't seem to be suffering unduly there. So your idea? Yours, not mine. You made it up, not me, thus you are the one who should look in the mirror and ask yourself why you said it. Why did you say it? How did you think I'd react? Well, my reaction is that I hold you responsible for your own words. You said it, not me.

You may want to try to inform yourself better. You need to correct a lot of insufficient awareness of actual circumstances and improve your ability to recognize what others are saying. After you do that, then you can really work on your presentation.

You're wrong because the items that compose the yearly GDP are only accounted for ONCE, either as the revenues generated by the economic system, or according to how these revenues are spent or invested by the government, companies and consumers, so by definition nothing is double-counted, it's two ways to analyze the same thing. This confirms what I was saying before: you have no clue of what the GDP actually is and how it is calculated, hence you shouldn't have even started arguing about it .

I saw that the definition of GDP included government spending, so I made a guess as to how it might be double counted. I didn't pretend to be an expert on the subject.

You, on the other hand, despite being arrogant and calling me clueless, merely assert nothing is double counted, but offer no evidence to the contrary. Since exports count towards GDP, and result in tax revenue for the government, and government spending counts towards GDP, how could it be the case that the 20% GDP from energy doesn't result in other GDP that isn't accounted for under energy?

As a simple example, if they sell $100 worth of oil, and tax it for $50 to spend on social welfare, then GDP here would be $150, the oil would be 2/3 of GDP and social welfare 1/3 of GDP, but all the money spent would have been generated through the sale of the oil.

Because non-stategic businesses, especially small and medium enterprises, can be operated by private entities without damaging the public well-being or increasing wealth inequality, especially in a country where half of the economy is government-run, and the other half is heavily regulated.

In other words, a mixed economy with free markets and capitalism work better than complete state control.

Nope, 79 years is not "pretty high" at all in the western world, and a 3-year difference (and even more with respect to other countries) is pretty relevant, since western countries should be supposed to enjoy very similar living standards, technology and, most importantly, healthcare services.

82 vs 79 is pretty similar, but I understand you wish to hype up any difference at all. You're talking about a 3.8% difference. If 3 years is such a big deal, is it a big deal that Norway is 2 years behind Japan, which is at 84?

Nope, obesity is really a US problem, not "western

No, it really is Western. The US may be leading the charge, but rates have increased dramatically in European countries. You ignored the France article and instead pointed to another article, which is probably based on old data. Here, have another one.

I don't know: maybe because the Chinese government owns roughly 70% the Chinese stock market capitalization? [..] Do you know what the big problem of the internet is? It's easy to be ridiculed if you're not informed. Have a good weekend.

Yes, any idiot can ridicule somebody by selectively looking at data. Congratulations. But what you haven't addressed is that China did in fact move away from communism and towards capitalism and free markets with great success, as is widely acknowledged.

Also don't see any mention about my Venezuela link, with people rioting for food in the socialist paradise country of price controls (long live the revolution!), nor any rebuttal to failing socialist states like Greece.

Just share with us the massive accidents and all the destruction coal plants have done.

OK. Here's a map of deaths per 100,000 population per year due to coal:

http://www.catf.us/fossil/prob...

As of 2004, coal is estimated to have been responsible for 24,000 deaths a year, down to 13,000 by 2010. By contrast, the IAEA and WHO estimate the total number of deaths from Chernobyl, not per year, but total, to be around 4,000:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

Happy to help.

This is not completely true. In fact, there are large numbers of people in the third world resisting vaccination because people got polio from the oral vaccine.

[citation needed]
From the WHO : http://www.who.int/features/qa...
"What is vaccine-derived polio?"
"Since 2000, more than 10 billion doses of OPV [Oral Polio Vaccine] have been administered to nearly 3 billion children worldwide..... resulting in fewer than 760 VDPV [vaccine-derived poliovirus] cases "
I make that 0.00003%. I'm not particularly scared, and anyone who is is ignorant

(Not picking on you in particular; it's just that you mention DDT, so this seems like a good place to post.)

For what I can tell, this time round, Malaria was eliminated without a massive DDT campaign (possibly without DDT at all). I can't find a single source on DDT use in this campaign, but here is the summary on how Turkey eliminated malaria recently, and it looks like no DDT was used post 2000 (although it was used heavily earlier).

For those who don't know, DDT use in controversial because it is harmful to birds (and is likely a carcinogen, but then again, what isn't a carcinogen?). However, not using it is also controversial because critics say that environmentalist trying to reduce the use of DDT are causing millions of deaths worldwide by prioritizing wildlife over human lives. FWIW, the World Health Orgainzation still supports using DDT to fight malaria, but it also strongly recommends using newer (and likely less environmentally harmful) pesticides.

The pro-DDT critics of envromentalists often miss one big thing, which gets hammered on in the first liked I posted: a lot of mosquito have gained resistance to DDT (and other pesticides). Just like overuse of antibiotics leads to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, so does the overuse of pesticides lead to pesticide-resistant mosquito. The link makes that pretty clear:

By 1999/2000, resistance to 12 insecticides (DDT, dieldrin, malathion, fenitrothion, pirimiphosmethyl, bendiocarb, deltamethrin, permethrin, lambdacyhalothrin, eofenprox, cyfluthrin and propoxur) was reported for specimens of An. sacharovi, in both laboratory cultures and wild-caught mosquitoes collected in the malarious areas of Adana, Adiyaman, Antalya, Aydn, and Mugla in southern Turkey. In Adana, Adiyaman and Antalya, An. sacharovi was susceptible only to malathion and pirimiphos-methyl.

That's kind of scary. It makes it clear that we need a plan B for killing mosquitoes other than wide-spread use of pesticides, because existing pesticides are already loosing their effectiveness. New pesticides will eventually suffer the same fate too.

0 cases seems remarkable given that two years ago, the ECDC said that only "99% of malaria cases [in Europe] are travel-related".

Most of this was a big (relatively speaking) and anomalous spike in Greece.

  "For instance, Greece had managed to remain malaria free between 1974 and 2009, but in 2010 three locally acquired malaria cases were reported, followed by 40 in 2011, 20 in 2012 and three in 2013".

http://www.euro.who.int/en/hea...

Wrong again, it is still listed psychology disorder.It is no different than someone believing they are thetan. http://apps.who.int/classifica...

Some examples of scientific disinformation:

The world health organization claiming that drinking pure water is dangerous.

Doctors and scientists insisting that vaccines do more harm than good.

Nutritionists claiming that vegan diets create malnutrition

Scientists rejecting the evolution model

Pick any agenda, and you will find respected authorities rejecting it, regardless of the crazy amounts of evidence in support of it.

Don't argue with people that are right. It annoys people that know more than you.
 
http://www.who.int/features/fa...

Are you practicing that as your mantra for the day? The source you linked mentions that 2015 had 438,000 malaria deaths yet another page from the same group mentions that 2013 had 1.25 million road traffic deaths so indeed, people are a more efficient killer of people than are mosquitoes. Hence your earlier claim

the species collectively accounts for more deaths than any other species on earth

Is both biologically and mathematically inaccurate.

What else would you like to so proudly be wrong about today?
 
 

Anyone that knows anything about insects know that they're a zillion different species that are identical except for their genitals which means they don't interbreed.

Well, that's a start for what you want to be wrong about next. The ability to interbreed is only rarely based on the shape of the genitalia; the important factor is chromosomal structure. If you ever took a high school level biology course you would know that.
 
 

And really its besides the point because I'm obviously referring to the flying insects that drink human blood and spread bloodborn diseases in the process.

If you were more aware of the biology you would be aware of a few important facts here:

• There are more mosquitoes that do not bite humans than there are that do
• There are many different species of mosquitoes that do bite humans, and their geographic distribution varies significantly by species
• Of the ones that do bite humans, only a subset of those are carriers of disease

In other words just because you are annoyed by one that inhabits your neighborhood does not make it likely that there is a reasonable chance of it passing on a debilitating disease to you. Yet you have been calling for the wholesale genocide of all of the thousands of species of mosquito.
 
 

As to making statements out of thin air, you read your own statement and see where I got that.

You are the only one in this discussion that has said anything of

Saying that we shouldn't regard the mosquitoes as a problem because only the females of the species spread diseases [...] Nazis

You indeed pulled that statement out of thin air, and are now trying to blame it on someone else because you cannot support it.

Don't argue with people that are right. It annoys people that know more than you.

http://www.who.int/features/fa...

As to there being different breeds and strains of the species... I've been to an entomology museum. Have you? Anyone that knows anything about insects know that they're a zillion different species that are identical except for their genitals which means they don't interbreed. However, when you've seen 10,000 species of green beetles that all eat the same thing and live in similar environments... nonsense.

Do you want me to show you how meaningless your statement is?... check this out:
https://www.gardensafari.nl/en...

And really its besides the point because I'm obviously referring to the flying insects that drink human blood and spread bloodborn diseases in the process.

You want to plead the indispensability of this? Where do you live? In a city? The least natural environment possible? Genius.

As to making statements out of thin air, you read your own statement and see where I got that... or keep pretending it came out of nowhere and admit effectively that you're too dishonest to maintain this discussion. - Choose.

So in a disaster area a nuclear power plant can cause some radiation leakage and it affects the people who work there. Ok.

Under normal operating conditions the Sun causes cancer and kills people with Renewable Solar Radiation!!!!!

Headline: SUN CAUSES CANCER AND KILLS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE!!!

From WHO:

Currently, between 2 and 3 million non-melanoma skin cancers and 132,000 melanoma skin cancers occur globally each year. One in every three cancers diagnosed is a skin cancer and, according to Skin Cancer Foundation Statistics, one in every five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime.

In 2012 alone 232,000 people had new incidents of melanoma, and 55,000 people died from it.

The SUN is MURDERING people! We need to find safer methods to produce energy, I suggest nuclear.

Which is also has not been subjected to any enrichment by nuclear industry processes. I specifically referred to artificially made elements.

Fission power plant fuel has minor enrichments to the level of 3-4% U-235. Artificially made elements that occur through the transmutation of U-238 and other transuranics in the fuel material are also contained within the cladding. What "artificially made" elements are you referencing? Humans do not come into contact with "artificially made" transuranic elements that are of concern for internal exposure in their daily lives.

Yes I can, I just don't know how much of them Fukushima, Chernobyl or other accidents have released.

Sorry but

Yes: http://science.time.com/2013/0...

You: http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...

Can: http://www.who.int/ionizing_ra...

You literally get more radiation living next to a coal power than you would living next to Three Mile Island at the time of the disaster, or presently.

Coal source 1: http://www.scientificamerican....

Coal source 2: http://www.reboundhealth.com/c...

Do you life next to the damaged Fukushima reactor? You have a problem. Do you live 15km away from the Fukushima reactor? You are getting less radiation exposure than living in Colorado. Were you exposed to radionuclides after the Chernobyl disaster in Belarus, Ukraine, or Russia? Take the iodine pills the Soviet Union gave you immediately; after that your biggest health risk is the stress of living in what you "perceive" to be a toxic environment (though it was later proved not!).

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's irrational. What you're doing is how social proof spreads ignorance.

Not that I should make an appeal to authority or that you should trust me solely based on my credentials, but since you "called me out" for not understanding it I will inform you that I am a trained nuclear engineer working in the nuclear industry, wasting my time posting on the internet fighting someone like you because the level of misinformation out there is too much to bear. Please listen to experts and stop your conspiracy theories and stop spreading true ignorance of the basic reality.

The idea that cell phones 'heat up your brain' or cause direct brain damage is pretty ridiculous, given the energies involved.

This would seem to suggest that while actual BRAIN damage is still impossible, it's perhaps not impossible that such EMF may interfere with these just-discovered slow-moving signals and whatever they do.

Interesting data on the variety and strength of EMF we encounter daily is here;
http://www.who.int/peh-emf/abo...

Hopefully someone with a better understanding of how these compare to the "2.5â"5 mV/mm" quoted in the abstract can comment.

It is all the lies that the government and Pro-Vaxxers spew forth that make me trust that the vaccines are safe even less. Measles has never caused millions of deaths.

From the WHO:

In 1980, before widespread vaccination, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.

Approximately 114 900 people died from measles in 2014 – mostly children under the age of 5.

Now, what were you lying?

This, right here.

To be honest, there is research into alleged sensitivity to RF/EM Radiation, and there are credible studies which suggest that even if there is no definitive physical link, the symptoms are quite real (now whether or not it's psychosomatic, or something with an actual physical cause? That's another argument entirely. However, neither finding invalidates the symptoms in such a case.)

In either case, standard wifi isn't powerful enough to do much, especially when compared to high-tension power lines, or commercial/military radar sets. Yes frequency ranges vary, etc etc... but as parent said, there's an easy way to help folks figure out definitively whether or not it's an actual reaction or just a psychological thing, and appropriate treatment can be set up as a result.

Personally, I've played with everything from small microwave transmitters up to ECM pods and APG-66 radar sets, and I'm perfectly fine with hanging around it (but in the latter cases, taking precautions to avoid being literally cooked is rather paramount), so I'm not advocating that we pamper anybody here or dismantle civilization to accommodate anybody... but as parent said, that doesn't mean we shouldn't treat someone showing physical or mental symptoms with anything less than basic human dignity.

That is in NO WAY a scientific position, it is 100% a POLITICAL position.

Bullshit. Just because it's not phrased in scientific-journal-language doesn't mean its contents aren't scientific. Sure, saying "death" instead of using clean, nice scientific terminology is a different way of putting it, but it is a scientific position, because continuing the thought from the immediate effects to the consequences is necessary.

Coal power plants also provide very cheap electricity.

You might want to double-check it. In my country, coal is only cheap because of hidden government subsidies.

Citation required. To get energy from coal the steps are trivial. Pick up lump of coal from the ground, light lump of coal on fire, done. Sorry to burst your bubble, but developing nations aren't running on coal because of a deep seeded desire to subsidize the coal industry or something. It is the cheapest and easiest way to produce energy right now. I'm all in favour of switching over to nuclear power as France already did years ago. Truth be told, if anybody was taking climate change seriously 30 years ago we'd have already switched over to nuclear on a large scale. The environmental movement though made sure to exhaust themselves crushing that idea, Greenpeace is still trying to crush nuclear for that matter :(.

We aren't talking about the seas rising by metres in our kids life times

According to the WHO, we are talking about five million additional deaths from the health side effects of climate change alone.

The UN is talking about seven million premature deaths per year due to pollution.

Google a little for youself and you will find much, much more.

"Your children will die from this shit" is quite an adequate summary, IMHO.

You seem a bit confused on what your sources are saying. Your WHO report, which they acknowledge is very approximate spreads out the 5 million deaths you quote over 20 years. The UN report you cite is NOT deaths from CO2 or climate change, it is deaths from all the other toxic crap that gets burned up from coal. It does cite 7 million per year, but if that's what the non-CO2 pollution is causing today, I'm thinking the priority should be on that part. Focusing on the very approximate 5 million that might die over a span of 20 years sometime after 2030 seems the wrong focus.

If we want to get off coal, climate change is the least of the reasons to do so. As you've already referenced, 7 million die each year to air pollution, and WHO's estimates expect climate change to kill less than that over a span of 20.

China is probably the biggest body count for excess deaths to air pollution. That said, the crazy amount of coal they are burning has also allowed them to move their economy forward. Since the 30-40 million that died in China leading into 1960, the per capita GDP has come from a 1962 low of $83.33 to a 2014 all time high of $3865.88.

But abject poverty doesn't kill anybody does it? If only they knew that using coal was worse for them than dying penniless in a ditch.

That is in NO WAY a scientific position, it is 100% a POLITICAL position.

Bullshit. Just because it's not phrased in scientific-journal-language doesn't mean its contents aren't scientific. Sure, saying "death" instead of using clean, nice scientific terminology is a different way of putting it, but it is a scientific position, because continuing the thought from the immediate effects to the consequences is necessary.

Coal power plants also provide very cheap electricity.

You might want to double-check it. In my country, coal is only cheap because of hidden government subsidies.

We aren't talking about the seas rising by metres in our kids life times

According to the WHO, we are talking about five million additional deaths from the health side effects of climate change alone.

The UN is talking about seven million premature deaths per year due to pollution.

Google a little for youself and you will find much, much more.

"Your children will die from this shit" is quite an adequate summary, IMHO.

Malaria kills approx. 672k people/year worldwide (WHO: http://www.who.int/gho/malaria...).

Malaria cases per year, also very high in human cost, are much higher in number: 207M. AIDS has about 2x the death rate per year.

Maybe try this out on an island population of anopheles mosquitoes?

--PeterM

Here, for example: http://www.who.int/reproductiv...