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US Beekeepers Fear For Livelihoods As Anti-Zika Toxin Kills 2.5M Bees (theguardian.com)
A new report suggests that an insecticide sprayed from airplanes to kill mosquitos carrying the Zika virus may in fact be killing bees, since the "fine mist" is "beaded with neurotoxin." Earlier this week, one beekeeper posted a video showing thousands of dead bees heaped around hives. Meanwhile, South Carolina hobbyist Andrew Mache wrote in another Facebook post that he had lost "thousands upon thousands of bees" and that the spraying had devastated his business. The Guardian reports: "The program head, Dr Mike Weyman, said that though South Carolina has strict rules about protecting pollinators, country officials were using the neurotoxin, Naled, under a clause exempting them in a 'clear and public health crisis.' South Carolina's protocol for Zika infections is to alert local officials of a carrier's residence, which they 'consider a ground zero,' Weman said. Local authorities then target the local mosquitos in a 200-yard radius, in this case with spray. Experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and independent universities say Naled is far safer than other chemicals. It breaks down rapidly and, in the very low doses at which it is prescribed, should not pose a risk to humans. 'In Louisiana, we use these products quite frequently to reduce mosquitos, but we don't see many non-target effects, because the doses are really small,' said Dr Kirsten Healy, a public health entomologist at Louisiana State University. 'A lot of people don't realize that we always have the environment in mind. We try to have products that have the lowest possible impact.'" The report adds that bees and other pollinators "contribute an estimated $29 billion to farm income" around the U.S.
Much of this fallout is because they sprayed during the day. If they had sprayed at night, a) they would have hit more mosquitoes since they're active then, and b) they would have affected fewer bees since they don't forage at night. Does anyone know why it was done during the daytime?
I am not sure everyone understands that we totally depend on viable bee populations for our own survival. We're abstracted from it but it's real. Plants --> Animals -->People eating. ^ System cut off at the knees by destabilizing bee population, a process that's already started so more pressued isn't the right input.
DDT could save millions of lives. We tossed that to the side because of shaky science. Now we have Zika and that fix is killing bees.
So do we go back to ddt? Or just suffer the effects of Zika?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
... and Kill. The. Goddamn. Mosquitoes. At. The. Genetic. Level.
Wipe them out.
Wipe them ALL out.
The beekeepers are saying they were never given any warning of this, so there will certainly be lawsuits in the pipeline and the spraying will stop.
Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.
...will they have to spray areas with Naled to keep Zika at bay? It's not like this will be a on-time fix, is it?
And yet some people think we can wipe out, with surgical precision, just the Zika-carrying mosquito species ...
#DeleteChrome
The pinball head children.
1. Create and deploy insecticide causing birth defects in Brazil to create a panic over Zika
2. Create and deploy insecticide that kills mosquitos and bees and spray it over apiaries in America
3. ???
4. PROFIT
The business model was based on the movie Goldfinger, except Bill Gates is Goldfinger.
Oh yeah and we need more dangerous young black male superpredators. At this point, what difference could the truth possibly make?
Hillary 2016
Government... Hillary 2016.... LOL
...FUCK YEAH!
This laser is all we need to kill 'em all .
Uh... did they test it on other, you know, non-mosquito insects? Have they had their fingers in their ears for the past decade and didn't hear about declining bee populations?
This insecticide might not have a direct effect on humans. But the secondary effect of not having any damned food just might turn out to be rather important.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
If you need food, then just uber over to the grocery store. FFS, why steal it from the bees?
All this level of non-sense extra care means nothing gets done and more people suffer. Just take care of it already!
There goes our food supply. Anti-natalist movement wins.
No, we don't. Many crops can self-pollinate, including most of our staples like wheat, corn and rice. Honeybees have been on the decline for decades anyway, meaning there's already been a lot of research into alternative insect pollinators.
Furthermore, I don't think the areas where zika has been detected or is in danger of spreading are especially known for being the breadbasket of America.
Kill them all. If you want a more selective technique, start pushing back against the anti-GMO psychopaths who mindlessly complain about sterile insect technique and various gene-based approaches. What is not reasonable is adopting The Guardian View that the best thing for us to do is stop trying to mess with nature and just accept that a lot more of our babies are going to be born with tiny heads.
Agent Orange breaks down rapidly and, in the very low doses at which it is prescribed, should not pose a risk to humans. 'In Vietnam, we use these products quite frequently to reduce Crops, but we don't see many non-target effects, because the doses are really small,' said General A. Nonymous, a public health Military at Louisiana War Department. 'A lot of people don't realise that we always have the environment in mind. We try to have products that have the lowest possible impact.'"
aaaaaaa
The word "toxin" is misued all the time. Toxin = toxic compound produced by living organism. Zika toxin would be something synthesized by the Zika virus or by Zika-infected cells, which makes the story title rather nonsensical.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
We shouda built a wall and been more careful about who we let in the country. If only someone had been wise enough to suggest that.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I'm afraid you've misunderstood my point. I wasn't clear enough. I'm talking about the system not a particular species or even all the species we cultivate for mass. My point was that further disrupting an already stressed key species can have massive impacts. They are not an ordinary species, they're pollinators. Many components of this system rely on the edifice that they form part of the foundation of. We don't know the effects of continuously attacking a key species. Yes, we're always attacking and they're on a back foot. We can choose to stand down or escalate. If we escalate we should at least look at what we are doing and make the decision understanding exactly what bees are and the role they play in the system.
While you're at it, be sure to kill the kudzu. It is responsible for just as many cases of zika transmission in SC as the mosquitoes (that is, none).
they reproduce too damn fast, and with their rapid lifecycle comes the development of resistant strains.
Now, what we do know (I learned this in junior school!) is that mosquitoes breed in stagnant water.
How about a mechanical control method, that's been proven to work? DRAIN THE POOLS, PUDDLES, OPEN SEWERS, AND ANY OTHER BODY OF WATER WHICH DOESN'T FLOW! Problem SOLVED!
(Fuck Monsanto et al whose business depends on shifting ludicrous amounts of the nastiest chemicals known to exist).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Grasses don't need bees, but a lot else does so drop these off your grocery list or at least look forward to reduced yields and higher prices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And you do you the toxin doesn't just kill European Honeybees, don't you?
You don't have to be an expert in epidemiology to understand that this stuff is much easier to prevent if you fight back in the early stages instead of waiting for the new organism to become established. If mosquitoes are beaten back long enough for the virus' life cycle to be broken, the virus will cease being transmitted and die off in that area of the world.
What you just said is akin to going back in time and saying "kudzu isn't a problem!" while there are just a couple plants in the wild in North America.
Seriously, what is with all of the neo-Luddites on Slashdot these days? You have a four digit ID so... have you lot aways been here trying to convince us of the errors of our ways? I can understand arguing for technique Y over technique X but a lot of people are just callously saying "oh no, we shouldn't do X because [insert ridiculous hyperbole, myth and/or stupid analogy here]."
Because it sure doesn't kill birds.
Honeybees aren't a "key species." They are non-native to North America. You also said "already stressed" but the CCD phenomenon has been limited (from my understanding) to honeybees, not native bumblebees or other native pollinators. I'm sure you're perfectly well-intentioned here but it's getting quite depressing to watch this ignorant Captain Planet neo-Luddite nonsense get modded up again and again on an ostensibly pro-science website, especially on an issue that requires clear thinking and quick action like the current Zika outbreak.
So, let's be absolutely clear here: Yes, CCD is a problem for honeybees and honeybees are often used by humans for pollination. However, honeybee species are native to Europe and Africa and perhaps parts of Asia, but not the Americas. The way in which they're used in modern agriculture is actually rather unnatural. Saturation pollination involves, from my understanding, moving so many beehives into an area that they're basically forced into some kind of low level starvation mode so that they become less picky about the flowers they visit. This maximizes yield for the farmer and allows for the creation of a more desirable monofloral honey. Please realize that if a limited number of agricultural honeybees are accidentally caught in some mosquito spray (and yes, 2.5M is actually quite limited), absolutely nothing is affected in the local environment and there are so many bees used by farmers nationwide (we're talking about bees that have been intentionally bred by beekeepers, not naturally occurring bees) that a few million dead here and there due to increased mosquito spraying is of no significance.
Furthermore, a large proportion of our staple crops (rice, wheat, corn, oats, etc.) do not depend on insect pollinators of any sort, and of the ones that do depend on insect pollination there are usually multiple species that are up for the task. Yes, the honeybee has fallen on hard times lately but even if every honeybee in the world was killed, there's definitely not going to be any sort of famine and no plants native to North America would die off as a result.
If you have an argument that anti-mosquito spraying is badly harming some other native pollinator then please, let's hear it. But first let's talk a bit more carefully about all of this, and please let's double-check our facts since the Luddites are out in full force arguing against every single technique, basically arguing that it's better to allow our babies suffer lifelong, debilitating conditions than try to check this Zika outbreak while it's still in its early stages.
For example of what I mean by talking carefully: Even if someone did find evidence that certain forms of spraying is severely affecting a species we care about, please take note that there are many different types of mosquito control chemicals and some of them target only the water-based larva stage that (among North American insects) is largely unique to mosquitoes.
There have been ZERO transmissions of zika in SC. None at all. Not even once. Are you seeing the trend? That means there is no cycle to break in SC. If it doesn't exist, you can't break it.
SC has also never been a site of outbreaks of dengue or any other diseases carried by the same mosquito.
That being established, a better technique would be to spray people bringing zika back home with them with insect repellent so they don't introduce zika to the local mosquito population in the first place. If they feel they must use insecticides, they could use ground spraying to limit the coverage to just around the victims' homes.
Amusingly, Kudzu was introduced deliberately (over the objections of people you call neo-Luddites) to control soil erosion.
I am no luddite, I just don't believe that ham fisted bumbling by politicians who want to appear to be DOING SOMETHING about THE PROBLEM is a good answer to much of anything.
I have heard of sprayings like this before and it amazes me every time. Can the US government really spray pesticides (or other chemicals) over private property without the owner's consent? Such a thing would be unimaginable in most other countries.
Do you realize how many people have to be infected by Zika for a positive test result to show up on the radar? Even with aggressive testing it will be in the hundreds. You can't stop this through tentative half-measures.
If they feel they must use insecticides, they could use ground spraying to limit the coverage to just around the victims' homes.
Wow. Just... wow. Are you trolling me? I just stared at the screen for 45 seconds solid, trying to come up with a more polite way of saying "nobody could be that ignorant." Mosquitoes can travel, and people (such as those infected) can travel much, much farther than the mosquitoes. And as I've already explained, for every person sick enough with Zika to go to the hospital and be tested there will be hundreds (possibly thousands) more who only feel mild symptoms. Pregnant women may not know they were ever infected until after they've given birth.
How about this, if you "feel" that we shouldn't use insecticides then why don't you provide a reasonable data-driven argument why we shouldn't the compares the negatives of relatively short term spraying vs. reasonable projections of permanent mental retardation caused by Zika over the next 50 years? The burden of proof is on you to show why an aggressive response isn't desirable, since every new infection (known and unknown) in a mosquito-prone area increases the reservoir for the virus and makes it that much harder to eradicate.
If you really despise 'teh chemicals' so much, without differentiating between the different ones available (for example, some are designed to only prevent larva growth in standing water and have little to no effect on other insects), might I suggest you have a word with all of the crazies opposing sterile insect technique and genetic mosquito control efforts? I fully agree that those would be more desirable and, if deployed on a large enough scale, probably more effective. But most of the loudmouths I've seen have been more concerned with sticking their head in the sand than suggesting actual alternative solutions.
I've no idea why I bothered typing all of that. I've just replied to someone who doesn't understand or care about the reservoir effect of insect vector-bourne diseases, doesn't understand or care about how hard it is to measure the spread of Zika and even appears to believe that some kind of extremely localized insecticide applied only around the residences of those known to be infected would be effective.
That's like discouraging condom use among everyone (tested and untested), except among those who have received a positive test result for an STD. Except stupider, because AIDS doesn't have a willing carrier vessel capable of flying miles away.
s/AIDS/HIV
I know 2.5 million seems like a lot, but I visited what seems like a relatively small family-run bee operation on the weekend who claimed they had over 24 million bees. According to numbers I can dig up quickly, 2.5 million bees is about 50 colonies out of 2.5 million colonies in the US.
It's definitely a problem, but it's a bit more reasonable to talk about how many colonies were destroyed rather than number of bees, since that's how other statistics are tracked.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
If they have sprayed for mosquito's before they should have protocols in place to protect bee keepers colonies.
I mean the liberals were sure to blame those evil white people for bringing disease to the unspoiled Americas. Why not the same logic when brown people bring disease to the USA. There is one standard when the media is concerned. It is that all white people are evil. It was evil white people who killed the noble American Indians with small pox. It is the evil white people who did not do enough or did too much to fight the Zika virus. If a white person gets sick it is because their weak ass white immune, developed in a sea of white privilege, could not cope with a lowly simple virus. If a brown person gets sick it is because the evil white race spent it's time racing yachts and eating caviare instead of spending money for basic research to stop the disease. If they do stop the disease they are guilty of insecticide against bees. White man's burden is an awesome terrible thing.
There's a quote that is often attributed to Albert Einstein (not sure if this is correct or not) but it's entirely relevant to the article:
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
The idiots responsible for this disaster want their arses kicking. Hard.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Much of this fallout is because they sprayed during the day. If they had sprayed at night, a) they would have hit more mosquitoes since they're active then, and b) they would have affected fewer bees since they don't forage at night. Does anyone know why it was done during the daytime?
Or they could just not spray since zika is in reality a fairly minor problem that gets WAY too much press because it affects fetuses. Many who are infected aren't even aware of it. Scary but compared to something like malaria it's a very minor problem with a mosquito vector. So they've turned a comparatively minor public health issue into a major food chain issue with a stupid overreaction.
We have tons of self-pollinating crops, and last I checked, bees didn't live underwater in places like the ocean, where food literally swims around.
We do have self pollinating crops including some critically important ones. However there are a ton of crops which ARE pollinated by bees. This includes many very important crops including most fruits, lots of vegetables and lots of feed for livestocks. 35% of food crop production and 60% of food crop species are animal pollinated with bees being a critical part of that.
Bees are hugely important to our food supply and economy. Could our species survive without them? Yes but it is no understatement to say the consequences of losing bees would be enormous. Between 60%-80% of flowering plant species are animal pollinated. The loss of bees would result in hundreds of billions each year in economic damage and a drastically altered food chain and ecosystem. You almost cannot overstate the seriousness of the problem.
So frankly, yes if we have the choice of sacrificing a few children for the greater good of securing a diverse and healthy food supply and ecosystem then it's an easy choice. It would be hugely immoral to allow bees to go extinct because of a few birth defects.
As a side note, the oceans do not have sufficient wild food to support current human population levels. Fish stocks around the globe are already under stress from over fishing. That argument is both glib and irrelevant. Claiming loss of pollinators is not a problem because we can fish is like saying we don't need grocery stores because we can hunt. The argument is ridiculous.
The whole concept of trying to contain Zika in the first place is ludicrous. We're seeing dead bees now and who knows what tomorrow... and stopping Zika? It's simply not going to happen. We can't wipe it out in any of the countries it has now established itself and we're just going to keep getting reinfected. It may be stopped temporarily in one place, but then it will pop up in another. It's not going away. Are we going to spend billions every year doing goodness knows what to our environments to try and stop an inevitable threat.
Here's the deal with Zika. IF you're not a pregnant woman- it's really not that bad. Not only should we let it spread- we should probably introduce it to our children (if we can come up with a vaccine even better, but as mild as Zika is, it may not even be necessary). Let them build up resistance before they get to child-bearing age themselves. In Zika's native range there is no problem with microcephaly because everyone has exposure to the disease before they get pregnant. We need to be working on doing the same rather than spraying pesticide like crazy in a region every time Zika appears.
It's far cheaper and much more common sense to inoculate the populace one time rather than spend billions each year trying to contain it. Yeah, sucks if you're trying to get pregnant now- we need to take special care of our pregnant women, extra education, extra shielding from potential infection- but it makes far more sense to deal with Zika just one time rather than battle it continuously from now until the end of time or it overruns us naturally and perhaps in ways we're not prepared to deal with it.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The infinite wisdom of the scientific community that they can do no harm strikes again.
Just as the Greens are being forced to accept nuclear power if they want to kill off carbon, they will be forced to accept GMO mosquitos as a better alternative to pesticide spraying.
The GMO technique kills off one selected species. That is incredibly difficult to do with an insecticide.
Why would they do this if they haven't tested it over years to see potential reactions? No, let's just fuck with nature on a massive scale and see what happens...
Was Kirsten misquoted? Shouldn't it have BEEn:
'In Louisiana, we use these products quite frequently to reduce mosquitos, but we don't see many non-target effects, because the victims are really small,' said Dr Kirsten Healy, a public health entomologist at Louisiana State University.
The problem is that the lazy sprayers did it in the day. When the bees were out.
It is a known fact that to spray at night (when mosquitos are plenty active) will kill them and not hit the bees in their nests.
From TFA:
South Carolina’s protocol for Zika infections is to alert local officials of a carrier’s residence, which they “consider a ground zero”, Weyman said. Local authorities then target the local mosquitos in a 200-yard radius, in this case with spray.
Now, can you explain again how treating the infectees with mosquito repellent would be any less effective than the poorly targeted spraying?
But do read the rest of TFA first so you don't make an ass of yourself again.
I think that a 200 yard radius of concentrated spraying around known cases is a reasonable supplement in a larger scale campaign. If that's all they're doing, then they're morons.
Make an ass of myself? I never said the good people running SC aren't for the most part drooling morons (I've actually seen a significant stack of evidence to the contrary, firsthand.) I said that your prescribed plan, which specifically excluded all spraying except immediately arounding the victims' houses ("limit the coverage to just around the victims' homes"), was extremely dumb.
What's it called when you pretend that someone wasn't talking about your proposal, but was instead talking about the proposal of a third party? Uhhh... "inverse strawman" maybe? I don't think there's an official name for that particular informal logical fallacy of debate. I do believe you just invented a new one.
Congratulations.
But on the side note, if this was all some kind of miscommunication, then I'm happy we're in furious agreement.
Aw, bless your little heart, South Carolina. I guess the fools here are going to teach us how food gets made.
No, I claimed that SCs current actions were unnecessary and useless. When you demanded an actual solution, I suggested repellent and limited spraying. You then went nutz claiming I am against 'teh chemicals' in spite of my statement that repellents and perhaps limited spraying should be used (last I checked, both of those involve chemicals). It seems your mind was made up and you took offense at my confusing you with facts.
Tell me, when a fly lands on your TV, do you blow it away with a shotgun or do you prefer a more measured response designed to minimize the risk of damaging the TV?
A few things you might want to consider before responding:
I stated that there have been no SC outbreaks of dengue, which is spread by the same mosquito, even though there have been cases of dengue in SC, brought in by people travelling abroad much like zika. This suggests that environmental factors in SC are not as conducive to mosquito borne illnesses as Fla. and Brazil.
Since you advocate an action that has already been proven to be harmful, the onus is on you to show that it is necessary and that it will do more good than harm.
There is no agriculture without pollinators.
Mosquitos are a food supply to fish, birds, and other insects. They transport microorganisms and are a necessary part of the lifecycle for many organisms. What will happen to these other organisms if we "kill off" mosquitos as you put it? Zika isn't even that bad if you're not pregnant. We should finish developing the vaccine and use repellent, nets, and drain standing water in the meantime. Look at what happens every single time humans disrupt native populations of wildlife: unintended consequences.
What on Earth are you babbling about? DDT is still in routine use outside of the US including in Africa. Google it.
Just FYI, DDT is banned in the US, not in other countries. It is routinely used to combat malaria across the world.
There are thousands of species of mosquitoes, only a few of which transmit disease among humans. The ecosystem will have no trouble filling in for those few mosquito species that, like Aedes aegypti, are not even native to all the places where they have followed human colonization.
Several world health experts are already predicting that Zika will become a worldwide phenomenon if it keeps spreading at the current rate, due to the widespread distribution of aedes egypti. I don't particularly give a shit about dengue or other diseases in the context of this debate (except that they form an even more convincing argument that in addition to short term spraying we really need a long term plan to eradicate aedes egypti with sterile insect techniques and gene splicing, which are extremely safe and pose no danger to the environment whatsoever given that aedes egypti is an invasive species.)
Zika is much different than dengue or other a. egypti vector diseases because it is much milder and the harmful effects are delayed so it is much harder to track it until it's too late. It may also end up being more virulent or transmissable among aedes egypti. We're not yet sure. We can't be sure, until it's too late to nip this in the bud.
Tell me, when a fly lands on your TV, do you blow it away with a shotgun
No, but I also don't conflate "shotguns" and "every single insecticide ever made". You do realize that among North American insects with wide distribution, no other insect has a water based larva stage utilizing little temporary pools of stagnant water like mosquitoes do? There's every reason to suspect these small pools can be targeted with chemicals that 1. do not affect other insects and 2. will be diluted to inconsequentially small concentrations in larger bodies of water.
I think that broad spectrum insecticides that are highly effective against adult form mosquitoes are completely appropriate for hotspots around known cases and larvacides not known to be especially toxic to other life forms should be used liberally everywhere there are humans present (I'm not sure on the status on these. They might be somewhat toxic to amphibians, but if there aren't any known endangered species in an area I'd say it's worth it regardless) until the Zika reservoir appears to have burnt itself out (a big question here is whether any non-human animals are going to be effective reservoirs) and/or until a vaccination or major aedes egypti eradication campaign can be started.
What's your counterargument? Be conservative even though we know the reservoir still exists and that the pesticides aren't known to be particularly dangerous to humans and risk allowing this thing to go global before we have countermeasures? (Forgive me for being USA-centric but I think there's more international travel here than in Brazil.) I can crunch some back of the envelope numbers on this if you want, but I somehow doubt you're interested in an actual cost/risk/benefit analysis.
We don't even know the extent of the damage in Brazil yet. They suspect that the known cases of microcephaly (which is a very loose percentile-defined diagnosis) are only the obvious ones; there appears to be brain damage in some non-microcephalic infants and who knows, even the apparently healthy ones might end up having their intelligence a bit stunted. We won't know until 15+ years from now, when researchers can test the mature IQs of everyone born to a Zika-infected mother. This could turn out to be a phenomenon like leaded gasoline, something that silently dragged down the IQs of hundreds of millions of people for decades before anything was done about it.
But no, forget all of that. Let's focus on the real problem here. It's absolutely imperative that we cater to some extra-cautious pseudoscientific crap that says that the environment and/or humans will be horribly, permanently traumatized by locally spraying a little more of the same insecticides that have been in steady use for decades.
It's "already been proven to be harmful" that every single anti-mosquito chemical ever made is detrimental to humans or the environment? Yeah, try again. There's no a priori reason to suspect that a chemical targeting the water based larva stage, for example, would have any bad effect on other insects or humans except to the extent that predators that heavily depend on mosquitoes for food might go a bit hungry (but only in the areas being sprayed, which constitutes a small fraction of all land area.)
Not that water-system spraying is the issue here, what with the spraying here being more for adults, but you should really look up the history of pesticide regulations a bit more. Marine contamination is a serious and real problem, and you should not be so indifferent about it.
No, but I also don't conflate "shotguns" and "every single insecticide ever made". You do realize that among North American insects with wide distribution, no other insect has a water based larva stage utilizing little temporary pools of stagnant water like mosquitoes do? There's every reason to suspect these small pools can be targeted with chemicals that 1. do not affect other insects and 2. will be diluted to inconsequentially small concentrations in larger bodies of water.
You are incorrect, dragonfly larvae are also water based and like the same conditions mosquitos do. Dragonflies are a significant mosquito predator.
I think that broad spectrum insecticides that are highly effective against adult form mosquitoes are completely appropriate for hotspots around known cases and larvacides not known to be especially toxic to other life forms should be used liberally everywhere there are humans present (I'm not sure on the status on these. They might be somewhat toxic to amphibians, but if there aren't any known endangered species in an area I'd say it's worth it regardless) until the Zika reservoir appears to have burnt itself out (a big question here is whether any non-human animals are going to be effective reservoirs) and/or until a vaccination or major aedes egypti eradication campaign can be started.
Amphibians in North America are in decline for unknown reasons. They tend to be susceptible to insecticides. They are also a significant mosquito predator. Meanwhile, there are no zika reservoirs in SC, so consider those imagined reservoirs burned out.
What's your counterargument? Be conservative even though we know the reservoir still exists and that the pesticides aren't known to be particularly dangerous to humans and risk allowing this thing to go global before we have countermeasures? (Forgive me for being USA-centric but I think there's more international travel here than in Brazil.) I can crunch some back of the envelope numbers on this if you want, but I somehow doubt you're interested in an actual cost/risk/benefit analysis.
We were talking about measures in SC. Perhaps you forgot. There is no reservoir there.There have been no cases of zika transmission of any kind in SC.
Did you know that the insecticides in use in Brazil are also suspected of causing neurological damage to a developing fetus? Many insecticides are. We are very much in "shotgun territory" here.
As for A. Aegypti, I support eradication so long as it is specific to the species (such as releases of sterile males). It's an invasive species.
It seems that I'm not quite as obsessed with SC as you. If you are going insist that the conversation cannot be widened to non-SC cases, then I'm going to insist that we limit the conversation even further to the 200 yard spraying in question: This one specific incident is not big enough to matter. I don't give a shit. You shouldn't give a shit. Other aspects of this discussion do matter, like the hysterical falsehoods that are *still* modded up to +5 insightful, which I was initially replying to when you chimed in. Or perhaps you forgot?
I may have been wrong regarding dragonfly larva. Seeing as how they would be eliminated in tandem with mosquitoes though, it seems hard to justify any claim that this would significantly disrupt the wider ecology. If you've evidence that larvicides affect dragonfiles worse than mosquitoes, please present it.
A. egypti needs to be eradicated everywhere it can be found, native or non-native. If you value insect life more than human life, then that is a fantastic reason for me to no longer continue this conversation, but as I've already established in the first paragraph the extremely narrow focus you've insisted on taking here isn't worth pursuing in the first place.
Also, you really must explain your magical powers of disease detection to me. It seems like it would be pretty useful ability have. Or perhaps it only functions with very mild, exotic diseases that people rarely go to the doctor for and is even more rarely tested for?
Anyway, congratulations on being able to certify that there's no Zika in SC. I'm sure WHO will be thrilled to know.
I cannot imagine anything less productive than changing or broadening the subject in your oen mind without giving any indication. Otherwise, presume everything I said is in reference to the common cold and see how stupid your comments would look in that light. Why do you think the common cold threatens IQ huh? Ar you crazy?
See? Doesn't really work
As for eradicating A. Aegypti, considering I advocated for doing just that, I'd have to say your motive in this conversation is driven by a need on your part for me to be "wrong" even if I agree with you. I see no need to continue given that.
Again with the broad, hand-waving conflation. There is no single chemical labeled "pesticide." Different chemicals have differing risks and different levels of appropriate use.
The bottom line is the likely cost in dollars and human suffering from Zika, if it's not contained, is staggering. (Maybe not as staggering as malaria, but it's pretty bad all the same. It's not like the tropics need another lifelong debilitating disease to deal with.) There are long term solutions (vaccines, genetic and sterile insect techniques to specifically eliminate the non-native a. egypti species) but the only sane short term option is aggressive containment and hope we can wipe out the reservoir before it becomes established and self-perpetuating. Failing that, we can at least slow down the spread a bit so that we have more time to prepare the long term solutions.
It's not like this is the first time any of these chemicals has been used, and it's not like we're blanketing vast swathes of sparsely populated land. The potential downsides of erring on the side of too aggressive, over the course of the next year or two, clearly outweighs the potential downsides of erring on the side of not aggressive enough.
The WHO does know. I am relying on their information. You have simply reinforced that you have some odd psychological need for me to be wrong no matter what I might say (even when I agree with you). How sad.
The original subject was a bunch of hysterical lies about honeybees being a keystone species (instead of being non-native invaders heavily exploited by farmers in rather unnatural conditions) and that if we lost them we might lose our food supply (instead of the truth, that most foods would remain unaffected but a few fruits and vegetables might go up in price until a suitable replacement pollination organism or system was discovered.)
I responded by debunking this insanity (and that poster has turned out to be very gracious and reasonable, though his original post is still modded up) and emphasizing the very grave dangers of Zika as opposed to the petty and imagined grievances of the overeager Planeteers around here. And your response to this has been: SC SC SC SC SC SC SC. Ok, fine. Yes, I think that SC should be included in as part of an aggressive short-term campaign to contain and hopefully eradicate the Zika reservoir while long term solutions are pursued. I think that SC is less important than FL, but it's still important because it's not *that* far away and people move around all the time and this disease is extremely difficult for authorities to accurately track due to its mild nature. And I think that your magical powers that allow you to determine there is absolutely no Zika in SC are not entirely convincing.
More centrally, I think it's more important to err on the side of being too aggressive vs. not aggressive enough. Do you disagree here? I'm possibly willing to have my mind change if, for instance, there is an endangered species in the affected area that might be driven to extinction with even one or two years of heavy spraying. In the absence of such evidence, in terms of temporary and localized damage to the ecology using existing well-tested insecticides, I think there is very little to worry about and I think the concern for this potential transient, localized damage that many slashdotters are displaying is highly misguided, because this disease could very well affect millions of people if it keeps spreading.
Precautionary principle. First, kill the goddamn bugs and the virus; second, worry about the frogs and the native mosquito species. Lies modded +5 insightful need vigorous debunking. Do you find that any of that is unreasonable of me?
The WHO doesn't know. Please show me a quote where they've make a confident, definitive statement that there is no Zika in SC, and I'll show you a moron or someone who misquoted his superior.
This is insanity. This can manifest as nothing more than an extremely mild fever. And I would venture a guess that at least a thousand people drive from FL to SC every day.
I don't know you and I don't have any psychological need for you to be wrong... it's just that you are insisting that you KNOW something that cannot possibly be known.
This isn't like HIV. It's transmitted both sexually and via insects that are freakin' everywhere this time of year. I was bitten twice yesterday just going to the mailbox. Even a single case of Zika in SC, just one person who didn't even notice the slight fever they had a couple nights ago, is enough to seed a new outbreak.
Here.
I will make a small correction, there was ONE case of sexually transmitted Zika. I suppose if the couple had been sprayed with insecticide before they had sex, it might have spoiled the mood...
That was just an acorn. The sky is doing fine.
That was just an acorn. The sky is doing fine.
And so are the frogs and bumblebees.
(Or at least, they're not significantly worse off than they were at this time last year.)
On a slightly less glib note, you might want to read The Tipping Point. As I recall, it explained how early HIV epidemics were in some areas provably seeded by just one or two individuals.
If you don't understand that the situation is even more precarious with Zika, which has mild symptoms and is much, MUCH more easily transmitted than HIV, then you do not understand the first thing about epidemiology. And for that matter, neither does anyone at WHO who claims to confidently know that there is no Zika in SC.
If the sky does indeed fall, neither you nor the WHO nor Netcraft will be able to confirm it until it is too late.
On a slightly less glib note, you might want to read The Tipping Point. As I recall, it explained how early HIV epidemics were in some areas provably seeded by just one or two individuals.
You should read some of the books and articles about the hysteria over HIV/AIDS. The Wisdom of Whores. The AIDS Pandemic. Others pointing out the poorly handled response.
There may be harmful Zika hysteria somewhere in this country that's doing real damage but here, in this little discussion on slashdot, the only hysteria in sight is among people who do not understand the first thing about the environment, agriculture, epidemiology, or the wisdom of taking very small and very sensible temporary precautions (using chemicals that have already been widely used and studied for decades) while more data is collected and longer term plans forged.
I'm not going to go out and read that book just yet, so maybe you can send a few spoilers my way: was the problem that they were using too few condoms? Was that it? Was the problem they were testing blood too thoroughly before it was transfused?
Or, you know, was the hysteria just a problem of ignorant laypeople not understanding how it was transmitted, when in this case we already know for a fact that Zika has been transmitted both sexually and via mosquitoes?
There may be harmful Zika hysteria somewhere in this country that's doing real damage but here, in this little discussion on slashdot, the only hysteria in sight is among people who do not understand the first thing about the environment, agriculture, epidemiology, or the wisdom of taking very small and very sensible temporary precautions (using chemicals that have already been widely used and studied for decades) while more data is collected and longer term plans forged.
I think you need to look harder, or perhaps, with a clearer eye, there is plenty of hysteria around on all sides of this discussion. You may just be turning your eyes away from that which you think is supportive of your agenda without really scrutinizing it. I will grant this discussion is likely doing no real damage, but that's true of most of the Internet's discussions, not just Slashdot's.
Fortunately. Places like Congress are another matter, but they seem to be shitting things up in other ways.
I'm not going to go out and read that book just yet, so maybe you can send a few spoilers my way: was the problem that they were using too few condoms? Was that it? Was the problem they were testing blood too thoroughly before it was transfused?
Or, you know, was the hysteria just a problem of ignorant laypeople not understanding how it was transmitted, when in this case we already know for a fact that Zika has been transmitted both sexually and via mosquitoes?
I think you'll find that the problems with the hysteria over AIDS/HIV was far more expansive than that. It wasn't simply a problem of ignorance over transmission, except maybe in the early beginnings, of laypeople or professionals.
I don't think either covered the controversy over blood donations in particular detail though, if you are interested in that, I'd have to look for other titles.
This is not the first pesticide dilemma for honeybees.
Many US farmers are using neo-nicotinoid pesticides that cause Colony Collapse Disorder (which kills colonies).
The EU has already banned them. US politicians are successfully lobbied by big pharma to ignore the ramifications.
There are also a list of other colony-weakening pests that have arisen over the past 10-12 years here in the US: varroa mite, American Foulbrood, Nosema, European Foulbrood, Chalkbrood, hive beetle, etc...
Adding the Zika pesticide the way it was used is a truly irresponsible thing to do.
How do we educate our peoples and judges to consider SCIENTIFIC facts?!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
I don't have an agenda. I'm against people who have agendas, at least in the sinister pro-delusion sense that you're using the word.
The environment is important and babies' brains not being fucked up is important. But in this case, the tradeoff between the two things is laughably lopsided. There is no current or probable insect holocaust. Any severe damage that it might do has already been done decades ago. Everything I can see indicates this would represent a very small blip on the radar. I'd be more worried about endangered amphibians than insects. The bugs will bounce right back if they're even harmed to begin with (i.e. much of the spraying can or could be larvicides, which the vast majority of insects are immune to)... but if you show me a highly endangered amphibian in the target area and I'll concede we should try to avoid mass spraying in that particular area. Sure. That's fine. But anything beyond that is idiocy. And I don't consider anti-idiocy to be an "agenda" any more than my breathing is an "agenda".
That said, I did manage to miss the pro-DDT post when I wrote that. That old chestnut is very, very dumb... but still only a tenth as stupid as claiming that we need to stop killing agricultural honeybees because if we don't, North American ecology will collapse and we'll all starve to death. A sentiment that at least half a dozen people have echoed around here. And there are three, count them THREE horribly incorrect assumptions built into that assertion.
The key point here, which maybe some people just aren't realizing, is that across the southeast there are hundreds of towns where the mosquito truck with flashing yellow lights, belching a fog of pesticide, is a regular occurrence. It came by like twice a month or something during mosquito season in the city where I spent part of my childhood. And my parents indicated that these trucks had been there doing the same thing long before I was born.
So if you're worried about these chemicals, whatever they are, fucking up the environment near major population centers... that ship has sailed. And it's unalloyed idiocy to claim that NOW is the proper moment for those trucks to be mothballed. If you want to abolish or tone down the use of pesticides, the proper way to do it is 1. Not in the early stages of an epidemic and 2. By campaigning for safe and species-targeted genetic technology to replace them.
Very few people around here seems to be getting either of these points, and as geeks I expect better of them.
Saw an interesting documentary on tv about an ancient ruins that were once one of the largest and more thriving ports in the Roman Empire. It was never really conquered or sacked or anything due to its location but eventually just ceased to exist.
The problem it was postulated was that the river mouth that it was situated on naturally continued to silt up. While the port kept dredging and moving the mouth of the harbor further away, it produced a lot of swampy areas. Those swampy areas became breading ground for mosquitoes and subsequently Malaria. After multiple catastrophic malaria outbreaks over many years, the people just moved on to greener pastures as it were, leaving the city slowly but eventually totally abandoned.
Getting rid of a lot of standing water is something you can do in some cases, but when you have major population centers next to a wetland, swamp, etc... there isn't much you are going to do about it.
I don't have an agenda. I'm against people who have agendas, at least in the sinister pro-delusion sense that you're using the word.
Sinister? No, more like in the sense of awareness that such things lead to compromised analysis, and you've just admitted to an agenda right there. And denying having one is actually more sinister, as it were, to me. You should instead admit to your agenda, and carefully weigh it to see where it might lead you astray.
The environment is important and babies' brains not being fucked up is important. But in this case, the tradeoff between the two things is laughably lopsided. There is no current or probable insect holocaust. Any severe damage that it might do has already been done decades ago
Well, there's two considerations to that. If we have been doing damage, perhaps we can stop adding to the damage, or even correct. For that matter, it is also possible that we can also do something different, that creates more damage. See MBTE for an example.
But anything beyond that is idiocy. And I don't consider anti-idiocy to be an "agenda" any more than my breathing is an "agenda".
Anti-idiocy is very much an agenda, though a diverse and contradictory one, it's actually been a long-running undercurrent in many discussions over more than a century, and quite a few fictional works have been built upon it, as well as real world action. Sometimes that action has been well well-meaning, but a failure, sometimes well-meaning, and somewhat successful, and sometimes downright tragic in all its forms. I'd advise you to admit to the agenda and to examine the history of it.
As for breathing? It very much could be considered an agenda, even a deliberate one, as any number of techniques exist that I'd consider to be intentional methodologies.
That said, I did manage to miss the pro-DDT post when I wrote that. That old chestnut is very, very dumb... but still only a tenth as stupid as claiming that we need to stop killing agricultural honeybees because if we don't, North American ecology will collapse and we'll all starve to death. A sentiment that at least half a dozen people have echoed around here. And there are three, count them THREE horribly incorrect assumptions built into that assertion.
Yeah, people get worked up over that sort of thing, bees are very popular, and treated as quite important, even beyond their actual value. The same issue came up with the "Killer Bee" scare back in the eighties and nineties. That said, there ares lesson to be learned from history, the Four Pests Campaign, DDT, and small-scale events beyond counting.
And there are people who freak out over even the slightest suggestion of some regulation or management principles when it comes to pesticides or chemicals, one of their favorite bits of snark is the Dihydrogen Monoxide bit. I'm surprised it didn't crop up here.
So if you're worried about these chemicals, whatever they are, fucking up the environment near major population centers... that ship has sailed. And it's unalloyed idiocy to claim that NOW is the proper moment for those trucks to be mothballed. If you want to abolish or tone down the use of pesticides, the proper way to do it is 1. Not in the early stages of an epidemic and 2. By campaigning for safe and species-targeted genetic technology to replace them.
Oh my, no, it's not a recent thing people have been concerned about those trucks for years, as well as the long-term build-up of pesticides in the environment. It is not actually new.
Not everybody went "Ok, we got rid of DDT" and went about their business. There's been a lot of watching and examination of the process.
Yeah, it may seem like incidents like this are what's driving it, but nope, these are just the ones that make the news. Actually covering the long and boring process? Not going to happen. Doesn't sell papers.
Very few people around here seems to be getting either of these points, and as geeks I expect better of them.
You are likely to be disappointed then. Especially as the US election day approaches.