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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.
Nothing shaky about it. The science was well done and replicated all over the world many times.
That is thoroughly debunked right wing nonsense. DDT was never banned for vector control, not even in the U.S. It is still used in malaria endemic regions for indoor residual spraying, which, unlike aerial spraying with adulticides, is actually effective for mosquito control. Spraying Naled is theater.
well, the article does mention "aerial spraying".
There's also this quote "It’s aerial bombing without any sense of being able to lay the chemical down on the target,” but that comes from a lwayer and not a scientist.
My guess is they hit the targeted mosquitoes just fine, but they also hit the bees and who knows what else.
Sure, did you tell yourself that about lead in gasoline and smoking cigarettes too? What else do you believe is "shaky science" that really isn't.
DDT is shakey science because indoor spraying in smaller concentrations has since been shown to have no ill effects on the environment. The initial science was wrong, overblown by the hippie movement, and poor application of DDT in mass outdoor spraying.
Maybe we should just keep our women indoors.
And wrapped in a burqa.
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