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South Carolina County Sprays for Zika, Kills Honey Bees
As Found here:
Following cases of Zika in the area, the county dispersed insecticides through aerial spraying using aircraft. They did not notify local populations, leading to the mass death of area bee keepers' entire population of honeybees.
This seems especially bad, given the context of continuing decline in bee populations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder
Common Dreams reports
Millions of honeybees are dead in Dorchester County, South Carolina, and local beekeepers say the mass death was a result of the county spraying the area with the controversial pesticide Naled on [August 28] in an effort to combat Zika-spreading mosquitoes.
[...] A single apiary in Summerville, South Carolina lost 2.5 million bees in 46 hives, according to a local resident [...] Kristina Solara Litzenberger.
[...] "Without honeybees, we have no food", Litzenberger added. "Additionally, one can only deduct that if that much damage was caused to the bees, how will this affect people, wildlife, and the ecosystem?"
Beekeepers are supposed to be warned prior to any pesticide spraying, so that they can cover their hives to protect them. But local bee owners say they were not given any warning about Sunday's spraying, according to the local news station WCBD--and this was also the first time the community was subjected to aerial spraying, rather than spraying from trucks.
[...] Naled is a particularly dangerous pesticide, as the Miami Herald reported earlier this month:
Several studies suggest that long-term exposure to even low levels of Naled can have serious health effects for children and infants as well as wildlife, including butterflies and bees, for whom exposure can be lethal. Some studies suggest it might have neurological and developmental effects on human fetuses, including on brain size, echoing the severe consequences that eradication of the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries the Zika virus is meant to prevent.
[...] The EU banned the chemical's use in Europe in 2012.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:02AM
Mercola is a fucktard asshole who made his money selling tanning beds (aka cancer boxes). He even had the fucking gall to claim that "tanning beds decrease melanoma risk." [mercola.com] The FTC levied $5M in fines on him for that bullshit.
NOTHING that shit head says should ever be trusted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @12:55PM
You must not have heard that adequate vitamin D helps prevent cancer, which is why tanning with the right wavelengths (UVB, which Mercola sells) is indeed good for you because the benefits outweigh the risks.
"Higher levels of vitamin D correspond to lower cancer risk"
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160406165254.htm [sciencedaily.com]
A lot of people who die of melanomas get them where the shun does not shine. Explain that.
https://smarttan.com/news/index.php/more-sunlight-related-to-lower-melanoma-risk-in-new-study/ [smarttan.com]
That said, it is best to get you vitamin D from natural sunlight. Typical tanning beds don't have the right spectrum (too much UVA) and pills that supplement vitamin D may still not fully provide all the beneficial reactions sunlight makes happen in the skin. Two problems with using natural sunlight are that people don't get enough these days with indoor living and also people bathe every day so the natural skin oils where vitamin D is created from UVB get washed off.
Whether for bees or people, the further we get away from the natural environment we are adapted for (whether absence of sunlight or presence of synthetic neurotoxins in pesticides or lead in gasoline), the more likely we will suffer ill health from it.