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Comment by wazoox | Hacker News Reader

This article is pretty characteristic of the chemical industry influence trying to muddle the waters.

I've watched recently a conference[1] by several renowned scientists. They affirm that neonicotinoids / neonics are responsible of at least 80% of the decline.

They also affirm that the "merchants of doubt" are working their best to muddle the evidence with things like "there are multiple factors", "it's complicated", "we need more research" etc.

But just like the overwhelming majority of lung cancer comes from smoking, the overwhelming factor in insects decline (and its consequences like birds decline) is PESTICIDES and neonicotinoids in particular.

[1]: sorry, in French : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FQT7b2ExP4 Another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLQKs1KBw9Y

Other articles:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/neonicoti...

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

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> But just like the overwhelming majority of lung cancer comes from smoking

This is true.

It's also true that less than 30% (in Europe as low as 15%) of smokers get lung cancer. [0]

I point this out b/c I always believed that "if you smoke, you will get lung cancer" whereas the data was "if you get lung cancer, odds are it's from smoking"

I wish that more information was presented this way but I also get that if your goal is to stop smoking then saying "smoking == lung cancer" is a better persuasion play than "odds are you won't get lung cancer if you smoke"

0 - https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/resources/position-statem...

Smoking increases your risks for a lot of things besides just lung cancer. I never thought of lung cancer as the only bad outcome of smoking in my impressionable years.

Overall about an half of all smokers die of tobacco-related disease. It may be lung cancer, throat cancer, various digestive cancers, heart attack, aneurysm and all sort of painful diseases. Lung cancer is just the most obvious one.

My neighbour looked like just out of a zombie film complete with rotting, stinking lumps of flesh hanging from the side of his jaw and slime / pus dropping from his mouth for two frigging years (throat and jaw cancer, got fed by catheter for 18 months too). He had to get sure no child was around before getting out, because the view would have traumatized them.

My sister-in-law died three months after retiring of a blazing-fast brain cancer, just a couple of days before Christmas. First symptoms mid-November. At least it was somewhat fast.

Just don't smoke. Don't.

30% seems like a lot!

It is also true that this a 500fold increase in prevalence when compared to the general population.

The 5-year survival rate of lung cancer noticed due to e.g a sore throat is below 10%.

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