Bob wrote:
> Systemic MAN MADE Nicotine in a lab (which are not made public due to privacy concerns) will not wash off fruit and produce.

Comments:

 Neonics mimic the effect of nicotine in the tobacco plant: they make it poisonous to insects. Many plants produce toxins to protect themselves, and many of these are highly selective in what organisms they can kill. Very low doses of nicotine itself seem to be relatively benign to human beings. Smoking it is another matter and many of the longterm effects are no doubt due to the method of ingestion, and the *larger doses*. 

> The overall prevalence of green tobacco sickness (GTS) was 47.0% among tobacco workers. However, from viewpoint of severity it can be considered as mild acute nicotine toxicity, which is relieved without medication. No significant difference is observed as regards to chronic health effects among tobacco workers and control workers. FROM: "Acute and Chronic Health Effects Due to Green Tobacco Exposure in Agricultural Workers." J.R. Parikh, et al. 2005. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE 47:494–499

The fact that neonics are MAN MADE does not automatically make them more harmful than natural nicotine. Many natural products are synthesized in labs, because it's CHEAPER. Botanical nicotine was used for at least three centuries. Unfortunately for tobacco growers, there are insects that feed on tobacco. Therefore the quest began to find  a more refined form that would kill bugs like the tobacco horn worm. This effort produce the first generation of nicotinoids, such as Nithiazine. The second generation of compounds were dubbed the neo-nicotinoids and began with imidacloprid. Imidacloprid is remarkabley similar structurally to natural nicotine and interacts with the same receptor sites in the insects. In the early testing of its effectiveness, the honey bee was used as the "guinea pig", so its effect on honey bees has been known from the start. None of this is "secret". 

> Imidacloprid can be regarded as the analog of nicotine with an additional feature. In brief, they are relatives. However, the selective toxicity between mammals and insects is quite different. Imidacloprid is _really safe and excellent as an insecticide_, while nicotine is more mammalicidal than insecticidal. Both nicotine and imidacloprid shared the same level of intrinsic activity but imidacloprid was 12 times higher in insecticidal activity than nicotine. The superiority of imidacloprid resulted from non-ionization, higher hydophobicity, and thus penetrability to the target site. FROM: "Nicotinoid insecticides and the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor." By Izuru Yamamoto, John E. Casida. 1999. Springer-Verlag 

Pete

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