we were kling the underpinning ofuh, of theood chain. >> by the 1970s, regulators were rushing to get these organochlorine pesticides off the market because of their persistence in the environment and their ssible linwith birth defects, cancers, eggshell thinning in birds, and other problems. >> along in the late eighties and early nineties, really people started to think, well, we need something that is more targeted. we need chemicals that are not so broadly toxic to everything. and that's really where neonicotinoids came from. the idea was that these chemicals, although highly toxic to insects, are less acutely toxic to mammals, they're less acutely toxic to fish. they also thought, what if we can target them inside the plant? if we can target them inside the plant, this igoing to be better, because the animals outside the plant are not going to be affected. they became popular because they were used as a systemic insectide, so yocould appl it to the seed and it would just be put in e groundnd the ant woultake it as it gws, evenally ging the plant protection from pests. >> they're