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Aftermoth: A Legacy of Pain and Ethical Considerations About Spraying Untested Chemicals on Californians

After they made hundreds of people sick on the Central Coast, and nearly killed at least two children, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Secretary A. G. Kawamura of the CDFA are changing tactics and no longer aerial spraying highly populated cities with untested pesticides. For that, residents of Northern and Central California are grateful.

They were wrong about the public’s willingness to be aerial sprayed. Now, if only the Governor and Secretary would realize that they are also wrong about the threat LBAM poses.

To read Kawamura's statements in the press, you would think that the light brown apple moth is so voracious that New Zealand, where it has been established for 110 years, would be a barren landscape, with no surviving plants.

Yet New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, and parts of the United Kingdom consider the apple moth to be an insignificant pest. The United States’ trade embargo and policies related to LBAM are the only things that do significant damage, and the damage is economic. The crusade against the apple moth is a political charade.

In his characteristically misleading way, Kawamura likes to say the apple moth was discovered in California in 2007. That might be true. But leading entomologists say there is no way the moth could be spread out from Los Angeles to Napa, over an area of 10,000 square miles, unless it has been here for at least 30-50 years. The moths only fly a short distance in their lifetime.

Scientists also note that the moth has caused no damage anywhere because it is the same as many other leaf-rolling species already in the state, and is probably being controlled by natural predators.

Two courts in Monterey and Santa Cruz have ruled that the state’s LBAM eradication campaign was launched under the pretense of a false emergency and therefore has been illegal. Governor Schwarzenegger and Secretary Kawamura have been willing to defy and break state environmental laws, in the opinion of two judges, who found there is no evidence of any damage caused by the moth in California.

Therefore, the self-proclaimed “People’s Governor” and his appointee, Kawamura, have been willing to put people at risk by breaking state law. With appalling arrogance and for no good reason, they have rushed to use an untested biochemical mix that included plastic microcapsules that people breathed in and that affected their body systems in a variety of terrible ways. Children were harmed. Two nearly died. That needs to be remembered.

The state’s investigation of the hundreds of illnesses was cursory, inconclusive and flawed because it was based on false information provided by the pesticide manufacturer, which claimed the microparticles in the spray were too large to inhale. Thanks to work done by independent scientists, we now know that is not true, and that half of the microparticles were small enough to become lodged deep in a person’s lungs.

In effect, the aerial spraying was a vast experiment on people’s health without their informed consent. No one knew in advance how the spray’s ingredients would impact people’s health, because no inhalation studies had been done, and the pesticide was delivered in the air people breathed. We still do not know the long-term effects.

Standards of ethics such as the Nuremberg Code, created after the atrocities of World War II, prohibit such human experimentation. Yet Schwarzenegger and Kawamura don’t think there was anything wrong with their actions, and they would likely still be aerial spraying pesticides on our cities if there were not so much political, legal and public opposition – and moral outrage.

Now Schwarzenegger and Kawamura want to continue their poorly conceived and poorly managed program on the ground, using a variety of techniques to eradicate a moth that experts say is harmless and cannot be eradicated. Will the ground-based measures be safe? The sterile insect technology sounds promising, but based on their legacy of pain, people have a right to be worried about other next steps the Governor and Secretary might take.

Before they can even begin to regain the public’s trust, both the Governor and the Secretary need issue an apology to the people they have already harmed, and they need to show that they are truly listening to experts who express concerns about whether their program is safe, necessary and effective. These independent experts need to have a stronger voice and be part of the process, beginning now.

Mike Lynberg of Pacific Grove collected hundreds of complaints of illnesses following aerial spraying in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas. He sent a report on the illnesses to state agencies and elected officials, and the illness complaints have been widely reported in the press. He works as a communications consultant in Silicon Valley, and has written 10 published books.

Posted on June 25, 2008

Comments

Beautifully stated.

Posted by: David Dilworth at June 25, 2008 09:00 AM

Read what the American Lung Association says about particulate matter like that in the aerial spray:
http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=50324
and
http://lungaction.org/reports/sota07_basics.html

Posted by: mike lynberg at June 25, 2008 09:21 AM

"Never has any pesticide program been so thoroughy and deservedly damned by practically everyone except for the beneficiaries of this 'sales bonanza'. It is an outstanding example of an ill-conceived, badly executed, and thoroughly detrimental experiment in the mass control of insects, an experiment so expensive in dollars, in destruction of animal life, and in the loss of public confidence in the Agriculture Department that it is incomprehensible that any funds should be devoted to it."
Rachel Carsson about the fire ant eradication campaign in the 1950s.

And I thought "eradication" sounded so war on terror! Turns out what we experience here on the Central Coast today is only the most recent example of a long, painful and dangerous tradition that started after WW II.

Just like the Light Brown Apple Moth the fire ant is non-native, has been in the US for decades without posing a threat to crops and yet in 1957 was suddenly made subject of a remarkable publicity campaign to establish the reasons for massive aerial spraying. The fire ant is still around after 50 years of "eradication".

In that same chapter in Silent Spring, Carsson describes the horrific fall-out after aerial spraying for the gipsy moth. During the phone conference with environmental groups last Thursday, when asked if he could imagine a situation that would still warrant aerial spraying, Kawamura named the gipsy moth (also still around after 50 years of "eradication").

Yet history only repeats itself if we allow it to do so. So many people, ordinary citizens like the amazing Mike Lynberg, have been awakened and show no sign of moth fatigue. We will not tolerate this injustice to go unrepented and work towards lasting change.

Posted by: Isabelle Jenniches at June 25, 2008 11:07 AM

Thank you Mike Lynberg for compiling over 640 ill health complaints where people filled out your form in such a short time.
If he could get an amazing amount in a short time, if this survey had been done by the health department they would have found not hundreds, but thousands of people who got ill from the spray. Only, the health department was not filling out the OEH600 required forms for pesticide related illness, due to the CDFA calling the pesticide spray a safe pheromone.
We experienced another Silent Spring, all of us crying for help were not heard during the crop plane dusting of people with that toxic cocktail in Monterey and Santa Cruz county as it was happening for a couple months.
Three still is no crop damage from the LBAM. There is no emergency. Before we get hit with the next attack of chemicals against this moth for no reason, we must stop by declassifying this LBAM as horrific as they make it sound.
By doing so, we can forego fighting the next attack of splattering of toxic goo on 8-feet up on trees and telephone poles, ground spraying, and/or toxic twist ties that we are now threatened with. Untested chemicals on humans is just plain wrong. An E.I.R. should never be bypassed because of an emergency. The health of the people should never be put last. When EPA review health complaints, they did not contact those 600+ people but only complained themselves that the information was not what they needed to complete a full report, and therefore, made it appear to the regular public that they had found nothing.
thanks for listening

Posted by: chilipepper at June 25, 2008 12:46 PM

Truth telling at its best. Thank you, Mike Lynberg. The CDFA "eradication" program for LBAM is a sham and a waste of taxpayer money. LBAM needs to be reclassified based on its actual biology and lack of threat to agriculture. We are told that reclassification "takes too long". Apply sufficient political pressure and you'll be amazed at how quickly it can be accomplished.
Jane Kelly

Posted by: Jane Kelly at June 25, 2008 02:22 PM

Great post, Mike! Thanks for all your hard work and passion on this issue.

I think the only "bugs" that need eradication are these eradication programs!

What bug will be next? Why can't we invest these hundreds of millions of dollars into education, organic farming, and permaculture programs? The CDFA could still have their job security, the rest of us our health, and the farmers can make a good living selling organic at higher margins. And the organic label won't become meaningless (as it is becoming now with the USDA handing out exceptions for victims of their eradication programs.)

Let's declassify the moth!

Posted by: kevinkrejci at June 25, 2008 11:46 PM

It was so wonderful to finally read an honest, truthful article on this subject that was direct and told it like it is. He didn't mince words and I especially liked how he boldly stated the facts and cited Schwartznegger and Kawamura for accountability. I wish we had good coverage like this in San Francisco.

Mr. Lynberg is to be commended!

Posted by: Pauline Oetzel at June 28, 2008 07:38 AM

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