Attention:

If you are resident of San Jose or Sunnyvale, California, please take heed.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture is covering your local neighborhoods with extremely dangerous, toxic twist ties which will be applied to trees.

CDFA’s own site has maps of the areas they intend to festoon with these dangerous materials right here.

As you can see from the maps of San Jose and Sunnyvale, the twist ties will be right in suburban neighborhoods, where children, pets, wild birds and squirrels will be playing in, under and around the trees where these toxins have been placed by CDFA.

CDFA is acting without the slightest regard for the health and safety of children, pets and wildlife.

Be advised that animals such as raccoons, cats or squirrels may remove the ties from trees and drop them on the ground around your home where your children may pick them up, directly exposing their skin and eyes to the toxins the orange-flagged ties are coated in.

Contact Poison Control immediately if your child climbs a tree or picks up a fallen twist tie in the twist tie zones shown on the map.

Call Poison Control At: (800) 222-1222

There is additional danger that nesting birds may pick up the ties for testing material and may drop them any where in the region while in flight.

Be on the lookout for these dangerous orange-flagged ties.

Read this article to see a photo of the toxic twist ties.

Read this article for further information about the toxicity and danger of these twist ties

It is a violation of your constitutional right to privacy and safety to have strangers come on your private land without your consent. It is egregiously wrong that CDFA intends not only to trespass on private land, but that they are doing so in order to cover your land with a substance which makes your property toxic and dangerous for you, your family and pets.

I will end this public service warning by stating that there has been some talk this week of being able to legally block CDFA from entering private, residential property. If any of my readers has concrete information about how to do this, I know all of my readers will be very grateful to understand what their rights are and to learn how they can protect themselves from this terribly toxic assault.

As we discussed in an earlier post, CDFA’s toxic twist ties present a serious and deadly threat to our diminishing wild bird populations.

CDFA will put be festooning trees and fences with 250 toxic twist ties per acre of land. Trees and fences - the very places your cat explores and plays.

It is inevitable that cats will discover and investigate the twist ties, playing with them, tasting them and getting the severe irritant on the ties into their eyes, skin and mouths. When animals are injured by toxins, they are more vulnerable to predation, being hit by cars, and other fatal dangers.

We urge you not to feel safe if aerial spraying isn’t happening in your area. San Jose, Santa Barbara and Sonoma are just three towns where these chemical-soaked twist ties are likely to appear within the next couple of weeks. CDFA’s needless, reckless ground-based actions violate your private property by means of trespass, and put your children, your cat, wild birds, squirrels and everything that depends on clean drinking water at terrible, unacceptable risk for chemical injury, chronic disease and death.

Read more about the toxicity of CDFAs ground-based LBAM activities here.

Coming soon - a map of California regions threatened with ground-based chemical, pesticide assault.

Oh-ho, my friends, I have been waiting and praying for this to happen. Dr. Chambers, a retired USDA expert, came out against the aerial spraying today, calling it an inappropriate solution to the presence of LBAM in California. This is exactly what Dr. James Carey (watch video) has been saying all along - that spraying pheromone-pesticides from airplanes will not work. Clearly, Dr. Chambers agrees. I applaud him for his honesty and eagerly invite you all to read the complete testimony.

Read the article here

*Note from Vegan Reader:
We are really happy that Senator Midgen’s moratorium passed today, but are not clear yet as to what it means by ‘proving the safety’. Will this involve the 6-pack Toxicology test, as ordered by the governor, will it involve an EIR, or something else? We aren’t clear. However, one thing is clear…this measure only relates to the aerial spraying and not the other toxic ground programs, and it is also clear that CDFA is still being looked upon as a legitimate party to conduct these tests. Having been convicted by a Superior Court of breaking the law by violating CEQA, CDFA has lost their right to public confidence and we demand that the toxicology and impact testing be conducted by independent, ethical third-party experts who do not stand to make money or gain professional advancement from spraying pesticides on the people of California.

Here is the Measure for Your Review:
——

INTRODUCED BY Senator Migden

FEBRUARY 27, 2008

Relative to the light brown apple moth.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SCR 87, as introduced, Migden. Light brown apple moth.
This measure would request the Department of Food and Agriculture
to impose a moratorium on any aerial spraying that may be a part of
the department’s eradication campaign of the light brown apple moth
until the department can demonstrate that the pheromone compound it
intends to use is both safe to humans and effective at eradicating
the light brown apple moth.
Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, The presence of the light brown apple moth (LBAM), which
is originally from Australia, has been confirmed in 12 counties,
which include Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Marin, Monterey,
Napa, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa
Cruz, and Solano, since its discovery in California by the Department
of Food and Agriculture and the United States Department of
Agriculture in March 2007; and
WHEREAS, The introduction of the LBAM represents a danger to
California’s natural environment and agricultural industry; and
WHEREAS, The United States Department of Agriculture is testing
the efficacy of the aerial spraying of pheromones, a substance that
disrupts the mating of the LBAM, conducted in New Zealand to
eradicate the LBAM, but these tests have not been completed and the
efficacy results of the tests are not known; and
WHEREAS, More than 16,000 LBAMs were found in the bay area and
most of these moths were found in the epicenter, which is Monterey
and Santa Cruz Counties; and
WHEREAS, According to the Department of Food and Agriculture,
aerial spraying for the LBAM is needed in 10 bay area counties and
the department is developing a new formula to use to eradicate the
LBAM, which was not the one used in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas
in 2007, but the department has not disclosed all of the
ingredients; and
WHEREAS, Over 600 health complaints were tallied after aerial
spraying for the LBAM in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties last year,
raising serious questions about the safety of the spray to humans.
During the aerial spraying, the planes doused cities, suburbs, and
rural areas with a pheromone called CheckMate, which regulators
initially said carried a harmful ingredient, and then said it did
not. Moreover, the health effects in the bay area cannot be predicted
because the population includes sensitive groups, including
children, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with chronic
disease; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly
thereof concurring, That the Department of Food and Agriculture is
requested to impose a moratorium on any aerial spraying that may be a
part of the department’s eradication campaign of the light brown
apple moth until the department can demonstrate that the pheromone
compound it intends to use is both safe to humans and effective at
eradicating the light brown apple moth; and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this
resolution to the Department of Food and Agriculture and the author
for appropriate distribution.

I am documenting here the accusations that have been made against the State by some of California’s most eminent doctors and scientists. These words must reach the ears of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Department of Agriculture, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and all other parties complicit in the attempted poisoning of millions of innocent Californians with the LBAM pesticide product, Checkmate.

Dr James Carey, Professor of Entomology, UC Davis and former CDFA panelist

This is an experiment.

Dr. Dennis Knepp, PhD engineering physics, radar communications, statistician

CDFA will double the PM10 in the air each time they spray. Half the particles in this concoction are smaller than 9.8 microns. There was no CDFA testing for inhalation (of the PM10 particles). They have to measure the amount that’s deposited in the air we breathe. There were no inhalation tests. I think that’s what you call an experiment.

Particulate matter is of greatest concern to the elderly and children and people who are the most vulnerable. It gets into the lungs and can cause cardiovascular problems and pneumonia. Let’s say they’re going to spray 5 million people and the spray is going to stay in the air for 270 days each year.
That’s a lot of exposure to PM10. They (CDFA) are going to double the amount of PM10 in the air. Given 9 months of exposure for 5 million people, 141 to 210 people will die due to the 9 months’ exposure. That’s a solid number based on years of scientific studies published in peer review papers from Johns Hopkins University and the Harvard School of Medicine.

If someone were actually murdering that number of people, we would get very concerned and I do believe that’s what the State and Governor Schwarzenegger and planning to do. They would like to do this.

Dr. Larry Rose, Retired Senior Public Medical Officer for Cal-OSHA, Occupational Environmental Medicine Practitioner, UCSF

I reviewed the inerts (ingredients in Checkmate). They’re not just irritants. They’re also a real concern for hormone disruption - estrogenic activity which would affect the risk for many diseases. They also are mutagens which would attack your chromosomes, are genotoxic, and would affect your immune system and risk for cancer, and two of them are suspected carcinogens and cause cancer.

When these microparticles lodge in your lungs and go deep and stay there, you are going to have what we call systemic circulation to all of your vital organs.

The microcapsules are designed to persist for 30 days and I’ve never seen that before in a pesticide. I did research on persistence when I was getting my masters degree in toxicology. One of the first things you look at in pesticides is ‘when can you allow people to go back into the fields after they’ve been sprayed?’ Now, in this case, they are spraying it right on top of people!

I read the 643 reports that Mike Lynberg put together in Monterey. The reactions weren’t just upper-respiratory; they were eye, nose, throat, skin, gastrointestinal and neurological reactions and none of it was adequately followed up on by the Department of Public Health Services and OEHHA. They did no systematic interviews of the people or their primary health providers.

They (the State) use terms like ‘this is stress or people are overly-upset’ and that’s ridiculous. This is no way to treat people who are having serious health reactions. To say they’re going to do some toxicology studies and then it will be okay is ridiculous. They have to, they must, if they take any degree of responsibility at all, they must do follow-ups on all of the people who had reactions and it must be done in a systematic, formal epidemiologic fashion. All plans should be stopped until this is done. I don’t know who is making these decisions and why, but they are very suspect.

The above experts have stepped forward, voluntarily, in an attempt to combat the incorrect and deceitful information that has been authored by the State and promulgated by Governor Schwarzenegger. The pesticide and its poly-urea microcapsule are not safe, and are likely to cause hundreds of deaths. The State must take the 643 health complaints seriously and authorize a real, systematic study of the families who have been damaged by the 2007 spraying. Schwarzenegger’s 6-pack toxicology test is being cited as ridiculous and ineffective.

Vegan Reader joins the people of California in demanding that an independent (non-governmental) board of experts like Knepp, Carey and Rose be part of the review process. The CDFA and OEHHA have lost all credibility and the public has no reason to be confident in any findings they might publish. We insist upon independent, third-party review. As our doctors say, lives are at stake.

——————-
Update
I’m going to keep adding testimony from doctors here.

Dr. Elisa Song, Pediatrician, SF Bay Area

Several illnesses can be linked to exposure to environmental toxins, including asthma, autoimmune illness and autism. And the rates of chronic illnesses in children are disturbingly on the rise. We know children got sick during the spraying last fall, and one 12-month-old boy who nearly died from respiratory arrest and suffered a subsequent attack some weeks later. That boy was fortunate to receive prompt, excellent medical care. Children without health insurance in poor areas of our cities may not be so lucky. A public health system which is already severely strained in most counties will suffer from this increased burden. And the children in my practice, already suffering from asthma and chronic illnesses. will be even more vulnerable to the effects of the airborne spray.

If there is even a plausible doubt that Checkmate could have neurodevelopmental and health effects on our most vulnerable populations, then why would we even consider that risk to our children’s future?

Read Dr. Song’s Complete Testimony Here

——–
Update:
Dr. Russell Blaylock, M.D., Neurosurgeon, Author

There’s a couple of tricks, as I look through some of the material that was put out by the health and ag. departments of California. Number one, they only talk about acute toxicity. This is one the great fallacies - talking only about acute toxicity. They study it for a few days to a week or two and then cut off the study. You’re going to miss a lot of chronic and sub-acute reactions.

The real damaging effect occurs months or years later - not acutely. And, of course, they can write these people off because the longer from the time of your exposure, then they can blame it on other things. The second trick they use is that they say they inform physicians to be on the lookout for effects of this product. All they’re going to have them looking out for is skin reactions and eye reactions. Then, if a doctor sees someone coming in with severe pulmonary problems or sinusitis or neurological problems such as seizures or difficulty thinking, that’s not on the list to look for, so they’ll discount it. So all of those people will be excluded from the final tally of who was affected by this spraying. They do that frequently.

EPA does not permit long term human studies of any type of pestide, which relieves them of any obligation to hear complaints of people who say, “Well a month later, my health has deteriorated.” And they say, “Well, we don’t do long term studies, so we’re not going to record it.”

Once these (health) complications begin to arise, you can expect a litany of lies. They will bring forth their experts to assure you that this has nothing to do with their spraying technique or the chemical they used. The lies will begin to flow like lava out of a volcano. Prepare yourself for that.

They’re essentially medicating and exposing people to toxins against their will.

Listen to a ringing, no-nonsense interview with Dr. Russel Blaylock

This is vital data for anyone living in the areas where the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) intends to use twist ties in their unwarranted ‘eradication’ of the harmless bug known as the light brown apple moth, or LBAM.

It was announced today that a second moth has been found in Sonoma County out near the end of Arnold Drive in Sonoma. This is one of California’s most desert-like regions of alcohol industry sprawl with nothing but vineyards as far as the eye can see. CDFA intends to carry out their twist tie program in Sonoma County, and I believe in Santa Barbara as well. It is likely that these twist ties will be used in many of the ten counties in addition to the aerial spraying of pesticides.

What is the plan?

CDFA intends to place 250 toxic twist ties per acre anywhere that the LBAM is found. 250! They will be placed in trees - the habitat of birds, squirrels, and the playing grounds of children and cats. Anything that climbs trees or perches in them will be in serious danger.

It is the intention of the CDFA to put as many as 30-40 twist ties on private household property wherever they find the moth. They can come onto your private land, without your permission, and festoon your trees with toxic twist ties.

What’s on the twist ties?

The twist ties are coated with a pheromone pesticide called Isomate-LBAM PLUS. The ingredients are similar to the aerial spray compound. Here is the Material Safety Data Sheet for this product. Bearing in mind that Material Safety Data Sheets are prepared by pesticide manufacturers and therefore not very trustworthy, here are several salient points to notice on the data sheet:

1) 33.48% of the ingredients in the twist ties are secret. They do not have to be disclosed to the public because of laws which protect trade secrets rather than public health.

2) The product is being listed as harmful if absorbed through skin and dangerous to the eyes. People exposed to the product are instructed to contact a poison control center and go to a doctor.

3) You are supposed to bring the container for the toxic twist tie with you to the doctor. You will not have the container if you are poisoned by LBAM twist ties.

4) Because 33.48% of the ingredients on the twist ties are secret, your doctor will have no idea what you were poisoned by.

5) The MSDS says that this poison must not be applied to water or areas where water surface is present. In other words, you must not put it near creeks, ponds, coasts, reservoirs, rivers, or any other type of watershed. The sheet says do not contaminate water when disposing of this product. From this, we understand that Isomate-LBAM PLUS twist ties contaminate water.

6) This is an unregistered product that has been approved for use in California only. It has not gone through the normal battery of tests required of registered products.

How could you be exposed to the poisons in the twist ties?

Let’s look at a couple of quick scenarios illustrating how human beings will be exposed to poisons where thousands of these twist ties are polluting the trees.

Scenario 1
Your child or pet climbs a tree and begins playing with the twist ties. Suddenly, you notice this happening. In rescuing the victim, whose skin and eyes have now come into contact with this dangerous substance, you too are exposed to the chemicals. Now you have to make a choice. Are you going to handle the twist ties in order to bring one to your doctor or vet? You are not supposed to touch these toxic objects. What will you do?

Scenario 2
Most counties in California get a lot of rain every year. The rain will fall on the trees, washing the toxins down onto roofs, yards, and anyone who happens to be walking in the area. Once the poisonous ingredients are on the ground, they will leach into groundwater sources and run off into ditches, down street drains, into creeks, etc. The chemicals from thousands of twist ties (250 per acre) will be illegally introduced into the watershed in flagrant opposition to the warning on the product label. This is extremely dangerous.

Wildlife can’t read warning labels

While people living out in the populous Arnold Drive area of Sonoma may be able to read this article, our precious wildlife are being given no warning and no protection from exposure to Isomate-LBAM PLUS. How do you tell a family of deer not to sleep beneath the trees at night? How do you tell migratory birds not to roost in trees during their long flights north and south? How do you tell nesting birds not to use the twist ties as their nesting material? They will, you know. The scrub jays in my yard use everything they can find to build homes for their young. These twist ties will end up in birds’ nests. How do you tell inquisitive squirrels not to inspect and gnaw on these toxic twist ties? How do you tell our endangered frogs not to live in the creeks and ponds where CDFA has created a toxic chemical disaster?

The answer is, of course, that you cannot tell the birds, animals, and insects. I intend to begin looking into the Migratory Bird Act and the Endangered Species Act to see if there is any option available for protecting the world’s threatened wildlife from further chemical trespass.

It is also important to note that one of the ingredients in the twist ties, (E)-11-Tetradecen-l-yl Acetate, is a synthetic pheromone designed to disrupt the life cycle of the light brown apple moth. However, at least 13 other leaf-roller moths create the natural pheromone that this chemical is a mimic of. Therefore, we can expect these twist ties to adversely affect populations not only of the LBAM, but of many other equally harmless local moths. This is so unacceptable!

Last of all, I want to remind people that moths are a major food source for birds, bats, and frogs. Birds, bats, and frogs are crucial guardians of our environment. They consume billions of insects annually, keeping insect populations in proper balance. If you are afraid of mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile virus, birds, bats, and frogs are your best friends.

It is with absolute horror that I realized that the aerially-sprayed CheckMate was toxic to aquatic life and was responsible for killing hundreds of birds. These are the very creatures in the environment that prevent overpopulation of one insect or another. When the environment is healthy, an abundance of birds, bats, and frogs keep nature in excellent balance.

But what will happen to the birds, bats, and frogs who are eating the moths being affected by this chemical compound on the twist ties? The answer to that vital question is that nobody knows. No one has bothered to study what will happen to the food chain once acres of land have been blanketed in chemical twist ties. It seems like an obvious thing you’d worry about, but with their characteristic and criminally-negligent haste, CDFA has failed to offer any studies on this crucial subject.

Lack of testing and data is making it unclear to me exactly what will happen to the wild birds and animals who touch and consume these twist ties. However, there is one thing that is for certain. Animals who are unwell are immediately at greater risk for predation. For example, if a cedar waxwing like the one in my illustration were to get Isomate-LBAM PLUS in its eyes and because of this, it couldn’t see well (and obviously would not be able to wash its eyes), its ability to hide itself from predators, and protect its young will be severely lessened. It may risk death from starvation or exposure to the elements simply because it has been poisoned or harmed by the chemicals on the twist ties.

As a person whose life has been immeasurably enriched by tree-dwelling creatures like birds and squirrels, I urge you not to think of toxic twist ties as a good alternative to aerial spraying. Unfortunately, many people living in zones where only ground applications are being done are feeling relieved that no aerial spraying is set to happen. I urge you not to have a complacent attitude about these ground-based actions of CDFA’s, which will fill our environment with dangerous and unwarranted chemicals.

The bottom line is that the light brown apple moth has done zero damage to agriculture, and does only negligible cosmetic damage to leaves. It is not a threat to agriculture, native or ornamental plants. Everywhere else in the world that it lives, it is considered a forgettable bug.

We do not need to do a single thing about this moth. We do not need a single aerial application, or twist tie. We do not need stingless wasps or permethrin-coated telephone poles. Our environment is already laden with a burden of pesticides and synthetic chemicals that are causing epidemic illness in people and wildlife. We need to tell CDFA that we are already overrun with toxins. Their inexcusable, experimental chemical actions are not acceptable.

I urge you to get your local Audubon Society, environmental group, neighborhood, or any other community to which you belong to read the Material Safety Data Sheet for the toxic twist ties and to demand that CDFA not be allowed to poison your neighborhood with their unnecessary chemicals.

Why does California need impartial third-party review of the spraying of pesticides over our people and homes?

A poll has just been taken of EPA scientists. The findings? Some 900 of them have reported political interference in the functioning of their agency. Read these 2 astonishing (yet weirdly unsurprising) articles:

From the LA Times

From UCSUSA.org

Every one of us has witnessed the terrible corruption that allowed the people of Monterey and Santa Cruz to be experimented upon with a carcinogenic, mutagenic pesticide which filled their air and their lungs with PM10 pollution, causing hundreds of families to fall ill.

The EPA poll sheds light on what is happening here. Corporations have come to own our politicians, our government, and are being allowed to re-write laws, reports and documents so that their own economic aims are served rather than public or environmental health.

The point is clear. We need experts like these to be involved in the review process that will now determine whether Checkmate or any other pesticide is safe to spray on babies, on children, on adults. We need Daniel Harder and Jeff Rosendale, Larry Rose and Dennis Knepp, Nan Wishner, Robert Leavitt and James Carey, none of whom stand to make millions off the spraying of California’s people, to be in charge of an impartial, truthful review of the pesticide. These are respected scientists, doctors and statisticians who have said ‘no’ to corruption and ‘yes’ to protecting the American people. These are the individuals who deserve to be in charge of the review.

After reading about the incredible corruption of the EPA, after watching CDFA and OEHHA fail miserably in their duties to protect public health, don’t you agree?

Vegan Reader celebrates with the people of Santa Cruz their courtroom victory over CDFA!!!!

We have been so grieved by the illness and harm your families have suffered.

Even if the victory is only a temporary one, even though we now must contend with the potential for corruption of the EIR report, justice has triumphed here and we praise the judge, the lawyer and the people of Santa Cruz for ensuring that truth won the day!

We sincerely hope that the Monterey/HOPE lawsuit on May 8th and the pending Bay Area lawsuits will fare as well.

Within hours of the ruling, all of California experienced a second victory in Gov. Schwarzenegger’s statement that testing must be conducted before spraying resumes.

And now, we must begin to agitate for third party review being part of the testing process. We need a panel of our UC scientists, impartial doctors, statisticians and specialists to be part of the EIR. Leaving it in the hands of CDFA and OEHHA is likely to result in corrupt and self-interested findings. Let me show you a problem:

“I am confident that the additional tests will reassure Californians that we are taking the safest, most progressive approach to ridding our state of this very real threat to our agriculture, environment and economy,” Schwarzenegger said.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is not supposed to be confident that tests will prove the safety of the spray. That is biased language. The purpose of scientific testing is to prove whatever the truth is, not to confirm a bias, prejudice or pre-conceived belief that something is safe. Until the results are in, a true scientist makes no claim as to what the results will be, lest he skew the results in favor of his own opinion rather than leaving everything open to an impartial, concrete finding.

Millions - likely billions - of dollars in funding are riding on the EIR ‘proving’ that pesticide and PM10 is ’safe’. Because of this, it is imperative that the testing be done by professionals who do not stand to receive any money from the spraying. Without this safeguard, we have learned to expect corruption that rules in favor of money rather than public health.

So, that’s our next move, as I see it. We need to get honorable people involved in the testing process.

But, let’s all take a moment first to rejoice, to pray, to give thanks for this brief reprieve and this hopeful sign that truth can still triumph in the face of tremendous adversity. HOORAY for Santa Cruz today! HOORAY for California!!!

Hello, friends.
Just a short note to let you all know, I’ve been very unwell the past 2 days and ended up in the hospital early this AM, possibly due to pesticide exposure from vineyard spraying.

However, I want you to know, I came home to the news about the Santa Cruz ruling and I celebrate with all of the good people there. I was moved to tears hearing this. I have much more to say, but am not up to saying it right now. Please, keep working! I will return as soon as I can. Send some good thoughts my way, if you have a moment. It’s been a rough couple of days.

Mim

Greetings, Friends.

We have put together a presentation for your viewing and use.

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