The following article is printed with the permission of the author, Mike Lynberg, who was responsible for recording much of the data on the adverse health effects caused by the aerial spraying of the Monterey Bay region of California.

Seven Reasons To Be Concerned
By Michael Lynberg

This summer, as the USDA and CDFA recommence aerial spraying densely populated cities to eradicate the light brown apple moth, many California citizens are deeply concerned about the potential health effects of the spraying, and how they and their families, friends and neighbors will be impacted.

They are concerned for a number of reasons. First, the complex chemicals being sprayed on California cities are classified as pesticides and have not been tested for their short- or long-term health effects on human beings, making this an experiment on people without their informed consent, violating internationally accepted standards of conduct such as the Nuremberg Code

Second, last fall, prior to aerial spraying the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas, state officials promised citizens the spraying would be safe. However, more than 600 people complained of getting sick, sometimes severally sick and requiring emergency room intervention. One 11-month old boy almost died of respiratory failure after his neighborhood was sprayed. He now has asthma.

There were hundreds of other heartbreaking stories, too, as you can read in the attached PDF of first-person health complaints. Symptoms included muscle aches, chest pains, dizziness, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, body rashes and eye irritation, among other symptoms.

Third, the USDA, CDFA and pesticide manufacturer only reluctantly disclosed the ingredients in just one of the two spray solutions used last fall, and once the ingredients were disclosed, citizens learned that they included several known toxins that could have caused symptoms like those people suffered – even though California officials said the spray was applied at low concentrations and should not have caused harm.

Fourth, public interest groups in Santa Cruz and Monterey believe the 643 complaints received so far are just the tip of the iceberg because:

* CDFA representatives repeatedly told citizens the pesticides would be harmless; therefore people did not link their adverse symptoms to the aerial sprayings
* There was no single, well publicized system for collecting complaints; instead, citizen groups had to fill the gap in a grassroots, word-of-mouth manner
* Local doctors said they had not been notified or trained to recognize pesticide-related illnesses potentially caused by the aerial spraying
* Citizens reported they could not get short-term appointments with their doctors or could not afford the time or expense of consulting a medical professional
* An Illness complaint was sometimes made on behalf of entire families or four, five or six people, but counted as a single complaint (counting them separately adds about 100 to the total number of people who said they got sick)
* The Governor’s office, which received many calls, letters and messages about the spraying, refused to disclose how many were health complaints.

The aerial spraying is now set to resume in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas and expand to the San Francisco Bay area, where it will impact millions of lives. That is the fifth reason citizens are concerned: many more people could be harmed if they are sprayed with similar chemicals (cities to be sprayed include San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Sausalito and other parts of Marin).

Sixth, citizens are concerned because this experiment on people’s health could go on for the next three to five years, and maybe longer, with aerial spraying occurring every 30-90 days, according to USDA and CDFA estimates.

Finally, citizens are concerned because respected scientists at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, US Santa Cruz and other schools have cast doubt on whether the USDA-CDFA eradication program is necessary, and whether it can ever be effective. They say the apple moth has likely been in California for decades without causing any damage because it is already being held in check by natural predators, and the moth is so dispersed and established that the eradication campaign is futile. People are possibly being put at risk for no good reason.

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