Watch Air Force Major Tim Wilcox explain how the aerial LBAM spraying almost killed his infant son, and join with me in expressing deepest sympathy for what the Wilcox family has suffered. The nightmare of watching their little boy, Jack, become delirious and go into respiratory arrest is one this family will carry with them for life, and the baby is now being kept breathing by means of extremely potent corticosteroids - not something any parent would willingly choose to be giving to a growing child.

Following repeated trips to the ER with baby Jack, Major Wilcox began placing phone calls to anyone he could think of, including Governor Schwarzenegger and his wife. Seven months later, no one has had the decency to acknowledge the permanent damage that has been done to little Jack who is likely to spend his life coping with the debility of asthma.

To my knowledge, not one of any of the other hundreds of families who were grievously sickened by the spray has received a single call or letter regarding the damages they have suffered. We know for a fact that the OEHHA didn’t bother to speak to a single victim or doctor in their ‘investigation’ of the public health crisis caused in 2007 by the aerial spraying of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.

Governor Schwarzenegger and his associates have made it very clear that they do not care about what they have done to this baby or to any of the babies, children, men and women who have been harmed by the profit-driven spraying of California.

In my mind, I have an old-fashioned picture…a picture of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger standing at the throne of grace one day, explaining to God why Jack Wilcox’s hopes for a healthy future were expendable so long as buddies Kawamura and Resnick were happy, wealthy and ,seemingly, above constitutional law. Will any amount of money convince the Great Spirit that pouring pesticides on a baby is reasonable? I don’t believe so.

Try telling Major Willcox that the aerial spraying is safe. I’d like to see Kawamura and Schwarzenegger say this to this man’s face. The Wilcox family have had to become refugees, despite the ’safety’ of aerial spraying. And they are just one family amongst millions who will be sprayed.

The Wilcox’s do have one lucky benefit, however, that so many California’s lack - health insurance. Doubtless, military insurance will help with the ER bills. But what about all of the families without insurance, when setting foot inside a hospital automatically starts adding thousands to your bill? Imagine being an uninsured couple with 5 children, all of whom go into respiratory arrest. Imagine that.

I sincerely hope this heartbreaking testimony of this father will be widely distributed, and may even put an end to newspapers describing the opponents of this egregious abuse as ’some environmental activists.’ That’s hardly a title anyone would use to describe a military man, a father who has watched his baby be poisoned by the government he serves. No, this isn’t about environmental activism. This is about child abuse, human abuse. What is happening here in California is a crime.

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