We were contacted by Julie of Planet Thrive for permission to turn some of the LBAM spray images we’ve created into eCards. She’s done an absolutely terrific job on these.

Take a look at these informative LBAM ecards

PlanetThrive.com is a community for personal wellness and I’ve gotten to speak to several of the people there - really good people who are utterly opposed to the spraying. I so appreciate them using their skills to turn our graphics into these ecards that you can send to friends, mailing lists you are on, groups you belong to or, even, Governor Schwarzenegger!

Little by little, we are getting the word out there.

First off, have you phoned the governor today? It’s not too late! Call 1 (916) 445-2841 and call on him to stop the spraying.

The Gov
I just got off the phone with one of his reps who initially took the tack that the aerial spray is a harmless pheromone, teaspoons per acre, nothing to worry about. I politely corrected him. The aerial spray will, in fact, add 7 times as much PM10 pollution to our air which is fatal to human beings. I urged them to research Dr. Knepp’s study of PM10 and fatality. The rep stopped trying to shine me on after that and assured me that everything is being carefully researched.

Don’t Miss
And, speaking of Dr. Knepp’s vital data on the terrible, fatal effects of PM10, be sure to catch Joanie Greggains on KGO this Saturday at 8 AM. Her lineup includes Dr. Knepp, John Russo from Stop the Spray, and possibly, our friend Michael Lynberg. These are men with something very important to tell America about our government’s unconstitutional and potentially deadly actions against the people.

A Time To Pray
Whether you pray, meditate, send good thoughts or cross your fingers, now is the time to be doing so for the court case which opens this Thursday, the 24th, in Santa Cruz. I have read all of the documents I’ve been able to find on this lawsuit, and to my layperson’s understanding, this case will hinge on whether the light brown apple moth’s discovery in California constitutes an ‘event’ (as in a flood, an earthquake or other sudden disaster) and is thus deserved of emergency status, or whether it is simply a condition, not deserved of the emergency status that allowed CDFA to bypass CEQA.

Our UC scientists have patiently explained to CDFA and the rest of us that, because LBAM has been here for decades, finding one in a trap is certainly no surprise - therefore, not an ‘event’. But, it’s going to be up to the lawyers to prove this to the court.

April 24th has been a date that is burned on my brain as one of the most key moments in this battle to halt the spraying. If they can win this case, it is my understanding that CDFA will be ordered to comply with CEQA. We really, really need this to happen for the safety of our people and our lands.

So, pray, meditate, do whatever you do when things are at their worst and you are aching to see light outshine darkness.

LBAMspray.com has published this good document listing 4 things you can do to support the HOPE court case which coming up May 8th, 2008 and is also vitally important.

Thankful for You
Every day, I am so thankful for each one of you, for the links you are sharing with me, the updates you are giving me on your activities, the spiritual strength your comradeship gives me in the midst of this chaos. None of us are alone in this.

I recently heard someone say that the only thing worse than scaring people is not scaring them enough in a situation where urgent action is needed to prevent serious danger.

Like me, I know each of you will be plenty scared enough after listening to Dr. Dennis Knepp on KGO Radio.

Dr. Knepp, a statistics and probability specialist, exposes a devastating error regarding the particulate matter in CheckMate and he accuses Dr. Robert Leavitt, Executive Secretary of the EATF, of deliberately misstating the particle size of the spray.

What is PM10?

PM10 is a notation used to describe particles of 10 micrometers or less. It doesn’t matter what they are particles of. It could be plastic, it could be sand, it could be a deadly chemical. Experts say that any matter that is PM10 or smaller is considered particulate pollution and is a cause of potential fatality in human beings.

The Statistics of Spraying 5 Million People

Around the country, there are air sampling stations that measure the PM10 in the air every six days. As an example, on a normal day in Watsonville, California, the ratio of PM10 is 19 micrograms per cubic meter.

In several reports released by CDFA, the public has been falsely assured that aerial spraying of CheckMate would create only minor, negligible amounts of PM10 in the air. However, they’ve made a tremendous error.

Based upon the new calculations done by Dr. Knepp, a single application of CheckMate would increase the ratio to 141 PM10s per cubic meter - almost 7 times as much dangerous particulate pollution!

In an average group of 5 million people, there are normally about 15,000 deaths per year from pneumonia and cardiovascular disease. By adding the deadly burden of aerial CheckMate spraying, Dr. Knepp has calculated that 1400 more of these kinds of deaths would occur within 2-3 days after each spraying.

CDFA intends to spray up to 5 nights a month, 9 months a year, for up to 10 or more years. By my calculation, that is 450 applications of CheckMate over a decade. This means that up to 630,000 deaths could potentially happen over the course of 10 years as a result of fatal contact with the PM10s in CheckMate.

630,000 deaths. Please look for a minute at that number to try to get a handle on the overwhelming potential results of CDFA’s heedless, reckless actions.

As you will hear on the radio show, Dr. Knepp is joined by Dr. Jeff Haferman, who explains that children, elders, and people with chronic illness will be LBAM spray’s first targets for disease and fatality. Those very elements of society which decent people try hardest to protect because of their heightened vulnerability are set to become the commonest victims of this intolerable aerial spraying.

I sincerely hope that OEHHA, CDFA, and our governor are aware of the fact that accountability is being pinned on their shoulders by our respected doctors. How, exactly, does someone attempt to justify causing 630,000 deaths, once they have already happened? One person after another is giving all they’ve got to warn these entities of the unforgivable, criminal health damage that will be caused by aerial spraying. We are ceaselessly warning these people as to the predictable outcomes of their unwarranted actions. We will hold them accountable for every death, for every permanent health injury, for every loss of irreplaceable members of our society. They will not escape the legal consequences of their arrogant and immoral actions.

Our warnings are a favor to them. When Drs. Knepp and Haferman explain what the real results of aerial spraying will be, they are giving CDFA and the governor a genuine opportunity to rethink their plan and save their own futures by halting any further spraying in California.

I want to thank both of these doctors and Ms. Craft of KGO for documenting this vital evidence about PM10 and human fatality. We don’t need one jot more data to be scared enough to put everything aside in order to fight and stop this spraying.

The following letter to Joan Denton and her OEHHA colleagues is published with Mike Lynberg’s permission. Vegan Reader joins Mr. Lynberg in his condemnation of OEHHA’s dangerous negligence and supports his demands that this agency call for a halt to the spraying, step down and apologize for neglecting their duty to protect public health.
—

Joan, Mary-Ann and Mark:

As you know, many citizens and our elected representatives have been highly critical of the two cursory reports you have issued so far on the hundreds of illnesses that followed aerial spraying of California cities by the USDA and CDFA late last year.

Rather than doing a thorough study of the people who got sick, you threw out 90 percent of the complaints and then did a statistical analysis of those that remained. You never met with a single victim or doctor. You made pie charts and graphs, cited studies that confirmed your bias, and then made reckless “no link” statements in the press.

But our criticism has been relatively mild compared to that of Dr. Larry Rose, former Senior Public Medical Officer for Cal-OSHA and part of the UCSF Occupational/Environmental Medicine Department. He calls your lack of deep, professional involvement in this public health crisis “irresponsible and criminally negligent”

Dr. Rose’s statements are directed at all of you, but Mark, as you know, I pleaded with you and Kevin Reilly, then Deputy Director of CDPH, to get CDPH involved even before the spraying occurred. You failed to do so. And Joan, I asked you to meet with the people who got sick and to have “feet on the street” in order to do a thorough investigation, and you failed to do so.

Dr. Rose states that a questionnaire should now be administered to all California citizens impacted by the aerial spraying, and I agree. That would help establish that thousands of people were likely harmed. But I will take his call to action one step further:

1. I call on your agencies immediately call a halt to further aerial spraying by issuing a statement that there are still too many unknowns and that there is substantial evidence that millions of people are at risk.

2. I call on your agencies to step down from further investigating this crisis because the public has lost all confidence in your ability to carry out any kind of unbiased, in-depth look at the injury and harm already caused by the USDA’s and CDFA’s misguided campaign. Further studies need to be carried out by a team of independent experts, perhaps from the UC system, selected and approved by our elected representatives.

3. I call on each of you to issue a formal apology to the people of this state. You have added insult to injury by not taking their illness complaints seriously. You have failed the citizens in this state in a number of very important ways, as described by Dr. Rose in the attached alert. I don’t know if this is criminal negligence, but I do know that it is morally and ethically reprehensible. The citizens of this state deserve better, including the parents of children who were made very sick by the aerial spraying that you’ve failed to prevent.

Do the right thing: Call a halt to further spraying. Issue an apology. Step back from this issue and hand it off to a reliable third party focused on public health and selected by our government representatives.

Sincerely,
Mike Lynberg

Please take action Tuesday April 22nd! Phone Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and tell him he must stop the aerial spraying of California! Call:

1 (916) 445-2841

Aerial spraying without consent violates both the California and U.S constitutions which exist to protect our inalienable rights to safety, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Nothing could be more unpatriotic, un-American than subjecting millions of citizens to a toxic, chronic aerial assault. If any foreign nation attempted to fly planes over our San Francisco, our Monterey, our Oakland, our Berkeley, our Santa Cruz, dropping poisons from the sky on the free people of this land, they would be prosecuted for war crimes. It is our patriotic duty to see that our cherished constitutions are upheld in the absence of correct moral leadership from our elected officials and agencies.

Tell Governor Schwarzengger:
The spraying is opposed by our mayors, supervisors, city councils and other civic leaders.
The spraying is opposed by our valuable UC scientists.
The spraying is opposed by our doctors who sign oaths to protect public health.
The spraying is opposed by the people of California.

Governor Schwarzenegger is our elected public servant and it is his job to carry out our wishes. Tell him the spraying must be stopped at once. Tell him you expect him to serve the people who have made their will ringingly clear.

Read more about the Call Governor Schwarzenegger Campaign.

Dr. Larry Rose, M.D., MPH is a former Senior Public Medical Officer for Cal-OSHA and part of the UCSF Occupational/Environmental Medicine Department. He has published this incredibly important report to inform California physicians and the public about the dire toxicity of the ingredients in LBAM Spray.

From the report:
Checkmate Toxicology
Immediate short term acute health concerns are to be expected from the known toxicology of several of the chemicals in the Checkmate formulation mix and in the polyurea plastic particulate capsule.

Over 643 recorded health complaints were associated with the September, October, and November spraying in Monterey and Santa Clara Counties. These short term complaint symptoms are consistent with known toxicology scientific information of the ingredients of Checkmate (see attached document). These ingredients include irritants, sensitizers, nervous system disrupters, endocrine disruption, allergens, and hypersensitivity induction.

Long term health effects are also of concern due to the known induced mutations and suspected cancer risks of constituent chemicals.

Read Dr. Rose’s Complete Toxicity and Health Effects of LBAM Spray Report

This report needs to be in the hands of every California medical practitioner within the huge spray zone and a copy needs to be hand-delivered to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. CDFA needs to stop calling this witch’s brew of carcinogenic chemicals safe if they don’t want to end up in prison and, if our governor wants to stay in office, he needs to call this chemical assault on the people of California off!

Our heartfelt thanks to Dr. Larry Rose, M.D, MPH, for doing his duty in reporting on the true public health danger he has recognized in the aerial spraying of pesticides and toxic chemicals on the people of California.

——————————

Update:
I also want to include in this post a link to the toxicology study conducted by Richard B. Philp, DVM, PhD, Emertius Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Western Ontario.

If you have yet to read Dr. Philp’s analysis of the grave toxicity of the LBAM spray, here it is.

CDFA has managed to scare the living daylights out of millions of Californians with their bizarre position that it’s safe to spray pesticides on babies, children and adults. Clearly, they’re operating in a different century than the rest of us. It’s the 21st century now - we learned in the last one that people who come into contact with pesticides get sick, get cancer, die slow, painful deaths from poisoning. So, while we’re trying to yank the ag department into modern times, let’s take a closer look at just one of the many toxic ingredients in Checkmate - the pesticide they intend to implant into the skin and lungs of 7 million of us come this summer.

BHT (Butylated hydroxytoluene) Quick Facts

• Used in pharmaceuticals, jet fuels, rubber, petroleum products, embalming fluid
• Banned in Sweden, Romania and Australia
• Illegal to put in baby food in the USA
• Carcinogenic (causes cancer)
• Damages blood, liver, central nervous system
• Prolonged exposure damages vital organs
• A neurotoxin linked to learning disorders and violent, aggressive behaviors

Like you, I’m scared to death that CDFA is backward enough to claim it will be safe to spray this banned carcinogen on every bit of food babies will eat, on babies themselves and on all of us. But there’s something else that’s scaring me about this situation. Let’s take a closer look at that last point on the list.

5985 Violent Crimes in the City of San Francisco
In 2004, there were, yes, 5985 violent crimes in the City, 96 of which were murders. There are 50,000 registered guns in San Francisco - I can’t guess at how many unregistered weapons there are. Despite its reputation as a world-famous tourist destination, San Francisco is a city drowning in violence. 3 people were shot to death there just yesterday, according to the SF Chronicle. They’ve got a critically understaffed 9-1-1 system and I can’t think of a scarier job than being a police officer there - unless it’s being a police officer in Oakland, for which I couldn’t find any reliable crime data.

What do you think about pouring a chemical, a neurotoxin, known to cause strange and aggressive behavior, on San Francisco?

More to the point, what does the San Francisco Police Department think about someone drugging locals with a banned chemical that may make non-violent citizens become suddenly aggressive and may make violent criminals even more crazy?

If I were chief of the SFPD, I’d be standing at the front of the protest against CDFA’s loathsome chemical assault on California and I’d be on the horn to Arnold Schwarzenegger, yesterday, giving him an earful for inviting these people to test neurotoxins on my city.

And Then There Are the Pilots

As with everything else in this misbegotten ‘program’, CDFA has apparently failed to take it seriously that flying uninvited planes over the city may cause crazy people to…well…go crazy. I have been asking and asking this question and am getting no answer. To my extreme horror, I have seen people on Craigslist threatening to shoot down the spray planes. I have no idea if this is fear, bravado or truly criminal intent talking. It’s not really my job to discern that. It’s CDFA’s job, for the safety of their spray plane pilots, to give some thought to whether flying chemical-spewing airplanes over crime-ridden, gun-infested regions of the Bay Area will create lawless mayhem, will possibly lead to people actually shooting at the planes. It’s a picture so horrific, I can hardly put words to it, but here I am, putting words to this again, because I haven’t heard a single person associated with the spraying voice concerns about this. If I were those pilots, I’d be even more freaked out than the police.

Are the pilots armed? What if one of the planes crashes into downtown San Francisco or Oakland? What if citizens think a plane accidentally crashing into downtown San Francisco is intentional - as in a terr***st attack like the one our poor country is still trying to recover from psychologically? Are there ANY emergency measures in place to deal with the potential results of spraying neurotoxins on heavily-armed urban areas? These are real questions, being asked in a tone of bewildered exasperation, because, like everything else in this chaotic undertaking, CDFAs attitude of, “spray first, think about it later” is creating almost infinite potentials for disaster in every direction we look.

They aren’t acting like they get it that they’re intending to carry out an unwanted program, rife with socio-political opposition, in a region of the world that has more than its national-average-share of criminals and unfortunate lunatics. They’re acting as if it’s going to be a picnic, for them, for their pilots, for all of us. Why the obstinate blindness to everything but the goal of spraying? Why won’t they look at any of this, even if it potentially endangers their ‘own’ people?

I don’t want anyone to get hurt, including CDFA’s hired pesticide pilots. We’ve got to get them to call this off now. We’ve got to call off the ‘emergency’ before a real one gets created like none of us want to live to see. We can’t let this happen here. With 450 potential nights of spraying over the next decade, there are too many chances for the worst to happen. It is simply too dangerous, no matter how you look at it.

It is with a stinging sense of irony that 7,000,000 Californians are hearing talk right now about going green and celebrating Earth Day.

The pesticide poisoning of our bodies, our water, our land, our air rules out any chance of creating a sustainable, green California.

If you belong to a club, an environmental organization, are leafleting shopping centers, or are planning to attend any of the many Earth Day celebrations that are happening all over California this month, we have created a flyer for you to print and distribute.

Reducing carbon footprints and changing our lightbulbs may be great ideas, but right now, we are fighting for our lives in California. Nothing is more important than halting the spray before it begins June 1st. Please, print and distribute the following PDF flyer which will call your community to get informed about LBAM aerial spraying and to call Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to demand that he halt the spraying. Nothing is more important than this.

It occurred to me that, while many readers are past masters at searching for the very latest news on the LBAM spray public health crisis we are all trying to fight, others may just be getting familiar with the Internet. I hope this may be helpful advice. Here are 2 ways I search for LBAM spray information.

Google’s News Search

As my arrow in the above image shows, there is a link at the top left of the Google main search page to their news service. Click on this link and it will take you to their news page where you can type in phrases like “lbam aerial spray”, “lbam moth spray, etc.”

However, because Google’s job is to deliver what they consider the most relevant results, this search may yield old news because it became popular (lots of people clicked on it, or it’s coming from an authority source like CBS or things along those lines that are factors in Google’s algorithm by which it judges the relevance of pages). Fortunately, as the image below will illustrate, you can click the little link that says Sorted By Date and it will show you the most recent news, rather than the most popular.

Google’s Blog Search
Have you ever noticed that little link at the top of Google’s main page that says More? Lots of people don’t ever notice that it’s there. The More link opens up a drop down menu of Google’s Vertical Search Options. As you will see, this includes things like Books, Videos, and Blogs.

Simply click the link that says blogs and you’ll be taken to a page where you can type in your LBAM-related searches (lbam spray, lbam moth, etc.). You will be returned a set of blog posts from all the bloggers who are writing about this issue. As with Google News, you can have the posts sorted either by relevance or by date. I like to sort them by date so I can see what is newest. The nice thing about reading blogs is that they represent a chance for you to communicate directly with one other person (the author) who cares about the aerial spraying. You might make an important connection, learn something you didn’t know from the blogger, or leave comments to share what you know with them.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have observed that more and more bloggers are jumping into this, getting the word out to the world about what is happening to us in California. This is so important.

Other Options
Just as you used Google’s vertical search dropdown to access their Blog Search, you can choose the Video option in the dropdown menu. This will take you to a page where you can search for LBAM spray-related videos. Or, you can choose the YouTube option. Google owns both their own video service and YouTube. Or, you can obviously go directly to Youtube.com and search there. The videos from folks like EON and LBAMspray just keep getting better and better. I search to see if there are new ones every day.

Do you have a different way that you are searching for LBAM news, articles or reports that I haven’t mentioned here? Please, share your methods in the comments field.

Dear Whole Foods Team:

This week, I spoke with one of your representatives, Jess, at corporate headquarters regarding a rumor which turned out to be false - a rumor that Whole Foods intended to come out in favor of the pesticide poisoning of the people of California in the light brown apple moth aerial spraying public health crisis.

I was really relieved when Jess told me that Whole Foods certainly hadn’t come out in favor of the spray, but I was pretty surprised to learn that your corporation doesn’t yet feel informed enough about this situation to take a stand. Jess invited me to write to you to share what I know, and I am doing so because I feel that Whole Foods can no longer afford to claim a neutral position in this turmoil.

I will offer you 5 reasons why I believe Whole Foods needs to come out strongly against the pesticide poisoning of the people and state of California.

1) It affects your best farmers. As I’m sure you do know, CCOF, after careful consideration, has announced that it does not support aerial spraying of urban populations. Organics are the reason people trust Whole Foods, and we are depending on your farmers to feed our families. We need you to support your organic suppliers who have been put in a terrible position by the actions of the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the incorrect classification of the moth. Don’t leave your valuable organic farmers hanging out there on their own. Jump in and back them, support them, help them get the moth de-classified. Do whatever it takes to defend and help your precious organic farmers. It looks very odd to California that Whole Foods isn’t leading the fight to defend organic growing practices in California.

2) The spraying will affect millions of your neighbors - at least 7 million Californians and countless tourists, many of whom are loyal Whole Foods customers. We are being treated like the casualties in a war zone here, regrettable but powerless. We have been deprived of our constitutional right to safety and hundreds of families have already been sickened by the unpardonable spraying of Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties in 2007. Whole Foods’ neighbors and customers are being severely damaged by pesticide exposure. We are living in terror here with planes flying over our heads, raining documented carcinogens down on our bodies against the will of our local governments who are trying to protect us from harm at the hands of the State. This is really happening. We have supported Whole Foods in our communities, but if Whole Foods insists on staying neutral, we will understand that you do not reciprocate that support and consider our suffering unimportant to your company.

3) The spraying affects Whole Foods’ staff. Your California stores can expect to experience epidemic pesticide poisoning, resulting in staffing shortages. We do not want to see the good people whom we have come to trust in the Whole Body, Produce, Deli departments and at the registers come down with the horrific short-term illnesses and long-term chronic diseases caused by the documented ingredients in the spray. Aerial spraying of urban populations creates a hazardous working environment for all workers, including Whole Foods’ staff. We are looking to you to protect your valuable staff from this in your 25 stores in Northern California.

4) The spraying puts an end to the concept of organic food in California for any conscientious consumer. Though we have been told by the USDA that farmers can continue to sell produce under the organic label after their products have been aerially contaminated with pesticides, we do not recognize such products as organic. We come to Whole Foods for local or state-grown organic produce and products. As we are certain you must have heard by now, we are asking produce department staff if the products on Whole Foods’ shelves were sprayed with Checkmate in 2007. If they were, we will not buy them. After a long and happy relationship trusting Whole Foods’ products labeled organic, we are being forced to withdraw that trust. After managing our budgets so that they stretch to paying top dollar for organics at Whole Foods, we will lose our motivation to spend extra for food that is contaminated with pesticides and particulate pollution. We are hoping to see Whole Foods take a lead in protecting the integrity of the organic label and demanding that organic farms not be aerially sprayed. Our trust depends on it.

5) As the old adage goes, being silent about a crime is the same as being guilty of it. Numerous lawsuits are now pending in California accusing the state of criminal actions against the people. Spraying untested substances on human beings without consent violates both our state and national constitution as well as the Nuremberg Code. The people of California intend to prosecute our government officials for breaking the law. Whole Foods has created an important and trustworthy public image of supporting public health, fair trade and human rights. If Whole Foods is loyal to national law as well as global codes of ethics, it will be intolerable to them to remain silent in the face of this assault on the people of California. We are your supporters, your customers, your neighbors. We are being assaulted with chemicals known to cause damage to eyes, skin and lungs in the short term and to cause cancers and other diseases. We are being subjected to chronic pesticide exposure which will be enforced on us up to 6 nights a month, 9 months out of the year for up to 10 years or more. We ask how Whole Foods can possibly remain neutral in the face of such a violation of the basic rights of mankind?

If the aerial spraying is not halted, the picture of California will be of sick and dying customers buying carcinogenic food from sick and dying farmers and staff. This is not what we want for our country. We do not believe this is what Whole Foods wants either, but until you examine your consciences and decide what you do want, we are left watching and waiting.

Time is running out for us. In 6 weeks, the spraying will recommence in California. Outraged protest from powerful Whole Foods might save our communities from permanent health damage, so we are writing to you, praying that you will honor the relationship of trust we have all entered into with your corporation when you first opened your doors in our neighborhoods. Please, care about us. We need your help.

For pertinent information, please investigate the following:

Here is an informative town hall meeting video from Berkeley:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4Rlf9vns1uE

Here is an interview with Michael Lynberg, a private citizen who began documenting the pesticide illnesses:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=n7Q6pmLX3po

Here is a CBS news video on the spraying:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1uzxyhnLuyE

You can watch many other videos about this public health crisis here:
http://youtube.com/user/LBAMspray

Here is a document compiled by the Environment and Human Rights Advisory listing 23 Human Rights Violations the spray presents:
http://www.lbamspray.com/00_Documents/2008/EHRA.pdf

Here is a web page documenting the known health damages caused by the ingredients in the spray:
http://hopefortruth.com/

Here is a report compiled by two respected UC scientists documenting the Light Brown Apple Moth in New Zealand and its negligible effects:
http://lbamspray.com/00_Documents/2008/HarderNZReportFINAL.pdf

Here are several websites that are covering the anti-spray people’s movement:
http://www.lbamspray.com
http://www.cassonline.org
http://www.stopthespray.org

This letter has been published at veganreader.com, and our readership will be eagerly hoping for a reply from you. Thank you for your time.