Today the latest LBAM video went up on YouTube (I check every day!) and this is certainly the most professionally put together film I’ve yet seen. You won’t want to miss this:

LBAM Spray True Accounts Documentary.

This video does such a good job of reaffirming that the people who have been injured by the spray are REAL people - just like you, just like me, just like A.G. Kawamura. If I had my way, I’d require him to site down and watch all of the 20-odd videos that have been created around this public health crisis. Who can look at those toddlers rolling on the grass and not say, “no, no, we can’t poison these little ones?”

*Also, if anyone attended the Berkeley meeting tonight (Apr 8), we have been so anxious to hear what the results were. Please, if you were there, use the comments field of this post to tell us all what happened. Thank you!

Please, take a moment to write to the following office holders in the city of Berkeley:

mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
lmaio@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
dmoore@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
manderson@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
spring@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
lcapitelli@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
olds@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
kworthington@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
gwozniak@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
manager@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
attorney@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
publichealth@ci.berkeley.ca.us,
envhealth@ci.berkeley.ca.us,

Tell them that you support Don’t Spray California’s Resolution which is the strongest possible resolution, standing in opposition to the whole toxic program of aerial spray, twist ties, ground spraying, toxic traps and the coating of trees and telephone poles with permethrin.

You can read the whole resolution here:
http://forum.stopthespray.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=701

Please email the above people by Monday afternoon as this resolution will be presented at the Berkeley City Council Meeting, Monday, April 7th, 2008. This will influence Berkeley’s lawsuit against the state of California. It is very important that you let these officials know you support the strongest possible resolution so that CDFA doesn’t have a loophole to keep poisoning us even if the aerial spraying were to be successfully halted.

If you can go to the meeting, please do. Here is the information:

TIME/LOCATION: Expected to be heard about 8 pm; at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Heart St., at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, about a block North of University. Easy 10-minute walk from Downtown Berkeley BART station.

Have You Moved Or Are You Planning To Move If CDFA Aerially Sprays in 2008?

We Want You To Share Your Story Here

More than half of the people with whom we’ve spoken because of the LBAM aerial spray public health crisis have told us that they have either already moved away, are planning to move in the next few weeks or are waiting to see if the spraying is stopped to decide to flee or not.

Because of these conversations, we have come to realize that the California Department of Food and Agriculture is creating a serious refugee crisis as family after family attempts to run and hide from the carcinogens, mutagens and particulate plastic pollution of the spray. Not since the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression, perhaps, has our nation witnessed an aggravated exodus like the one currently happening in the Monterey Bay region and the SF Bay Area. The difference is, of course, that the Dust Bowl was created by a natural calamity. The current crisis is being perpetuated by the governmental agency, CDFA, against the strongly voiced demands of the regions set to be sprayed.

We Need to Document What is Happening to Us

It takes a serious disaster to make an American man or woman sell their home, leave their job, put their family in the car and flee. We are outraged that the employees and colleagues of CDFA continue to call the toxic aerial spray and permethrin ground sludge ‘harmless’. So many Californians would not be forced to become refugees if the spraying of pesticides on human beings and the watershed was safe. You know it isn’t safe, you do not want yourself or your loved ones to be used as guinea pigs in this unconscionable experiment and that is why you are trying to escape to the safety that is GUARANTEED to you by the California Constitution.

Please, Use The Comments Field Below To Document Your Refugee Story
Things you might wish to include:

• Mental, emotional distress suffered by you and your family
• Personal property you have been forced to sell or abandon
• Employment you have been forced to leave
• A message to CDFA about the crisis their actions have put your family in
• Suggestions for other refugees of any safe places you have found to move to

This last point is an important one. With USDA’s announcement that it intends to seek the light brown apple moth in every state and Puerto Rico, many of us are feeling that there is no safe refuge left where we will not be subject to chemical experimentation without consent. If you’ve discovered a location that seems safe to move to, please be so kind as to share that with other readers. We are all in this together.

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Unlike with the other posts on Vegan Reader, we won’t be responding to the comments below. We don’t want to confuse the count of cases by responding to each post, but be assured that we are reading each and every one of your posts and are full of empathy for the incredibly difficult situation the spraying is putting each of you in.

Here at Vegan Reader we are assembling a growing body of images depicting the harms of the aerial spraying of California. These images are free for your use in promoting public education regarding the enforced poisoning of our people and lands. Sometimes, pictures speak louder than words and we invite you to bookmark the following page for future use:

LBAM Aerial Spray Images

Please, if you do use them, credit veganreader.com with an on-line link or off-line citation.

What Might You Use These Images For?

Printing fliers for public distribution

Including in the body of emails to make a stronger point

To illustrate blog posts, on-line and off-line articles

To create postcards or stickers

To embellish anti-spray literature placed in public spaces

You are free to use these images in whatever manner seems best to you and we will continue to add to them, so keep checking back.

We’ve all seen the safety warning on everything from plastic bags to hair dryers to food packaging, telling us to be sure to keep plastic away from children to prevent suffocation.

In the fall of 2007, an 11 month old baby practically died of suffocation/respiratory failure after the aerial spraying of his home in the Monterey Bay region.

643 families reported first-time asthma attacks, shortness of breath, sore throats, bloody noses, sinus headaches, runny eyes, itchy skin, rashes and vomiting after the California Department of Food and Agriculture dumped known irritants, carcinogens and toxins encapsulated in particulate plastic onto the people of Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties.

The microscopic plastic balls which contain the pesticides and toxic chemicals are no bigger in diameter than a human hair. They are inhaled into the deep lung and remain there forever.

The CDFA and USDA intend to begin spraying the residents of 7 California Counties starting in June of 2008. There will never be a day of fresh air to breathe, because the plastic stays in the air for up to 90 days and the aerial spraying will occur every month. There will be no way to get to clean air when we are subjected to pesticide poisoning and the forced inhalation of particulate plastic matter.

We demand that the health of California’s citizens take precedence over economic international trade concerns. The health of our people cannot be measured in money and when a government agency forces small children to inhale plastic, despite the product warnings we’ve seen all our lives, we call it an absolute evil.

The time to fight this spray is now. Aerial spraying of urban populations is not an acceptable government policy. Filling children’s lungs with plastic is an abuse and totally unacceptable in a civilized nation. Keep working to stop the spray.

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Permission is granted to use the above image for the purpose of educating the public about the health crisis of aerial spraying.

If you use this image online, please credit VeganReader.com with a link.

If you use this image in print, please credit VeganReader.com

The CDFA and USDA intend to spray us but have made no attempts to treat the medical emergency they are creating seriously. Will 7 million gas masks be provided for the men, women and children who will be forced to inhale particulate plastic, carcinogens, tumorigens and mutagens starting in June 2008? Will gas masks even offer us any protection from the particulate plastic, deemed to be a potentially fatal hazard by the American Lung Association?

CDFA needs to answer these questions!

Permission is granted to use the above image for the purpose of educating the public about the threat to our health posed by the aerial spraying of toxins on the people of California against their will.

Please, if you use the above image online, credit VeganReader.com with a link.

If used in print, please credit VeganReader.com

It is the intention of the California Department of Agriculture to coat 3000 telephone poles and trees per square mile with the carcinogenic toxin, Permethrin. As a human being whose life has been immeasurably enriched by the companionship of wild birds, I am horrified to think of what will happen to the winged creatures I so love and respect following the application of this chemical.

Facts about Permethrin and Birds
Three-week dietary exposure of chickens reduced hemoglobin (oxygen carrying protein) levels, and red blood cell counts, while increasing the number of white blood cells. The reduction in hemoglobin occurred at the lowest dose tested, 33 mg/kg. Permethrin also caused decreased immune responses in chicks and damaged mallard ovaries.

Drive through any rural area in California and you will see majestic hawks, like the regal Ferruginous Hawk, shown above, perched on telephone poles and trees - the very places the CDFA is intending to coat with poison.

Here in California, the beautiful bluebird population has only just begun to recover from the fatal scourge of DDT. Little by little, these wonderful, colorful birds have fought off pesticide-induced extinction.

Throughout America, wild bird populations have been cut in half over the past 20 years because of pesticide exposure and habitat destruction.

A world without the song, the environmental benefits and the spiritual joy of wild birds seems to me a dead earth, and the CDFA is a shame to mankind for daring to further harm our precious bird populations with their dark ages approach to pest management. Their actions are infamous and unforgivable.

PLEASE read the following report compiled by Roy Upton on the toxicity of permethrin:

Roy Upton’s Permethrin Report.

Who Else Is Harmed By Permethrin?

Honeybees - Because of colony collapse, honeybees are quickly becoming one of the world’s most endangered species. Honeybees are responsible for the food you eat and the food farm animals eat. Without them, our tables will be barren of food - we are talking about a famine the like of which planet earth has never before experienced. Permethrin is a fatal toxin to honeybees.

Frogs - Permethrin is deadly to frogs. Frogs are currently experiencing the greatest extinction of any species since the death of the dinosaurs. Without frogs, world insect populations will explode. Without frogs, our world has lost so much that is so important.

Fish - Permethrin is extremely toxic both to fish and aquatic insects. The permethrin will wash down from telephone poles and trees each time it rains and it will fill our water sources with a toxin that is horribly poisonous to fish.

Cats - You know that your dear kitties climb trees and telephone poles for exercise and fun. Cats exposed to permethrin will be poisoned or killed.

You - Permethrin is incredibly toxic to you and many times more toxic to your children. This substance will be all over our neighborhoods unless CDFA is stopped.

Pyrethrins/Permethrins are the second most common cause of pesticide poisoning, after organophosphates, in the USA

CDFA is approaching 21st century pest management with a 1950’s toolkit and mindset. They are an embarrassment to the state of California and their actions are unconscionable in an era when human beings understand that it is crucial to protect wild life and human beings from pesticide exposure.

At least 750 wild birds were killed by the spraying of the Monterey Bay region in 2007. CDFA is already responsible for massive environmental harm. They need to protect themselves from further liability by calling a halt to this absurd pantomime of chasing a harmless moth across the state, poisoning and killing everything in their tainted wake.

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Read more about Permethrin here:

http://www.pesticide.org/PyrethrinsPyrethrum.pdf.

Today, I discovered the following PDF document created by the Environment and Human Rights Advisory regarding the violation of human rights and the potential liabilities the California Dept. of Food and Agriculture may be accountable for as a result of the aerial spraying of pesticides on humans without their consent. This is a must read document:

Environment and Human Rights Advisory Document

Here is the Press Release that was issued by the California Alliance to Stop The Spray regarding this crucial document:

Aerial Spray Program Imposed by CDFA May Violate Human Rights and Incur Liabilities

A detailed outline of 23 international human rights violations
Santa Cruz, CA - A groundbreaking independent report prepared by the Environment and Human Rights Advisory outlines 23 international human rights that may be violated by the aerial spraying program conducted by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) for the Light Brown Apple Moth. These are in addition to other potential violations of US and California constitutions and state statutes.

The potential liabilities to the CDFA are vast, including:
-Potential litigation through the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a court of the Organization of American States;

-Potentially costly legal actions brought against CDFA for aerial application of pheromones or pesticides as a violation of human rights;

-Possible legal action under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990;

-Possible multiple small claims court actions for economic redress: and greater involvement of human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch in pesticide activism.

Suggested pathways to reduce the liabilities to the CDFA and to respect the rights of individuals are outlined in this informative report.

Dr. Tom Kerns, of the Environment and Human Rights Advisory (www.environmentandhumanrights.org), has offered this new report for the California Alliance to Stop the Spray (CASS) and the CDFA.

“Everything and anything that influences the environment directly influences our human condition, and a violation of the environment is a violation of our human rights.” - Daniel Taillant, Director of the Center for Human Rights and the Environment.

“This report validates concerns being voiced by residents of all nine targeted counties about the violation of our safety, our rights and the environment.” - Lori Cioffi, CASS spokesperson.

Here’s a great article from the Chasing Clean Air blog regarding the health hazards of aerial spraying.

I especially appreciate blogger Donna’s reference to Rachel Carson, author of the famous work, Silent Spring. Many times, I have wished that Rachel was still with us to act as a spokesperson for the innocent people of California who do not want our bodies and lands poisoned by pesticides.

Many thanks to Donna for devoting space on her terrific blog to this crisis which is engulfing the state of California.

Here is an excellent Ecological Options Network interview with concerned citizen Roy Upton regarding the human and environmental harm caused by the aerial spraying.

Roy Upton is a well-spoken gentleman who creates a very clear picture in this video of the following topics:

1) The massive extermination of the the Monterey Bay’s wild seabirds caused by the aerial spraying.

2) The exact match between the human health harms reported and the documented effects of the ingredients in the spray.

3) The economic factors driving the mass spraying of California.

4) The history of the light brown apple moth in Australia and New Zealand.

5) The actions being taken to prevent the CDFA from spraying us again.

6) The imperativeness of resolving to protect ourselves and no longer depending upon a beneficent government to defend us from harm.

Roy Upton seems very convinced that we will stop CDFA from spraying us again and I appreciate his hopeful stance on this. Every one of us is yearning with our collective might for this to be so.