Just a quick post in praise of this opinion piece by David Bolling in the Sonoma Index Tribune.

If you’ve been fighting the the LBAM scandal for years, months or weeks and are feeling like a parched wanderer in a desert landscape, Bolling’s piece will be your tall drink of water!

It’s great to see the truth in print and we at VeganReader are praying that Bolling’s piece will help further Bay Area residents realize that their money is being squandered and their lives are being put at risk by the CDFA.

Someone needs to replace the ignorance bushes growing in the yards of Berkeley Code Enforcement Officers with some trees of knowledge. As I write this article, Berkeley urban farmer Asa Dodsworth is being persecuted by Officers Maurice Norrise and Gregory Daniels for having fruit trees and vegetables in his home’s front yard. While every home & garden publication in the United States is urging homeowners to tear out their useless, unsustainable lawns and plant food that could make the difference between making this month’s mortgage payment or not, Berkeley Code Enforcement Officers are fining Asa Dodsworth $90,000 a month for using his small piece of land to put dinner on the table.

What in the world is going on here?

Please, take a moment to read this SFStreets Blog Post which gives further details on this appalling situation and in which, lo and behold, you will be startled to find a reference to LBAM.

Don’t Spray California.org founder Maxina Ventura was in the neighborhood and pointed out to the author of the SFStreets blog post that insect traps had just gone up in the nearest park. Ventura explained that she views the harassment of Asa Dodsworth as one step in a developing campaign to force massive pesticide use on urban areas. If local officials and agribusiness can team up and say that urban food gardens host ‘invasive’ insects like the light brown apple moth (LBAM), then both parties can walk away with pockets bulging with money while citizens quietly fade away from pesticide-induced autoimmune diseases behind the closed doors of their targeted homes.

Whether what is happening to Asa Dodsworth is LBAM-related or not, I view the actions of Berkeley’s Code Enforcement Officers as a threat to his health and life. As an organic farmer, I can readily imagine that the Dodsworth household was figuring their homegrown produce into their budget over the summer months. When you don’t have to pay Whole Foods $150 a shopping trip for their industrial organic fruits and vegetables, maybe you can put that money towards getting some dentistry done that you’ve been putting off. Maybe you can devote more time to volunteer work in your community because of that extra money, or take your child to see a specialist about an ongoing health problem, or even just take your family on a camping trip because the incoming produce of your land has given your budget just a tiny gasp of breathing room in these tough financial times. For all we know, the food growing in Asa Dodsworth’s garden may mean the difference for him between plenty and starvation this year.

California is broke, and every Californian who invests $1.29 in a packet of seeds is making an incredibly smart, instinctive, time-honored choice to cultivate the available land to feed himself and his family. To see this turned into a crime is to watch bureaucrats and industry make breathing illegal.

I am absolutely appalled by this backward, anti-human action on the part of the City of Berkeley and I want food cultivation to be recognized as an inalienable human right. Government and industry must not be allowed to control the human food supply. Being born on planet Earth entitles us to eat, and let no man assert that we must pay for that privilege.

Please call the following people and tell them to get their hands off of Asa Dodsworth’s garden:

Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna, (510) 981-7000
Neighborhood Services Officer Angela Gallegos-Castillo (510) 981-2491
City Manager Phil Kamlarz (510) 981-7000

If you feel as shocked by the City of Berkeley’s behavior as I do, let them know that they are not acting in a vacuum and that concerned citizens are interested in seeing the rights of urban farmers cherished and protected. Sunset Magazine would be treating Asa Dodsworth as a hero. The City of Berkeley should not treat him as a criminal. Please, let them know.

——————–

Update Sent To Me By Don’t Spray California:

CONSCIENTIOUS PROJECTOR FILM SERIES of the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists presents:

URBAN GARDENS UNDER ATTACK?
DEFEND OUR LOCAL FOOD SOURCES!

Berkeley Code Enforcement is selectively fining activists for supposed “violations” in their gardens with fines that amount to extortion and eviction. They target neighbors actively engaged in helping communities gain some self-sufficiency by organizing permaculture skill shares, work parties, and growing diverse, edible, organic gardens that inspire and feed hungry people, wildlife, bees and other beneficials. In this time of global climate change, ecological collapse, and economic distress, tax dollars are wasted on harassment of urban gardeners by city officials who single out activists for otherwise ignored code, as well as on county and state insect trapping programs that frequently target such gardens with pesticides and quarantines. Homegrown food and ecology is not a crime!

Film: FRIDAYS AT THE FARM

Speakers:
Asa Dodsworth (Acton House Victory Garden)
Maxina Ventura (East Bay Pesticide Alert)
Nik Bertulis (Regenerative Design instructor, Merritt College)

Music: by Carol Denney and Max
Food: by Food Not Bombs

Community Participation Invited
Support Urban Gardens by Growing one Yourself: Sign up for a Community Work Day in Your Yard

Monday, June 22, 2009 7-10pm
BFUU, 1924 Cedar Street (at Bonita) in Berkeley
(SCENT FREE, PLEASE)

Event sponsored by East Bay Pesticide Alert / Don’t Spray California

Contact us if your garden is targeted with harassment or pesticides: (510) 895-2312 or beneficialbug@netzero.net

www.DontSprayCalifornia.org

Flyer for the event:
http://dontspraycalifornia.org/62209defendurbangardens.pdf

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me…or rather on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors who have sent a letter to California’s Secretary of Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura, begging him to hurry up and help them douse the county in poison and pesticides as the latest step in the Light Brown Apple Moth scandal.

Remember A.G. Kawamura? He works for the CDFA who did this to little children in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties in the fall of 2007:

Remember how the CDFA wanted to spray all the way up to the SF Bay Area and everywhere in between in 2008:

Remember how in May 2009, the EPA banned the Checkmate Pesticides CDFA had already sprayed on Central California families and wanted to spray on all Californians everywhere?

Remember how this banning finally took place after the EPA, the OEHHA, the USDA, the CDFA and Gov. Schwarzenegger repeatedly assured Californians of the total safety of spraying pesticides on men, women and children…all the while suggesting that we go inside our houses while the spraying happened?

Yes, you remember and I remember how Californians were terrorized, abused and lied to by the CDFA and its willing and greedy cohorts in the name of agribusiness being given hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for their utterly unfounded, ludicrous and deadly LBAM ‘eradication’ effort.

But the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors doesn’t remember. The California Certified Organic Farmers association doesn’t remember. The California Native Plant Society doesn’t remember. The California Land Stewardship Institute doesn’t remember. The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center doesn’t remember.

In their state of what I can only describe as hysterical amnesia, they have all decided that the CDFA is right. The CDFA is trustworthy. The CDFA is honest and good…and the light brown apple moth is a horrendous threat to all living things. Yes, the CDFA who poured deadly, now-banned pesticides over family homes while infants were rushed off to ERs in 2007 is the group of folks these organizations have decided to turn to as the authors of truth about the light brown apple moth.

As this cowardly, cringing Sonoma Board letter demonstrates, all of those who signed it have decided to jump on the LBAM charade bandwagon, casting aside all science, all ethics, all reason in order to be relieved of the burden of the totally phony quarantines that have been imposed as blackmail upon the region by the CDFA. They have played directly into the hands of A.G. Kawamura and the pesticide manufacturers and have acted without one modicum of backbone.

Rather than protect their own children from the utterly toxic poisons of pesticide twist ties, BTK, spinosad and other pesticides, these organizations have invited CDFA’s ghouls to ride into town, set up the most expensive possible ‘eradication’ program they can dream up and get on with the spraying. No, the LBAM still hasn’t done any damage to anything despite 3 years of being under microscopic scrutiny in the state and despite the fact that it has lived here for 50+ years. No, there are no grounds for panic or hysteria. No need to protect yourself or your plants from this infinitesimal insect. The moth harms nothing…whereas the twist ties and sprays are utterly toxic to all of us. Yet, these organizations are saying, ’spray our kids and save us from…a bug.’

It’s disgusting. It’s completely disgusting what CDFA has done to the people of California and it’s agonizing to watch the organizations get in line to ask for another whipping, and fast. How any of the people who supported that letter can live with themselves knowing that they are joining league with a government agency that put children in the hospital in Santa Cruz and Monterey in 2007, I simply don’t know.

It isn’t that the Board, the California Certified Organic Farmers association and other groups don’t know better. It’s that they’ve chosen to drown out their consciences in order to get with the program, even if that means pretending to believe in total lies about a totally harmless insect and causing harm to their own families. It has become easier for these people to get with the program than to get real about what agribusiness is doing to California, the US and the world. These people must not be ready to get real and say ‘no’ to the devastation to life being caused by agribusiness around the globe. It’s horrific to have them not ready, and yet sitting on boards and signing their names to documents of ignorance and shame.

The Truth Is
The truth is that the Napa-Sonoma region is already so drowned in carcinogenic pesticides because of the industrial production of alcohol that it’s amazing anything is left alive there. If a couple of light brown apple moths are managing to gasp for breath amidst the nightly pesticide spraying that takes place across Napa, Sonoma, Kenwood, St. Helena, Calistoga and Cloverdale 8 months out of every year, I’m actually amazed. Everyone who lives in the Napa-Sonoma region wonders where the butterflies, the birds and frogs have gone, and because the spraying is done nightly under the cloak of darkness, few residents ever connect the alcohol industry to the loss of the rich biodiversity that was once ours.

It is absolutely no surprise to see all of the alcohol growers eagerly signing their names to anything that will lift the quarantines on their toxic liquor products. These people are in the pesticide business. They’ve got scores of migrant workers riding the spray machines for them night after night. They couldn’t care less about a few more tons of pesticides being added to the unfathomable load they are already dumping in the wasteland they market as ‘The Wine Country’.

But, the funny thing is, the alcohol industry CEOs like to do things under the cover of darkness. It keeps the public from seeing that their migrant workers aren’t even wearing masks and it keeps you from connecting the dots about their toxic business practices and your ruined health, your polluted town and your collapsing local environment.

In this case, however, with this letter, there are the names of their associations in black-and-white for anyone who happens to see that document to read. They are publicly endorsing the use of pesticides where you live, including if they have to bust down your gate to get into your backyard as these interests have been doing to our elders in Ojai, California. This time, what’s happening isn’t after midnight on those silent summer evenings in the alcohol valleys. This time, they are showing their hand and this gives you a chance to learn the truth about the presence of industrial alcohol production in California, the ethics of its proponents and its direct effects on you.

You can already see the utter fools being made of your neighbors by the games agribusiness plays within communities. To see the California Certified Organic Farmers endorsing constitution-crippling pesticide practices pretty much says it all to me. CDFA and the alcohol growers have managed to confuse and manipulate the state in a manner humanitarians would deem diabolical and I have to remind myself to have pity for those people on the various boards who are acting out of that abused mindset. I don’t hate those board members. I am completely pained by what has to be either their ignorance, or their corruption and I am just shaking my head over what is happening here in California.

We’re dead broke, we’re closing all of the state parks that support mental health by offering opportunities for exercise and contact with the natural world, and simultaneously, we’re begging government organizations to fill our towns with mood-altering pesticides that can result in psychosis. To me, the possible outcomes of this twisted combination of dangerous factors is no joking matter. It’s deadly serious.

What do you think?

Press Release:
NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: May 24th, 2009

Media Contacts:

Yannick Phillips, Mothers Advocating for Children’s Health (MACH - Sonoma), (707) 933-0312

Debbie Friedman, Mothers of Marin Against the Spray (MOMAS), (415) 380-8578

Helen Kozoriz, Stop the Spray, (510) 336-0499

Paulina Borsook, Stop the Spray, (831) 429-8699

MOTHERS, FARMERS, AND SCIENTISTS CONVERGE TO DISCUSS LIGHT BROWN APPLE MOTH ERADICATION PROGRAM

Community forum planned for Sonoma County

WHAT: Panel discussion, Q&A; admission free

WHEN: Thursday, May 28th from 7:15pm to 9:30pm

WHERE: Sonoma Community Center, 276 East Napa Street, Sonoma, California

WHO: Ken Brown, Sonoma mayor; Frank Egger, former Fairfax mayor; James Carey, entomologist, UC-Davis; John Connell, director, Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services, California Department of Food and Agriculture (invited but declined); Caroline Cox, research director, Center for Environmental Health; Mike De Lay, coordinator, Coalition of California Cities to Stop the Spray; Dan Harder, botanist, UC-Santa Cruz; Chris Mittelstaedt, founder and CEO, The FruitGuys; Cathy Neville, agricultural commissioner, Sonoma County

WHY: To examine the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Light Brown Apple Moth eradication program

Sonoma, CA — With the battle heating up over the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) eradication program in Napa and Sonoma Counties, several mothers’ groups and farmers decided to sponsor a public forum in the town of Sonoma. At issue is whether the program is safe, necessary or effective.

The forum will be moderated by Ken Brown, Sonoma mayor, and Frank Egger, former Fairfax mayor. The panelists include James Carey, entomologist, UC-Davis; John Connell, director, Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services, CDFA (invited but declined); Caroline Cox, research director, Center for Environmental Health; Mike De Lay, coordinator, Coalition of California Cities to Stop the Spray; Dan Harder, botanist, UC-Santa Cruz; Chris Mittelstaedt, founder and CEO, The FruitGuys; and Cathy Neville, agricultural commissioner, Sonoma County.

The event will be held on May 28th from 7:15pm to 9:30pm at the Sonoma Community Center, 276 East Napa Street. Admission is free, and local organic snacks and refreshments will be provided. The public will have ample opportunity to ask questions during an hour of Q&A.

Dr. Carey, an expert in invasion biology, insect demography, and population dynamics, believes that the current distribution of LBAM in California, covering at least 10 counties with a combined area of between 8,000 to 10,000 square miles, suggests that LBAM is not a recent introduction, but has been in the state for perhaps 30 to 50 years, or longer. In a testimony to the Agriculture Committee at the State Capitol last year, he said, “The argument that LBAM is a recent invader because no populations were detected by CDFA in 2005 cannot be reconciled with LBAM’s current widespread distribution. This recent invader argument is simply not credible.”

Yannick Phillips, a Sonoma resident and founder of Mothers Advocating for Children’s Health (MACH-Sonoma) says, “While our teachers are being laid off and countless children living below the poverty line will be denied access to health care due to cuts in the California budget, it is outrageous that our federal government wasted approximately 90 million dollars of taxpayer’s money on a moth that does little damage, and is willing to spend an estimated 400 million more dollars in an attempt to eradicate this insect.”

Debbie Friedman, a Marin resident and chair of Mothers of Marin Against the Spray (MOMAS) says, “It is unconscionable that our elected officials and government agencies continue to spend enormous sums of money in pursuit of a flawed program without sound, scientific justification. Pesticides pose serious risks to human health, particularly children, the elderly and those with chronic illness. It is telling that after all these months there is no documented damage from this moth.”

About the LBAM eradication program

In the summer of 2007, CDFA began a controversial LBAM eradication program after the insect was trapped for the first time in California. Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties were aerially sprayed with Checkmate, an untested synthetic pheromone-based pesticide. After three rounds of spraying, 643 documented adverse health complaints were collected by a concerned citizen, including two reports of children who almost died from severe respiratory symptoms.

When the aerial spray program moved to the Bay Area, it was met with an enormous public outcry. Grassroots groups such as Stop the Spray and MOMAS staged a coordinated community effort which successfully halted the aerial spray over urban areas on June 18th, 2008.

However, the eradication program is far from over. According to CDFA, aerial spray is not off the table for “rural” or “forested” areas, and ground-based applications of pesticides are planned for both urban and rural communities. Furthermore, the LBAM program area has expanded to include almost the entire state.

CDFA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) continue to impose quarantines on hundreds of acres of farmland in California. A federal quarantine is triggered when two LBAMs are trapped within a 1.5 mile radius. In Napa and Sonoma Counties, quarantines have placed a burden on farmers and growers, compelling public officials to act quickly in order to avoid losses to the agriculture industry.

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors recently sent a letter to CDFA and USDA to resolve the quarantine issue. The risks to public health and the environment from the proposed pesticide treatments were not addressed. In addition, this request failed to consider the lack of actual crop damage from the moth, or the fundamental problems of outdated trade policy.

On May 12th, a lawsuit filed against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in San Francisco Federal Court was dismissed after the government agency revoked its approval of Checkmate. However, residents worry that the EPA intends to replace Checkmate with another toxic aerial spray.

Meanwhile, the USDA is reviewing a petition to reclassify LBAM from Class A (serious pest) to Class C (of minor concern).

An Environmental Impact Report on the LBAM eradication program is scheduled for release in early June.

To date, there have been no reports of LBAM-related crop loss in California.

###

This is awfully big news for any Californian whose life has been affected by the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s unforgivable spraying of the families of Santa Cruz and Monterrey Counties in 2007 with the pesticides CheckMate LBAM-F and CheckMate ORLF.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered a ban on two controversial sprays used to battle the light brown apple moth (LBAM), ending a lawsuit filed by attorney Stephan Volker on behalf of environmental activ-ists and the mayors of Albany and Richmond.

Read the complete Berkeley Planet article regarding this critical lawsuit.

I woke up to this good news today and offered a prayer of thanks for this one small victory, all the while thinking of families like the Wilcoxes and Arons who must still deal with the consequences of the CDFA’s totally corrupt and abusive actions against Californians. My thoughts are with these families today, and my sincerest congratulations are extended to every person who participated in the hard work of this lawsuit out of a heartfelt need to protect the innocent from such egregious perils.

CheckMate LBAM-F and CheckMate ORLF are nightmarish substances which caused massive human injury and animal fatality. It is such a relief that a ban has been placed on them, but Californians will readily understand that no ban has been placed on the CDFA’s intention to continue their crooked and worthless ‘eradication program’ for the Light Brown Apple Moth with whatever pesticides they can get their hands on. Even while we celebrate this victory, we know the time of vigilance is far from over. More news to follow.

If you’ve come here looking for further information regarding the Sonoma County Crop Quarantine and the light brown apple moth, this article aims to serve as your crash course in understanding the issue.

In reading the following articles and watching the following videos, you may find it hard to believe that so much chaos, corruption and suffering could possibly center on a harmless insect which has done zero damage in the state of California, despite living here for decades.

The LBAM story includes a California governor on the take from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and major pesticide manufacturers. It involves hundreds of families falling ill and rushing children to ERs after being sprayed as part of the so-called LBAM ‘eradication’ program. It involves doctors, scientists and conscientious politicians stepping forward to demand that CDFA stop deceiving the public and poisoning human beings. It involves beaches covered with dead birds and whole towns devoid of birdsong. All because of a little moth, a moth that has harmed nothing.

Because both the CDFA and farmers threatened with quarantine will undoubtedly be approaching the presence of a couple of light brown apple moths in Sonoma County with a barrage of pesticides, it is very important for you to understand what you are up against. Over the past year, Vegan Reader has written and linked to hundreds of pieces regarding the LBAM issue and we have created the following list of links to must-read and must-watch documentation of the LBAM story in California:

LBAM Science

Dr. Daniel Harder’s Report On The Harmlessness of LBAM in New Zealand

U.C. Davis Scientists Ask USDA To Halt Eradication Program

Video: Entomologist James Cary explains that LBAM Eradication is Not Possible

Video: Pheromone-Pesticide Creator Says, ‘Don’t Spray Me.’

CBS Interview: Scientists Explain Deadly PM10 in Moth Spray

Health and People

Doctors Accuse State of Experimentation, Fatal Damage

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

Dr. Ann. M. Haiden’s Report On Checkmate Health Harms

What Does Pesticide Poisoning Feel Like? LBAM Spray Preparedness.

LBAM Checkmate Spray, Agent Orange and Women’s Health

Agricultural Chemicals and Chronic Illness

Environment and Human Rights Advisory Document

Video: Documentary Film on LBAM Spraying of Central California

Video: Citizen Account of Human Health Damages From LBAM Spray

Video: Wilcox Family Account of Damage to their Infant Son from LBAM Spray

Video: Following the money behind LBAM Spray Program

Video: Extensive Account of Health Damages in Central Coast Region of California

LBAM - The International Connection

In Memoriam: LBAM Spray Victims

Wildlife and Pets

Roy Upton’s final report on the deaths of wildlife and pets

Roy Upton’s final report on damage to honeybees

Twist Ties and Your Cat

Twist Ties in Sonoma County

Roy Upton’s Permethrin Report

Facts about permethrin and wildlife

8 Important Facts You Need to Know

1. In 2007, CDFA sprayed Central California with pheromone-pesticides from airplanes, causing hundreds of families to fall ill, cutting school attendance in half, killing hundreds of birds, wild animals, honeybees and pets.

2. CDFA then intended to increase their aerial spraying area to include all of the SF Bay Area. This action was stopped as a result of outraged citizen protest. CDFA announced that it would no longer spray cities, but would spray so-called ‘rural’ areas. This distinction has never been made clear to the public, and many of us live in rural areas.

3. CDFA’s quarantine of Sonoma County is simply their latest tactic to give their ‘eradication’ efforts a legitimate appearance. As independent scientists have repeatedly proved, the light brown apple moth has done zero damage in California and is considered a minor pest everywhere else in the world. Because CDFA wishes to continue to receive millions of dollars of funding for their ‘eradication’ program, they have stooped to spraying human beings with pesticides and quarantining innocent farmers, thereby depriving them of their livelihoods.

4. The types of pesticide products which may be used in Sonoma County because of the presence of the harmless light brown apple moth may include toxic twist ties, chemical splats, sprays, and the dispersal of millions of pesticide-coated moths. Do not be fooled by the industry double talk you will hear about ‘pheromones’. The synthetic products used in agriculture, which are termed ‘pheromones’, are not naturally-occurring substances. They are lab chemicals, and the product sprayed on the families of Central California in 2007 was a registered pesticide, despite being called a ‘pheromone product’. Pheromone-pesticides are pesticides. All products being used by CDFA surrounding LBAM are frighteningly toxic to human beings.

5. Because of the quarantine being enforced on them, Sonoma County’s farmers and alcohol growers may decide to further drench their fields in pesticides. We are already living in the most pesticide-ridden state in the country, and to have the toxic burden increased in Sonoma County because of the presence of a harmless insect is not acceptable.

6. Do not expect accurate or truthful coverage of the LBAM issue in your local news. Unfortunately, recent history has demonstrated that most of our news sources do not understand the importance of investigative reporting, and are happy to simply reprint the statements given to them by agricultural officials. To find accurate news, we would suggest that you Google the issues and make up your own mind from independently-written and thoroughly researched sources. YouTube.com is another excellent resource for citizen documentation of local issues. Too often, Sonoma County’s news sources merely serve as lap dogs to the local alcohol industry, which is so heavily tied to the pesticide industry that it is frequently impossible to get to the truth about agricultural matters and human and environmental health damages.

7. Expect agricultural officials to lie. Their jobs hinge upon finding opportunities to get federal and state funding for projects like the LBAM ‘eradication’ program. California Ag Secretary A.G. Kawamura has been caught on film lying to everyone from CBS reporters to frantic mothers. It is important to understand that CDFA has been engaged in scores of so-called ‘eradication’ programs during the past half century, and that, in all of this time, they have succeeded in eradicating only one single pest. Despite aerial spraying, despite ground spraying, despite twist ties and countless other toxic tools employed, plus billions and billions of dollars spent, all but one of the insects on CDFA’s list remain very much alive in California.

8. Don’t take our word for it. We are just one publication. Because of our study of this issue, and the acquaintances we have formed with citizens who have been abused by CDFA, we are firmly convinced that the LBAM program is nothing more than a fraud. But, our main hope is that you will research this issue for yourself so that you can understand how state and federal agencies are acting in your corner of the world and the effect this is having on your family’s health. Here are some suggested resources for further reading:

LbamSpray.com

StoptheSpray.org

DontSprayCalifornia.org

Not many weeks ago, I wept tears of joy with much of the rest of the world over the historic election of Barrack Obama. I’ve never been one to pay much attention to politics, because I always come away depressed and angry, but this was an exception. I supported the symbolism of our nation breaking ties with our bigoted past, and I must confess, I found Obama’s message of change and hope appealing.

Well, today I learned of a change I don’t want to believe in. When I heard that Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is to be our next Secretary of Agriculture, my barely-dare-to-hope faith in Barrack Obama was snuffed out like a newly lit candle. I feel that layer of cynicism hardening around my heart again. I absolutely detest that feeling of making myself hope for the best, against all odds, and then being proved wrong. The choice of Vilsack as the man in control of our food supply simply couldn’t be more wrong. More than anything, I resent this choice being sold in the following manner to the American people:

“Obama said his administration will ensure that policies in the two departments — which oversee federal farming and lands policies — are designed to serve ‘not big agribusiness or Washington influence peddlers but family farmers and the American people.”

I don’t appreciate having the choice of a Monsanto supporter billed to me as an alternative to serving ‘big agribusiness’. If Monsanto isn’t big agribusiness, who is? A statement like the above, made to the American people, is terribly insulting in light of the appointment of anyone who has anything to do with world enemy #1, Monsanto. I truly feel insulted, disappointed and can almost feel the hope draining out of me in a physical way. What a huge letdown.

The LBAM spray victims I’m in contact with are appalled. If we had any hope of getting new people into office who would listen to California’s story of free citizens being sprayed with pesticide against their will, I am afraid things are looking very dark now. No one loves pesticides like Monsanto nor has a lesser regard for human rights, and though we expected these ghouls to be running the country under the Bush administration, I think so many of us hoped that change was really, truly coming with Obama.

Is Obama ignorant or a bad guy? I just don’t know. He can’t afford to be ignorant, and I really cringe at labeling him a bad guy. How could he do this, though? How could he?

I am just feeling so chagrined right now at the direction this selection of Vilsack points for our country to go in over the next few years. I was hoping Obama might be our friend, but a choice like this can only make him the opponent of organic farmers like myself, of mothers who are trying to protect their children from autism, of families who don’t want to be force fed pesticides as we were here in California in 2007, of anyone who doesn’t want their food supply controlled by the demonic predators operating under the name of Monsanto.

What can we do?

We can phone the office of President-Elect Obama at 202-540-3000 and tell the staff why the appointment of Vilsack is a betrayal of Obama’s promise to protect the American government from being controlled by corporations.

We can go write our story of being sprayed or threatened with pesticides in California at Change.gov.

We can start by telling everyone we know that BIOTECH MEANS GENETICALLY MODIFIED. The word ‘biotech’ was dreamed up my marketers to try to bring a new image to the GMO industry because most people were scared of genetic modification. I guess the marketers came up with ‘biotech’ because they thought it would slip by as one of those words like Techron or something that few people really understand or pay much attention to because it sounds both high tech and uninteresting. ‘Biotech’ sounds so generic…not like GENETICALLY MODIFIED which sounds like something only Frankenstein could love.

Any time you hear of any government employee, business person or product attached to the modifier biotech, it means genetically modified, and this is something the American people had better learn quickly, because with Vilsack at the head of AG, it’s a word we are likely to start hearing all the time from now on in this country.

I just don’t know what to really do with this deflated feeling I have today. Were Obama’s convincing promises no more than a nice dream while they lasted? Is this what thousands and thousands of people donated for, volunteered for, prayed for? Did we give a piece of our hearts to this man, only to be betrayed by the appointment of the very people he promised to kick out of Washington?

What do you think?

Dear Readers,
It gives me no pleasure to link to this article, published by Harry Cline of the Western Farm Press. It is riddled with inaccuracies and claims of safety which fly in the face of the recent OEHHA report findings that the pheromone-pesticide sprayed in 2007 on the Central Coast was, indeed, a health hazard. Little as I like to link to this, Californians should know what is continuing to be printed about CDFA’s experiment on their health without consent. I suggest you read the article, read my response and then write your own to the author.

———————

Dear Mr. Cline,
Several of my readers have forwarded to me your recent article, Phantom Menace, regarding the aerial spraying of pheromone-pesticides and subsequent damage to human health. Your article has failed to take into account the current findings of the OEHHA regarding the substances sprayed over Monterey and Santa Cruz families in 2007.

I would like to draw your attention to an SF Chronicle article summarizing the findings of the OEHHA toxicology testing, and their conclusion that the pheromone-pesticide sprayed was not only quite capable of causing the types of health effects reported, but also that the CDFA grossly underestimated the particulate matter count in the spray. The American Lung Association has explained that human exposure to the levels of PM10 in the 2007 spray increase the likelihood of disease and death. Here is the article, for your information:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/12/ED9R143AFM.DTL

OEHHA’s animal testing further found that the substance sprayed on Central Coast families causes white blood cells to multiply at a startling rate in the lymph nodes. And these were merely short-term tests - not reflective of the prolonged exposure to which Central Coast Families were subjected against their will.

Far from being the solution repeatedly touted as safe by the CDFA, the pheromone-pesticide has been found to be a health hazard, particularly to sensitive individuals (the young, the elderly, the immuno-compromised).

Your article has failed to mention that more than 70 Central Coast doctors filed pesticide illness reports following the 2007 spraying. Not smart enough to pour sand out of the heel of a boot? I’d like to hope that their diplomas stand for something in your eyes. OEHHA showed a similar disdain in their failure to directly contact even one of these doctors or their patients who filed reports prior to OEHHA making an initial announcement, before testing, of the safety of the spray. Now that they have done their acute testing, OEHHA has found that they were mistaken.

I have had no problem believing that people were genuinely stricken with mild, moderate and severe health problems as a result of CDFA’s experiment, because the victims began showing up on my blog, reporting their symptoms which ranged from women’s menstrual cycles being disrupted, to severe gastrointestinal distress to MS-like symptoms of brain fog and disorientation. Nor did I disbelieve the readers who came to report that their beaches were covered with dead sea birds, including the federally-protected Brown Pelican. Nor did I discredit reports from gardeners and longtime homeowners who reported in distress that songbirds, hummingbirds and bees had suddenly vanished from their gardens and feeders. I had no reason to doubt the sincerity of these citizens who turned to the Internet to try to find answers to the health and environmental phenomena they were experiencing.

Why do you doubt them, Mr. Cline? Would you also have doubted the first reports from soldiers claiming that Agent Orange had crippled their health, despite the manufacturer’s public claims of safety? How about DDT? Would you have been among those who acted to silence Rachel Carson, rather than risk the loss of pesticide industry profits?

At the end of the day, Mr. Cline, whether you believe or disbelieve that hundreds of California citizens have lied about the health damages done to their families as a result of exposure to pheromone-pesticides, I am hoping you can at least remember that you are an American citizen, and supposed to be a supporter of the Geneva Code which prohibits the testing of chemicals on human beings without their consent. In the end, this is not an agricultural issue, but a human rights issue, and by siding with forces who would set aside the edicts of the Geneva Code, for any reason whatsoever, your stance is unpatriotic.

Your article is now being circulated amongst the survivors of CDFA’s 2007 experimentation without consent, and there will not be one reader among them who is not personally hurt by your dismissal of the very real suffering they have experienced. These men, women and children are your neighbors and your fellow citizens, deserved of the basic protections of their human rights that I would hope to see accorded to you, sir.

I urge you to further investigate OEHHA’s report on their website, and to consider publishing an apology to the Central Coast families who are still living in fear, anger and anxiety over having been sprayed with chemicals without their consent. Your article will have hurt them deeply. They do not need to be further mistreated.

Sincerely,
&etc.

————

UPDATE: Well, I tried to give Mr. Harry Cline the benefit of the doubt, in case he had somehow missed the outcome of the OEHHA report, or was simply not as familiar as he ought to be with the subject, but I’m afraid his response to my polite email reveals not only a frightening ignorance as to the fact that the substance sprayed on the Central Coast is, indeed, classified as a pesticide, but it also reveals a lack of manners. His denial that he wrote this article is particularly strange, as it continues to sit there on the website with his byline under the title. I’m afraid that the fear-mongering tactics of the USDA/CDFA have managed to convince people like Mr. Cline that the threat posed by the LBAM, which has done ZERO damage in the United States, is only exceeded by the threat of an educated public, who will continue to believe that spraying pesticides on people is wrong…and that Rachel Carson was right.

Here is Harry Cline’s response:

Phantom Menace….what are you talking about. I did not write an article entitled Phantom Menace.

You people are nuts. Comparing a pheromone treatment to Agent Orange? A pheromone is not a pesticide.

The state health department discredited virtually all of the reported illness. There were no doctor reports.

You get more PM 10 walking down the road than you would from aerial spraying of a carrier in a pheromone treatment.

Rachel Carlson/Silent Spring, has long ago been discredited by highly respected scientists. Check out the reports from Dr. Bruce Ames of UC Berkeley.

DDT is the primarily reason millions worldwide do not die annually from malaria. DDT has never been linked to any human illness. Its downfall was that it weakened the shell of bird eggs. You had better pray that the materials mosquito abatement districts use to protect you continue to be effective. If it does not, you better hope there is enough DDT available to control the mosquitoes in your neighborhood.

Apology? Your actions are threatening the agricultural economy of this state; the viability of a vast food supply that is feeding the world and the livelihood of thousands of people. If the state of California fails to eradicate LBAM because of your radical rantings and it gets into the valley, I think you people ought to be held criminally liable for the losses.

Harry Cline

Editor

Western Farm Press

7084 N. Cedar #355

Fresno, CA 93720

559/298-6070

913/514-3641 (Fax)

hcline@farmpress.com

News on the LBAM front has been scarce of late, but I know all of my readers will want to read the following article, detailing OEHHA’s LBAM spray report.

This is an excellent article, and as it points out, the health harms people experienced and the future harms they feared were legitimate.

While, as vegans, we do not support animal testing and are very sorrowful to think of the poor laboratory animals being subjected to the same sickness and indignity suffered by Central Coast families in 2007, all Californians should read the Chronicle article and its indictment of CDFA for having experimented on human beings without their consent, in violation of the Geneva Convention. Sec. Kawamura and Gov. Schwarzenegger are morally responsible for damage that has been done to free American citizens and they do not belong in any office that governs public welfare.

This afternoon, my husband and I were in Marin County. Standing along the beautiful bay shore there, I found myself suddenly in the grip of an incredibly strong feeling - a blend of sadness, anger, urgency - looking at the land and thinking of how the CDFA and the forces behind it had been threatening to soak this place with poisons under the guise of a ludicrous pursuit of an insect.

I looked at the bright water, the air-giving trees and the friendly, clear sky, and I guess I had one of those moments of wondering how to make sense of life in a world where some of my fellow men can actually suggest that it’s reasonable to destroy health and life in order to say there are a few less moths on the globe. It’s an insane suggestion, clearly - a trade no reasonable mind would see as beneficial - and that’s why it scares me so much to think of the proposal that was made to pollute Marin County and its neighboring counties up and down Coastal California with vile, carcinogenic garbage, dropped from spray planes, on defenseless lands.

They dropped the garbage on people, animals, plants, water and soil on the Central Coast last fall. It wasn’t just a proposal. It’s a done deal there, and the victims are still living with the consequences, not knowing what this means in regards to their future. And the victims aren’t just the thousands of families of human beings who pleaded for sanity and mercy and ended up utterly unprotected by the very agencies all of them have been funding with their tax dollars, all of their lives, to act as their protectors. The victims include what we often rather vaguely refer to as the balance of nature. This sweeping term encompasses the blue whale, the sequoia, the coyote, the otter, the wildflowers, lichens on the rocks and the microscopic organisms that make up the bulk of our land, sea and sky, invisible though they are.

Ours is a very special planet, with life here turning on the dime of our distance to the sun, the makeup of our atmosphere, the minerals in our soil and a climate that stays just within so many degrees of hot and cold to make this a blue and green globe instead of a scarred orb of dead dust. All of these things are in someone else’s control…that’s right, we humans are out of control when it comes to whether life is.

But you wouldn’t know it when you hear those officials talking about dusting a little pesticide here, spritzing a little poison there, eradicating this species, monitoring that one, making up their minds about how to control it all. When, of course, they can’t. It’s a charade, a scam, a pathetic joke of self-appointed self-importance, stepping into giant shoes that don’t fit mankind.

As I once heard an entomologist explain, if humans became extinct, the earth would probably eventually recover from all of the abuses it has experienced, but if ants became extinct, the entire chain of life would be destroyed.

In that scheme of things, it isn’t the Secretary of Agriculture who is the big important deal…it’s a bug the size of his eyelash.

Standing on that beach in Marin today, my anger turned into the familiar, desperate wish that Secretary Kawamura and his ilk could just see the world this way, just for a moment, and be so shocked by their own lowliness in the order of important components of the planet that they would humbly put away their God-forsaken chemicals, go sit under a tree somewhere and calm down.

It’s pretty tough, listening to the politicians of the day talking about the ‘need’ for offshore drilling, the ‘need’ for nuclear power plants and the concept that we should really do something about climate change, perhaps by the year 2050, while Norway is rushing to figure out what crops they’ll have to grow in order to sustain life as the oceans creep over their shorelines and thermometers rise. It’s pretty tough to look around and see that the priorities of the people ‘in charge’ of America have literally nothing to do with sustaining life on the planet. They’ve got other more important things to use their special skills for, I suppose, like bailing out CEOs and making TV commercials.

I tune in and out of the huge, official noise, maybe still hoping that one day, I’ll hear any of the people in my government talk about anything I can relate to. And, at the same time, knowing that even if I can relate to them in some way, some day, nearly all of the life forms I care most about will never be able to. What does an oak tree think about voting fraud? What does a Great Horned Owl think about Wall Street?

As humans, we have been able to talk back to the group we call our government, even if it comes down to no more than screaming our heads off when they suggest that they spray us and our families with carcinogenic pesticides. Even if we can’t stop them, we have a common language, if not common values. But explain that to this tiny crab I took a photo of on the beach in Marin. Look at him in his tiny world, a whole life on Earth lived amongst a cluster of lovely rocks, keeping cool and happy in the seaweed. Explain to him that someone will dump chemicals into his water and his lungs because it’s profitable to do so.

Earth is his planet, too, and like all of us, he gets just one shot here. Secretary Kawamura’s life isn’t any more real to him than life is to this little crab. The difference is that, so far as I know, the crab hasn’t gotten mixed up to the point where he believes he’s the Creator of life, in charge of that elusive balance of nature. The way things are going these days, I think I’d rather have the crab in charge than anyone my taxes are funding.

Some days I try to see the irony of it all. Some days I genuinely find humor in being alive, so mixed up and wondering what it’s all about. Days like today, I just have to remember that I can’t control it all either and that, in my heart of hearts, I know that Someone is watching over it all and has a plan I just can’t see. There’s comfort in that.