Many of the millions of Californians being threatened with aerial pesticide application over their bodies and homes in the Light Brown Apple Moth scandal are thinking about the difference between organic and conventional farming for the first time in their lives. While the definition of organic is in danger of being watered down by agencies like the USDA, the traditional (read: real) basic meaning of growing organically means sowing and harvesting fruits, vegetables and other plants without the use of synthetic chemicals. This means starting with safe seeds that have been harvested from organic crops that have not been genetically modified, and it means that no synthetic fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides or herbicides have been used in the nurturing of the plants.

Organic farming is traditional farming - the way people have eaten throughout the total history of mankind up until the 1800’s when factory wastes began being marketed to farmers as acceptable or superior alternatives to the natural balance of nature. The industrial revolution and the subsequent world wars created an abundance of nasty chemicals, and rather than trying to bury these away in some hole in the ground, business men hit upon the bright idea of selling them to farmers, and in the year 2008, we have an agricultural ‘industry’ that is so indoctrinated in the belief that growing food depends on the use of synthetic chemicals that the USDA is actually able to keep a straight face telling 7 million Californians that they must be doused with deadly pesticides in order to protect the food supply. Organic farmers know that nothing could be further from the truth.

Eliot Coleman
Skilled organic farmer and author, Eliot Coleman, beautifully sums up the environment of an organic farm in his celebrated book, The New Organic Grower. In his book, he relates an anecdote about a visit to a great organic farm in Germany. He’s traveling with a group of USDA researchers. As Coleman explains:

One member of the group was an entomologist. While the rest of us held a lively question-and-answer session with the farmer, the entomologist walked into the vegetable field. Stooping over and using his hands to sweep the air above the plants, he surveyed the insect population, looking for pests and plant damage. Eventually, the conversation on the side of the field trailed off as our attention became focused on the entomologist. He continued his search, becoming increasingly amazed at the almost total lack of pest damage to the different crops. Finally, he stood erect, turned to the rest of us and said in a tone of stunned admiration, “We can’t even do this well with pesticides.”

This simple quote sums up for me the problem with the so-called agricultural experts in America - the USDA and CDFA. They are so removed from the actual biology of the earth and the miracle of food growing naturally out of the earth that they can hardly believe that food production does not and has never required the use of synthetic chemicals.

Food growers deserving of the honorable title of ‘farmer’ are educated, careful students of nature’s habits and needs. By planting green cover crops, employing crop rotation and creating a diverse, rich habitat for fruits and vegetables to grow in, organic farmers are following the timeless, sustainable methods that have fed humans since the beginning of intentional agriculture.

The Secret of Organic Growing
Nature has always known this secret, but in modern times, it has taken the organic farmers a little while to hit upon what is going on in the garden. Basically, like people, plants become susceptible to disease and death when they are stressed. Just as a poor diet makes for a sickly child, poor soil makes sickly plants that succumb to disease and insects. Lack of care stresses the plant just as lack of care stresses children, so, like good parents, good organic farmers spare no effort to keep the farm a vibrant, diverse, healthy place with soil that is tended with tremendous loving care. If the plants are well watered, well fed and grown in combination with a variety of other plant species, they will want to survive and enjoy life, just like happy people do. They will fight off disease and thrive.

The conventional agribusiness farm is an ugly contrast wherein ignorant, intensive ‘farming’ practices rob the soil of all nutrients. The ‘farmer’ then tries to replace those stolen nutrients with chemicals that neither honor the plant nor the human need for safe, toxin-free foods. Monocrop fields stretch for hundreds of acres and the unhappy, malnourished plants are so neglected and stressed out that a couple of ladybugs seem like a genuine threat because - believe it or not - the plants don’t really care about whether they live or die. They are unhealthy, toxic vegetation, being barely kept alive by constant sweepings and dustings of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides so that the ‘farmer’ can harvest his crop at the end of the season and ship his nasty produce to your local market, and if you buy conventional food, onto your table and into your body.

Little wonder that we’re all witnessing a bunch of freaked out CDFA and USDA agents running around freaking out conventional farmers in the Central Valley about some tiny, harmless moth. Maybe they do realize how weak and sickly their crops are and that if a miniscule moth took even a tiny nibble out of a leaf on a corn plant, the whole acreage would fall down flat. As more than one organic farmer has stepped forward to explain, they’re not in the least concerned about some little moth fluttering around their crops - no big deal. But the conventional farming agencies - the CDFA and USDA - want California to believe that this moth will eat and kill everything and destroy the food supply. It’s absurd.

The ignorant, unskilled farmer either doesn’t understand or doesn’t believe that he can grow food without help from Suterra, Monsanto and the other shrewd chemical corporations which have spent billions of dollars over the past century turning conventional farmers into hooked pesticide junkies. In the end, it is only these corporations who are being served…not the misguided farmer, not his workers who are being paid to die in a constant pesticide bath, not his neighbors who are breathing in the substance of his guilty practices, not the consumer who can’t afford anything but the cheapest conventional foods and certainly not the plants themselves that are treated without the slightest respect for their needs or nature.

Paying The Price
Organic farmers have sort of gone their own way over the past 50 or so years. Shrugging their shoulders at their pesticide-addicted counterparts, they’ve gone about their fields quietly harvesting delicious, safe foods that command top dollar at the farmer’s market because of their superior taste, quality and nutritional value.

But now, in California, we have reached a showdown. The conventional farming agencies have announced that in order to sustain their backward, moronic growing practices, it will now be necessary to spray human beings with pesticides and synthetic lab chemical insect pheromones. They are billing this ‘necessity’ as the trade-off for us having food on our tables. Get sprayed or no dinner tonight. It’s complete nonsense, of course. The Light Brown Apple Moth might chew a tiny hole in a leaf on your cucumber plant, but it won’t gobble up your cucumber and certainly won’t kill any healthy plant. But the junkie agencies are flipped out and demanding that we all cover their backs and submit to being coated in pesticides so that they can keep growing their disgusting, toxic conventional crops.

And though 31 cities have now said ‘no’ to this deal, the agencies intend to do it anyway. They will spray you, your kids, your grandparents, your pets, your water, your house and the air you breathe, against your will and in violation of the California constitution. They care about ’saving’ their pesticide farms that much.

If they aren’t stopped, one by one, Californians will fall quietly ill in their homes, dying of pesticide-induced illnesses. Agricultural chemicals are the world’s #1 offender in the pollution of our soils and water and in the extinction of countless animal species. And Ag. Secretary Kawamura has announced that he views the spraying of pesticides over human beings, wildlife and their watershed as a new national industry. It will pay well to poison us.

The Real Fight
If the LBAM public health crisis is your first exposure to the concept of organic vs. conventional farming, chances are, you have begun to realize that taking on this battle against the CDFA and USDA is only part of a much bigger war. And I don’t call this a war lightly. Conventional farmers are poisoning and killing people and animals for profits. Every box of conventional apples sold to Safeway represents the loss of health and lives just as much as the sale of carton of bombs would. And, the truth is that the mass application of pesticides to California will kill off the organic farmer and his vital harbor of safe food for humans. The aerial spraying of California is an assault on people and their food supply, ironically being billed as a program to protect our food.

Pesticide application does not protect my food. Pesticide application protects sickly conventional plants that I wouldn’t eat if you paid me. Never before has it been so clear that California needs to have a showdown. The moment the conventional farming agencies suggested that they have the right to spray babies with pesticide in order to keep growing their toxic crops, they crossed a line in the sand. We’ve somehow tolerated them carrying on the way they do in the Central Valley with their pesticide planes crossing the endless monoculture fields on a daily basis, perhaps because so few of us live there? But now they are bringing their ignorant practices into urban areas and declaring that they have the right to force us to breathe their chemicals and, in my eyes, them’s fighting words.

The polar icecap is melting and you know what’s in the melted water? DDT. We know now, we’ve known for at least a couple of generations, that pesticides cause disease and death and we need to to use this hard-won knowledge to shape the future of food growing in California. Conventional agriculture has been tolerated, perhaps because we’ve been too involved with other concerns, but now that the proponents of these unskilled farming practices are coming to your town on the California coast, there’s nothing more important for us to be focusing on.

Californians are declaring in no uncertain fashion that we refuse to pay the price for the ignorance of these chemical-dependent agencies. We’d as soon give up our lives so that drug addicts in a crack-induced rage can shoot us down. Organic farmers, following the ancient and surefire methods of traditional agriculture, can grow all of the food we’d ever need. Conventional farmers and the agencies that represent them need to kick their habit and stop killing innocent people in order to produce food that no one should be eating in the first place.

Letting California go any other way is an act of suicide, and never before has the been so clear.

It’s so good to know that while my health has been making me take a little rest, friends have been very busy. Janis and Mike DeLay have published LBAM Call To Action - a new website featuring invaluable lists of contacts.

Newspapers, chambers of commerce, service groups and agencies are all listed. The basic concept of the site is that is provides contact information not only for media but for all of the groups and agencies who have not taken a stand against the spraying.

What a bright idea this was of the DeLays! Be sure to check out the site and bookmark it. This will make it very easy for you to send out single or mass emailings to so many of the different parties involved.

Dear Valued Readers,
Just a note, in case you’ve been wondering where I am, to let you know that my health has not been good this past week…par for the course when living with autoimmune troubles! I haven’t been posting as much as I’d like, but I do have something really important to post coming up as soon as I get permission from a friend. Check back soon and know that I’m thinking of you all, trying to get a little rest and take care of myself so I can keep fighting at your side here in California.

Kind Regards,
Mim

One of the great ironies to me in the midst of California’s greatest-ever public health crisis is hearing officials from the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment grudgingly admit that people with pre-existing health conditions may be harmed by the toxic chemicals being employed in the LBAM ‘program’.

The implication is that healthy adults will be just fine. But how, pray tell, do CDFA and OEHHA think we sick folks got to be this way?

In the course of blogging about the LBAM chemical assault, I have met neighbor after neighbor who is suffering from Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, cancers, thyroid conditions, or auto immune diseases. For most of us, the reason given to us by physicians for the wreckage of our body systems has been something in the environment that caused our organs, our cells, our ability to detoxify to go haywire.

And what, exactly, do agencies like CDFA and USDA and OEHHA expect to happen to the healthy adults after they are subjected to something for days, weeks, months, and years? The endocrine disrupters, mutagens, carcinogens, and particulate pollution, the irritants and synthetic chemicals in CDFA’s aerial spray, twist ties, traps, and other devices are exactly the somethings that cause people to contract the health conditions that can turn a happy life into a miserable existence literally overnight.

Some of the effects and diseases will take longer to show up, of course. Residents all over California will find their health slowly slipping away. They’ll go to a doctor, or five doctors, or ten doctors, and will be told that something has robbed them of the health they once had, and that they must now shoulder the burden of chronic or fatal illness and accept their new limited life. They may never connect CDFA’s LBAM program with the loss of their health.

Why Saying ‘No’ To Aerial Spray Isn’t Enough
A visit to www.dontspraycalifornia.org will quickly apprise you of the incredible toxicity of all of the methods that CDFA intends to use in their ludicrous pursuit of the harmless light brown apple moth. Of course, no one wants aerial spray. But, danger will also be all over your neighborhood if it is strewn with toxic twist ties or lined with chemical-coated telephone poles. Daily exposure to any of these substances increases your risk for becoming ill. These are not substances you should be around, ever.

It’s because of this that I especially applaud what Don’t Spray California is offering to readers - a chance to become fully informed about the toxicology of the whole LBAM program. CASSonline.org has also taken an adamant stance for zero tolerance of toxins, whether aerial or ground-based.

CDFA has been so quick to dismiss the tremendous portion of California’s population already suffering from a variety of illnesses caused by our bodies’ reactions to toxins in our environment. Sick people are being treated like second-class citizens - an expendable element in society.

What I want you to understand is that even if you are not sick right now, you could so easily become one of the sick people tomorrow if CDFA’s entire toxic program isn’t halted. Whose body can honestly come unscathed through 450 aerial sprays over the course of ten years and a neighborhood festooned with fuming and leaching traps and twist ties? Who can take such risks? Unless CDFA’s agents are being given some sort of secret antidote to protect them from the effects that California’s doctors have explained will occur from exposure to these poisonous chemicals, even they will begin to fall ill. Even they will suffer the fate they are so flippantly doling out to some 7 million innocent human beings.

The Challenge Of Living With Chronic Illness
When you’re sick, sleep doesn’t seem to rest you much. Many mornings, you wake up feeling that you must have been somebody’s punching bag in your dreams. Dressing and grooming yourself may be a Herculean challenge today. Maybe you stay in your pyjamas all day, feeling depressed. Maybe you can’t cook for yourself today, or for your family. If you have a job, losing it is a constant fear because of all the sick days you’ve taken. Or, maybe you’ve been sick for a while and have structured some unconventional life for yourself where you’re working from home, sitting at your PC fifteen hours a day trying to make ends meet, handling all your business over the phone because you can’t be counted on for meetings. You can’t count on your body anymore. You never know if today will be one of the bad days. You pray for the good days to come - the days you can take a walk, visit a friend, feel the sun on your face.

If you have your health, it may be hard to envision the narrow confines that chronic illness imposes on daily life. People with MCS and auto immune conditions and other disorders live valiant lives, struggling to survive in tiny ways that may never occur to you.

I don’t want you to ever have to know what it’s like to fight for your life.

And this is why Vegan Reader so strongly supports opposition to every measure CDFA is intending to employ in their immoral LBAM program. It is unforgivable to discount the value of sick people. It is criminal to risk the health of millions who are healthy today, but who will not be after a chronic biochemical assault.

For your precious and irreplaceable health, I urge you to absorb all of the knowledge you can about the whole LBAM program, and then share that knowledge with your loved ones, lawmakers, media, and anyone you meet who thinks that the aerial spray is the only threat. Unfortunately, it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

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As always, permission is granted to use the above image. I hereby release it into the creative commons for the purpose of educating the public.

I was forwarded a round robin email regarding the Sonoma meeting which I’ll excerpt here:

Last night in Sonoma we had 2 members of the CDFA, Robert Dowell and another gentleman (who refused to give me his name), a member of OESHA, the Sonoma County Ag. Commissioner as well as 5 others from the Sonoma County Ag. Dept…9 Ag. people in total. As for the public attendance there were 10 people present. Of those 10,4 of us were outside the quarantined area and wanted to hear what CDFA had to say about the twist ties/aerial spray.

The CDFA presentation was made up of maps,charts on easels and informational papers and examples of the twist ties; a walk about presentation. No formal presentation was given.

I expressed my disappointment in them giving the public one weekday notice to this meeting and hope that in the future they would give the public more time. All four of us asked different questions ranging from what the cost of this program in Sonoma would be to the issue of aerial spraying in Marin, as well as wondering what occurred in Santa Cruz and Ann specifically asked about the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She wondered if CDFA had inquired about the ‘yellow foam’ found around the Aquarium. She asked the question multiple times and never received a clear answer.

I think it is certain we made them all very uncomfortable with our questions and our obvious knowledge on the subject. The sad part, is there were only 6 people from the public who attended. I was only able to reach out to 2, one a grapegrower who was very supportive of whatever needed to be done to ’save the grapes’. I did give her literature but unfortunately she was already ’sold’ on the CDFA program. My hope is that the 4 other heard enough of what we had to say to stop and at least think about it.

Robert said if people wanted to refuse the twist ties, they could. If everyone refused, they would have to come up with something else (I don’t know what the something else is).At the end of the meeting he did say that they could look into using the wasps for Sonoma but that they are usually used for ‘medium infestations’ not ’small ones’, like Sonoma.

Robert will be getting back to me on the price of this project. The ballpark figure he gave me when pressing him for an estimate was $30,000 total for both programs. I told him I had done basic rough research and that at full retail price the wasps would cost less than this program. I couldn’t contain my disgust of this program especially in lieu of the budget cuts to our schools and I was descriptive on how parents are asked to provide copypaper for the schools because of budget cuts and yet in turn we have a $30,000 program which will not work and the CDFA have nice new bright white trucks.

No money lacking there. By the way, the CDFA pays gas money as well as lodging for the 30 employees who will be coming down from Watsonville for 2 days to install the twist ties. I might have been a bit confrontational with Robert and the Sonoma Ag Dept. personnel and hope I did not make my colleagues too uncomfortable…! It’s kind of hard to stay fully composed in front of deceiving cheaters.

On the issue of aerial spraying… I asked Robert if he could, with all certainty, look at me in the eyes and tell me that he would feel confident being under the Bay Area spray zone with his 2 children and feel fine? His answer was yes.

To stop the twist ties, it would take man power which we don’t have in place in Sonoma. It would mean contacting the 200+ residents, educating them and getting them to take the step to refuse the twist ties. Very difficult and time consuming. I will be writing a letter to the editor about what I learned last night from CDFA and my disgust in the $$ being spent on a program that will not work. If I have time I might go to the quarantined neighborhood and get a feeling from the residents. If they seem positive in stopping the twist ties, it might be possible to start a ’round robin’ (neighbor speaking to neighbor) and I could help initiate, coordinate and follow up.The twist ties would go up on the 17th of June.

I really appreciated this summary of the meeting and hope it will help folks to know what went on.

My Take on the Trouble With Sonoma
If you’ve never been to Sonoma, or haven’t visited in years, you would likely be shocked by what has happened to the once-beautiful Valley of the Moon. The alcohol fields stretch right up to the noble mountains now. Every field, crevice and hill is striped with uniform, ugly, toxic vineyards. You go up into Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and there are even vineyards there. Truly, this place has been turned into an agribusiness wasteland.

And, because the majority of the alcohol growers use commercial growing practices, they are constantly, constantly spraying here. Up to 10 nights EVERY MONTH for the majority of the year, unprotected Hispanic employees ride the spray machines between about 2 AM - 5 AM (the time when they are least likely to be noticed) spraying some 30+ highly toxic chemicals all over the valley. The people here breathe, eat and live in a carcinogenic soup and the billboards along Sonoma HWY advertising the ‘romance of the wine country’ are really the final insult from the completely amoral alcohol growers who are making billions of dollars in a manner that has sickened and killed an untold number of people.

I would break down the people walking around Sonoma into 5 categories.

1) Tourists who have no idea that the price of their bottle of alcohol includes the wreckage of all natural land and the poisoning of innocent people.

2) Residents who live here and have spent years sleeping through the constant spraying, never realizing the danger their families are in.

3) Residents who have realized that the alcohol growers are hogging the water and using pesticides, but figure that they have the right to do this because it’s ‘industry’ and probably isn’t all that dangerous.

4) Residents who have come to grips with the wreckage the alcohol growers have created in the valley and who are either sick now or trying to get away before they are sickened.

5) The Hispanic and migrant workers who are the servant class of the alcohol growers and alcohol consumers. As one resident put it, “they are being paid to die.” Not only have I seen, with my own eyes, these poor men driving the spray machines without so much as a face mask or gloves on, friends of mine have seen them working in the alcohol fields while spray planes pass back and forth over their unprotected bodies.

The trouble with Sonoma is that the majority of the residents here have been sold on the idea that industry has the right of way. They are as surrounded by signs of industry here as steelworkers in a steel town. The grotesque alcohol fields stretch in every direction, as far as the eye can see, and it would be a miracle if people were actually to care enough about a bunch of toxic twist ties to speak up. As the above letter states, apparently CDFA couldn’t put up the twist ties if people protested, but even if the people fought and stopped the twist ties, they’d all go to sleep that night inhaling deadly poisons anyway, living in the valley. Maybe my attitude is defeatist about this, but I know Sonoma, and it’s a sad scene around here.

Lastly, it’s important to note that the twist tie zone encompasses residential areas which are predominantly Hispanic - Aqua Caliente, Boyes Hot Springs and El Verano. Here, the charming little Mexican kids play along the sidewalks much of the day, their homes overcrowded with family, many of their homes crumbling around them, some without doors. Their mothers take them by the hand to visit the Carnicerias and Mercados to shop for dinner. The men, in their few hours of ease, sit on boxes outside the fruit stand, passing the time of day, their faces shaded by white stetsons and colored baseball caps. For the millionaire cruising past in his BMW, this section of the valley may look kind of rosy.

But what is going on inside the walls of these impoverished villages? Doubtless, the people are quietly dying of cancers and other diseases. The menfolk come home at dawn, literally soaked in pesticides. Whoever does the laundry is subjected to an unbelievable toxic assault, and these substances are then in the machines where all the children’s clothing is washed. The people live in substandard housing, work backbreaking days for the plantation class, and lose their lives so that tourists can have some lovely Chardonnay. Somewhere, someone thinks this is worth it.

So, that’s the problem with Sonoma. This isn’t San Francisco, with its principles of equality and equal opportunity. This is the Old South here in Sonoma, with some very distinct classes, and some very mistreated folks.

Yes, I’d love to see Sonoma march CDFA to the borders of the county with their ludicrous LBAM myth and their deadly toxic plan. But, CDFA could walk off into the sunset and Sonoma would still be suffocating in a desolate waste of monoculture toxicity.

Yesterday, hundreds marched across the Golden Gate Bridge in protest of the proposed and illegal spraying of human beings with aerial chemicals which experts say will destroy human health. LBAMSpray.com has some great photos. The bridge march was a bright idea. Not only did it do much to galvanize the efforts of Bay Area families who are working tirelessly in an effort to defend themselves, but it also alerted anyone driving across the bridge yesterday to the seriousness of this dire issue.

We need more bright ideas like this.

Just yesterday, Dr. Anne Haiden explained on Joanie Greggains’ KGO radio program that one of the spray ingredients - BHT - is used by vivisectionists to create massive tissue damage in the lungs of lab animals. This is the substance CDFA and the USDA intend to force 7 million Californians to breathe day after day, month after month, for years and years. And, it is just one of the ingredients in the toxic spray compound which cause both short-term and chronic harm to living beings. CDFA’s LBAM ‘program’ is an unforgivable assault on public health and our doctors are calling it the most colossal government blunder that will have been made in modern times. In other words - this is real, this is dangerous and it demands a response from any Californian who values health and life.

But what is that response to be?

Over the months, I have been engaged in countless conversations with Californians who are working from an amazing variety of angles to stop the spray. Some are acting with science data, medical data, legal data, environmental data, humanitarian data and so on. Every morning, I wake up with the question in my mind, “what can I do?” and I know from many of my readers that you are having the same experience.

As I see it, we have 2 issues to face here.

1) Many of our Neighbors Still Don’t Know About The Spray Or Don’t Realize It’s Going to Sicken Kill People

Potential Bright Ideas:

- What would it cost for city councils in each of the cities set to be bombarded to send a letter to every household, giving perhaps a 10 point bulleted list regarding the spray? CDFA intends to send out little post cards right before they start their assault on the cities. Can city councils take a preemptive action to warn their neighbors of the spray and ask them to join the fight against it?

- City and town Mayors and Supervisors have been some of the most outspoken heroes in defense of the people of their communities. What would it cost to hire a couple of trucks, hang them with signs regarding the spray, get a volunteer driver and equip the Mayor or Supervisor with a loudspeaker to announce basic information about the spray? If this was done after normal workday hours, it would bring people out of their homes like the ice cream man does and fliers could be handed out to the community, again informing them of the reality of the spray and asking them to join the fight.

- Millions and millions of people live in the spray zone. Does ANYONE have ANY connections with television, public or otherwise, or the money to invest in TV time? Political candidates are able to run tons of ads at campaign time. Are any philanthropists in Marin, San Francisco, Sonoma County, Santa Cruz, Monterey, or any of the other cities willing to use their funding to inform Californians of the reality of the spray via a television advertisement? If I had the means, I can’t think of a better way to let millions of people know what is happening.

These are just 3 suggestions. I am asking you, my readers, to please use the comments field to brainstorm and make other suggestions for how we can let EVERYONE know what the spraying will mean to their hopes for a future, for health, for life.

2) Once People Know About The Spray, They Don’t Know What To Do
Great efforts have been made to invite people to sign John Russo’s Stop the Spray petition. Some 27,000 people have signed it. I so applaud this effort. And yet, after people have taken this step, what is there for them to do?

The Gandhi method of protest basically hinged on the concept that the opponent, being a moral being, will turn away from his evil actions if he is repeatedly forced to face the reality of them. Gandhi led marches, inspired thousands to risk and endure physical harm, enacted hunger strikes and employed other non-violent methods of protest that forced the British Empire to stare at the chaos and disaster they were causing Indians. First they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win, Gandhi said, and he succeeded in forcing the British Empire to withdraw from India.

Californians have experienced the being laughed at part already. Our own agencies are sneering in the faces of the hundreds of families who have been severely damaged by the 2007 spray and are winking at the millions who will be sickened by the impending spray of 2008. We have been subjected to lie after lie in the mouths of incompetent, corrupt agencies regarding the ‘dangers’ of an insect and the ’safety’ of spraying pesticide on human beings. The arrogance, condescension and derision we have met with in our public servants - the governor and the CDFA/USDA - has been very hard to listen to. So, we’ve been laughed at.

Now comes the fighting part, according to Gandhi. For this non-violent man, fighting did not mean buying guns and swords in order to fight the opponent with his own weapons. It meant shaming the opponent by steadfastly speaking and showing the truth of the immorality of his aggressive actions against the innocent.

Likewise, for most of the people I’ve spoken with, fighting the CDFA does not mean hiring Homeland Security airplanes and Suterra Pesticides so that we can fly them over our opponents houses and sicken their families, as they intend to do to us. It means finding ways to publicly shame them.

And yet, this is where I find myself missing Mohandas K. Gandhi. He believed in the basic morality of his opponents. I believe I have lost faith in the picture of these agencies as ethical. As our friends and neighbors have revealed, the American government has been guilty of performing at least 30 experiments on its own people since the Industrial Revolution, and the government doesn’t deny this. We are facing an evil here, an utter amorality, the like of which can only be compared to the darkest works of scientists employed by the darkest governments the world has ever known. Anyone who takes a job, the nature of which, is to spray deadly chemicals on infants has, I fear, lost touch with what any sane person considers moral thought. When I listen to the robotic, stone-faced message coming from CDFA/USDA, we will spray you, I am increasingly finding that I lack Gandhi’s belief that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, A.G. Kawamura, Steve Lyle and their colleagues are moral beings.

If the specter of baby Jack Wilcox’s heart stopping in the ER after he had inhaled checkmate isn’t keeping these men awake at night, if our entreaties not to attack innocent people with biochemicals are falling on deaf ears, what paths do we have left to us?

I think private citizens may only be left with the power of public shame. While lawyers and scientists and doctors continue to publish reports, warning CDFA that their plans are reckless, unwarranted and illegal, maybe we can do something, too. But how can we best let CDFA/USDA and the governor who has allied himself with these agencies rather than Californians know that they are not operating in a vacuum. That they cannot quietly assault and sicken 7 million people with impunity. That the eyes of the world are upon them?

Potential Bright Ideas:

Family and friends in other states and countries who care about you could do much to begin alerting their cities and countries to what is happening in California. Can you ask you international loved ones and Internet friends to begin campaigns where they live to get their groups and governments to condemn the actions of CDFA/USDA and Gov. Schwarzenegger? Imagine if European countries began sending letters and news articles to the United States upbraiding them for this evil attack on innocent people? What is happening here deserves to be world news and this will fight off the danger that we can be silently assaulted with no one in the world the wiser.

Embracing the principles of non-violent non-cooperation, villages in South America have turned out in the streets banging pots and pans to protest injustices. Just banging pots and pans. Drawing the eye of the world to their lands and shaming their governments. Imagine the streets of San Francisco teeming with pan-drumming citizens while the cameras are rolling and the world is watching ‘upwardly mobile’ city professionals roaming their neighborhoods demanding that no one spray biochemicals on them. It would make the reality of the situation very clear, very quickly.

Strikes have long been an effective measure of gumming up the smooth operations of daily life on which agencies like the CDFA depend. Imagine a day in Oakland where no one went to work, no buses ran, no taxis, no BART, no business going on in the highrises, no interactions with Wall Street. Imagine the entire Bay Area workforce saying that protecting public health is worth going on strike for. Imagine Governor Schwarzenegger, sitting at his nice desk, fielding calls from the NY Times demanding to know how he intends to respond to the workers striking in protest of being assaulted with biochemicals.

One by one, doctors from up and down the state have written reports, attended meetings, spoken on the radio regarding the chronic and fatal damage that will be done to infants, children, women, elders, sick people and others by this pesticide. Imagine if these doctors could be gotten together in a single body and demanded a press conference with every major media source in the state of California. Imagine the picture of 20, 30, 50, 200, 1000 doctors standing at microphones saying, “this pesticide will cause human fatality. The government will be guilty of causing deaths.”

These are just a couple of ideas. Please, I am asking all of you, my smart readers, to use the comments field to start brainstorming. How can we get the attention we need from the world in a manner that will so shame our corrupt politicians and agencies, with the spotlight of notoriety shining full in their faces, so that they will be forced to halt this horrific plan? We have so little time left. We need some really good ideas.

What: CDFA is holding a meeting in Sonoma prior to covering the Arnold Drive portion of the valley with thousands of toxic twist ties.

Where & When: June 2nd, 5:30 PM at Flowery Elementary School which is located at 17600 Sonoma Hwy
Sonoma. CA 95476

It is especially horrific to me that this meeting is being conducted at an elementary school, and yet at the same time, it is appropriate, because Flowery School’s children will soon be exposed to extremely dangerous substances if CDFA is allowed to proceed with their plan to festoon the area with toxic Isomate LBAM Plus twist ties. I have been trying to contact the principal of the school, Joyce Schipper to alert her to the danger her students will be in, but have so far only managed to speak with another employee who said she would give my contact information to the principal.

Facts You Need To Know

Here is the Material Safety Data Sheet for this product. Bearing in mind that Material Safety Data Sheets are prepared by pesticide manufacturers and therefore not very trustworthy, here are several salient points to notice on the data sheet:

1) 33.48% of the ingredients in the twist ties are secret. They do not have to be disclosed to the public because of laws which protect trade secrets rather than public health.

2) The product is being listed as harmful if absorbed through skin and dangerous to the eyes. People exposed to the product are instructed to contact a poison control center and go to a doctor.

3) You are supposed to bring the container for the toxic twist tie with you to the doctor. You will not have the container if you are poisoned by LBAM twist ties.

4) Because 33.48% of the ingredients on the twist ties are secret, your doctor will have no idea what you were poisoned by.

5) The MSDS says that this poison must not be applied to water or areas where water surface is present. In other words, you must not put it near creeks, ponds, coasts, reservoirs, rivers, or any other type of watershed. The sheet says do not contaminate water when disposing of this product. From this, we understand that Isomate-LBAM PLUS twist ties contaminate water.

6) This is an unregistered product that has been approved for use in California only. It has not gone through the normal battery of tests required of registered products.

7) The effects of synthetic insect pheromones on human beings are unknown. CDFA will say they have been used for a decade without incident, but they will not say synthetic insect pheromones have been used on VEGETABLES, not people. There is a growing body of scientific evidence which, in fact, indicates that exposure to synthetic insect pheromones like the ones on the twist ties may cause violent, sexually aggressive behavior in large mammals, including human beings. Please, do not fail to read this article regarding the effect of synthetic insect pheromones on humans and large mammals, published by Professor Joe Cummins and Sam Burcher of the Institute of Science in Society. This is not something we want our children or ourselves to be exposed to - these synthetic lab chemical pheromones are likely to soon be declared a major human health menace.

Why is the California Deparment of Food and Agriculture Doing This?

The twist ties are being use as part of CDFAs program that intends to eradicate a small, basically harmless insect called the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). One by one, independent scientists have stepped forward to prove that the LBAM poses NO threat to agriculture. Even CDFA admits that it has done zero damage in California. One by one, independent doctors have stepped forward to explain how the chemicals in CDFA’s program are incredibly, and in some cases, fatally toxic to human beings - especially children! Rather than correctly reclassifying the LBAM has a harmless pest, based on the modern findings of science, CDFA has chosen to benefit from millions of dollars worth of federal funding for their program and they are willing to sicken some 7 million Californians with a combination of aerial spray, twist ties, permethrin-coated telephone poles and other toxic devices in order to get that money.

Again, the moth is NO THREAT to agriculture, native plants or gardens. CDFA’s toxic program, however, is a huge threat to human health.

How Will Children Be Affected?
School children and others in the eradication zone will come into direct contact with the twist ties while walking and playing in the area. We all know how inquisitive children are about their environment, and if they see bright orange ties hanging from every tree and bush they pass or play in, they will investigate these ties with their hands and mouths. The listed and secret chemicals on the ties will come into contact, in this manner, with their skin, their eyes and get into their mouths.

Should CDFA not be stopped in their outrageously dangerous plan and you have children or pets in the eradication zone, please, keep this Poison Control number with you at all times:
1-800-222-1222. Should your child or pet show signs of chemical injury to eyes or skin, begin vomiting or display other signs of illness and you are living or visiting the twist tie zone,
do not delay in seeking emergency help. Because nearly 1/3 of the ingredients in the twist ties are being kept secret from the public, we have no way of knowing just how much damage can be done to a person or animal by coming in contact with them and CDFA will not tell us.

What You Can Expect From CDFA
CDFA has just been found guilty of violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by two superior courts because of their hasty, dangerous LBAM program. The bottom line is, CDFA agents are telling lies to the public about the safety of their chosen poisons in this public health crisis.

If you attend the Flowery School meeting, you are likely to meet with a carefully selected panel of ‘experts’ who will tell you that the twist ties are ‘harmless’, ’safe’, ‘environmentally-friendly’ products. You have the Material Safety Data Sheet that says the exact opposite. Isomate LBAM PLUS Twist ties are poisonous products that humans should not come into contact with and which contaminate the watershed. They do not belong in your neighborhood!

When it comes down to it, this is not an agricultural issue. It is a human rights issue which hinges on your right not to have your body, your children’s bodies exposed to toxic chemicals against your will. This is a human rights issue and the time to fight CDFA’s arrogant intention of violating your body is now.

Dr. James Carey and two of his respected Davis colleagues have written an official letter to the head of the USDA, requesting that he urge CDFA’s A.G. Kawamura to revisit his plan to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth. These men of science point out that there is no evidence that the LBAM presents any greater threat than the dozens of other leaf rollers that live in California, and also that eradication is not scientifically possible.

There you have it, on official letterhead, from U.C. Davis to the USDA.

Read the U.C. Davis Letter

New Study Examines LBAM Spray Ingredients That Could be Stronger Endocrine Disruptors Than Bisphenol-A

The Health Hazards of Particles, Toxins, Inflammatory Cascades and Genomic Predisposition

May 29, 2008 – San Francisco, California. New study of the ingredients of the Checkmate LBAM-F spray and the capsules used for its delivery raises public health safety issues that have never been addressed before.

The long-term effect of the LBAM spray on humans has not been studied despite the fact that some of the ingredients are known to be toxic to humans or animals. Of particular concern are two ingredients: Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and 2-hydroxy-4-n-octylbenzophenone. BHT is used in animal studies to induce lung damage and cancer in areas of the respiratory system reachable by the spray. The effects of inhaled BHT in humans have not been studied. The benzophenone ingredient has not been tested but other benzophenones have been found to be stronger endocrine disturbers than Bisphenol-A, a chemical that is such a potent endocrine disruptor that it is in the process of being banned in Canada.

The capsule particle size and how it interacts in the human respiratory system is a known health hazard. The urea particles in the spray could reach areas of the lung that can cause damage. Further, the particles and the chemicals they carry can cause damage in the nasal passages and more proximal respiratory tract.

Says Ann. M. Haiden, D.O., the author of the study “There is a general lack of information about the other ingredients in the spray and any characteristics that may exist when the ingredients are combined, making it difficult to make informed decisions about their safety. What we do know is concerning because of the emerging knowledge about how potential chemical toxins interface with individual human biochemistry.”

Says John Russo, founder of StopThe Spray, “This new study highlights what has not been done to understand the long-term effects of a massive aerial spray over human population. Most importantly, it illustrates the need for informed, voluntary consent – where every individual has the right to decide for themselves what happens to their own body.”

Toxins and noxious particles can set off complex cascades of regulators and inflammation that lead to disease and even cancer. Individual capacity to detoxify toxins varies, making some of the population more vulnerable to harm. From this perspective, the spray can conceivably be expected to cause a wide variety of health problems, ranging from increased cardio-respiratory illness to hormone related illness such as breast, reproductive and thyroid illness and even cancers.

Visit this page and download the PDF of Dr. Haiden’s Study

*Please Note, Dr. Haiden will be a guest on the Joanie Greggains’ Show, starting at 8 AM, Saturday May 31, 2008. Be sure to tune in to hear more from this heroic and conscientious medical expert who has stepped forward to defend California’s people from this deadly assault on our health.

So threatened is the California Department of Agriculture by the 28 strong and still growing number of cities which have firmly resolved against the aerial spraying of the pesticide CheckMate on human beings that they have determined to send their employees into the Central Valley to squeeze pro-spray resolutions out of California farming communities.

Just days ago, CDFA closeted themselves with members of the City of Reedley, filled the farmers’ heads with lies, doubtless threatened them with costly quarantines, and managed to extract from them a document which actually supports enforced spraying of infants, children, men and women with deadly biochemicals.

CheckMate has already sickened hundreds of families on the coast. It has killed hundreds of wild birds, including endangered species. It caused the near-death of an infant who was rushed to the hospital with respiratory failure after he inhaled the carcinogenic, mutagenic particulate pollution of which the spray is compounded. How do I know this is true? Many of the sickened people are frequent readers of this blog. They are telling the truth about the severe and, in many cases, lasting damage caused to their health by the aerial spraying of pesticides over their cities.

As the above graphic illustrates, any Central Valley farmer who supports a resolution to spray his neighbors on the coast is supporting an aerial attack on living human beings. This is a moral choice farmers and their cities will be faced with when CDFA’s henchmen come to town.

CDFA will tell the same lies to farmers that they have told to people throughout the Monterey Bay region and the San Francisco Bay Area: that CheckMate is harmless, that the light brown apple moth will devastate agriculture. CheckMate has caused disastrous human illness, but the light brown apple moth has done zero damage to agriculture despite having lived here anywhere from as long as ten to fifty years. It does minimal cosmetic damage to leaves. It will not destroy food, and CDFA is harming farmers by placing them under quarantines that are completely unsupported by the findings of modern science. The light brown apple moth needs to be declassified to reflect its negligible status in the State of California.

CDFA will go from town to town, deceiving and frightening farmers. Farmers will be pressured to sign resolutions supporting the aerial spraying - not of their own communities - but of neighboring communities on the Central Coast where the LBAM lives. Indeed, it is unlikely that the LBAM would ever even make it to the Central Valley because it requires a cool, moist climate to live in. CDFA will bully and pressure farmers into passing resolutions that support an act of potential genocide on their neighbors.

Our doctors and independent scientists have stepped forward one by one to explain that chronic exposure to the spray compound will result in human deaths.

Already, the name of the City of Reedley has become an infamous one up and down the California coast for choosing to support this deadly attack on their neighbors. They were lied to by CDFA’s agents in a closed-door meeting, and walked out of that meeting supporting CDFA’s value system which decrees that profits are of greater value than human life. We are still hoping that Reedley will get fighting mad over having been lied to and rewrite their ill-advised resolution which is the only one in the whole state supporting this violation of human rights.

Whether or not the moth represents a threat to crops is not the issue here. The real issue here is the utter evil of subjecting human beings to forced inhalation of deadly biochemicals. There is no nice way to put this. And there is no way for farmers, in good conscience, to resolve that their profits are of more importance than the right of human beings not to be subjected to biochemical assault without consent.

CDFA is violating over 30 laws and globally upheld human rights standards by performing this horrific experiment on the families of the Central Coast. Central Coast families would never support any agency doing this horrific thing to Central Valley families.

Farmers must educate themselves and understand that they are about to be barraged with cunningly crafted threats and lies in the mouths of CDFA and USDA agents. Central Valley farmers must band together, as the people of the coast have done, to confront CDFA with a united stance of refusal to be made party to an aerial assault on innocent human beings.

Should farmers choose to support the spray, they will be condemning infants, mothers, elders, infirm people and other Californians to emergency hospital visits, grievous short term and chronic illness, and after repeat sprayings, death, according to our doctors. Let there be no prize, no profit that would ever induce a humane American to endorse such ruination of human lives.

Say no to CDFA’s unwarranted, barbaric plans. Get your community to resolve against LBAM spray.

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