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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One of my heroes in the LBAM spray public health crisis is my mother. Since learning about the spray, she has written to senators, representatives, newspapers and everyone else she can think of in an attempt to protect the people of California from this bio-chemical assault.

Last week, she decided to write to CDFA and give them a piece of her very wise mind. Just look at the amazing lies she received in reply:

Thank you for writing about the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) project.
I value hearing your thoughts on the project’s impact on California.

California must work to combat the LBAM because of the complex threat it
poses to our diverse range of agricultural and natural plant life. This
invasive pest attacks more than 250 crops and 2,000 plants and threatens
the native and endangered species that depend on them. If it becomes
established statewide, the LBAM has the potential to cause billions of
dollars of damage annually and cost the state numerous jobs. California
has a duty to prevent the spread of the LBAM before it crosses borders
into other states, agricultural regions and environments.

The LBAM is an invasive pest – not native to California – with few
natural enemies here to reduce its expanding population. To combat this
growing threat, we have proposed an integrated pest-management approach
utilizing aerial and ground application of a moth pheromone.

However, misinformation about the LBAM and our program continues to
spread and cause unwarranted fear – despite constant and open dialogue
for more than a year with citizens and local officials. There has been
no shortage of grossly exaggerated and completely unsubstantiated claims
– such as the pheromone product’s being untested and the treatments
causing red tide (red tide is a naturally occurring marine algal bloom).
Fortunately, the actual facts and due diligence have proven these
claims false.

Pheromones are simply chemical signals that resemble a scent. Pheromone
treatments have been used in the United States and around the world in
agricultural and urban areas (including residential areas of Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin) for more than a decade without
incident. As recently as last year, more than 3 million acres in the
United States were aerially treated with moth pheromones to disrupt the
mating of the harmful gypsy moths.

For years, environmentalists have urged farmers to develop alternatives
to conventional, toxic, “kill-on-contact” pesticides; pheromones are the
alternative. These pheromones do not even harm the moths; they merely
mimic a signal “scent” naturally emitted by the female moth, thereby
distracting the males so they cannot locate a mate and reproduce.

Recently, the claim that residents became sick from past treatments has
held the public’s attention and has been the subject of demonstrations.
Public health officials with three state departments thoroughly reviewed
health claims submitted during and after the aerial pheromone treatments
last year in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties and could find no link
between the claims and the treatments. As the Governor recently said in
Monterey, the spraying is safe, and “there is nothing that says
otherwise.”

I also hear a number of misleading and inaccurate references to describe
the pheromone, including: hormone, carcinogen, mutagen, endocrine
disruptor and other inaccurate descriptions. These unsupported claims
overlook the fact that the federal Environmental Protection Agency, our
state’s Department of Pesticide Regulation and numerous health agencies
have thoroughly reviewed and unanimously approved these products and
their classification as pheromones. In fact, the pheromone products we
have used in this program are approved for treating organic crops; they
are safe enough that the law states you don’t even have to wait or wash
them off after a treatment before you eat the produce.

However, to thoroughly ensure everyone’s safety, the aerial spraying has
been postponed while we complete what’s known as “six-pack” toxicology
tests in addition to the normal extensive tests on the pheromone
products. These tests thoroughly test toxicity for eye, inhalation,
respiratory and other potential irritants. I am confident that these
additional tests will reassure Californians that we are taking the
safest, most health-conscious and most progressive approach to riddinour state of this very real threat to our agriculture, environment and
economy. I implore everyone to rely on sound science and to shut the
door on false information. For more information about the LBAM project,
please visit our website at www.cdfa.ca.gov or call the LBAM hotline at
1-800-491-1899.

As a public official, I am sworn to protect the public, the environment
and the ecosystems that make California such a uniquely productive and
sustainable resource. I take that responsibility seriously, and I vow
to pursue only the safest, most environmentally friendly means
available.

Again, thank you for writing.

Sincerely,
A.G. Kawamura, Secretary
California Department of Food and Agriculture

There are simply too many lies in this form mail to list. Just look at the way A.G. dispels the documented carcinogens, mutagens, endocrine disruptors in the spray by saying that they’ve been ‘approved’! Look at the claims of ‘thorough’ OEHHA review of the hundreds and hundreds of sicknesses caused by Checkmate. As my readers well know, OEHHA did not bother to contact a single victim or physician. Just look at California’s #1 liar, A.G. Kawamura, putting lies down on paper for all the world to see.

My mother forwarded this letter to me, saying she hoped it might be used as evidence against Kawamura, because it so clearly documents a deliberate attempt to deceive innocent citizens who contact CDFA, looking for the truth.

Most kids grow up fearing that lying to their mothers may result in lightning striking them down on the spot from above. Are there storm clouds brewing over the Kawamura residence this week? There ought to be.

This week, former presidential adviser, Karl Rove, has been the subject of international headlines, greeting the demands that he appear before Congress with a queer and deafening silence. According to his lawyer, Rove has been ordered by the White House (the Bush Administration) not to obey the subpoena or give testimony about the possible politicization of the Department of Justice. Congress may have to send out the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Rove and bring him to a hearing, no matter what President Bush wants.

A couple of weeks ago, I watched Senator Barbara Boxer convene a hearing, the subject of which was the profound corruption that has rotted away the core of the Environmental Protection Agency. Special interests, dirty money and corrupt politicians have changed the mission of the EPA from being one of protecting public and environmental health to being one of protecting the profits of chemical manufacturers and polluters. Strangely, the head of the EPA did not show up for the hearing, despite requests that he be present to answer questions regarding the obvious criminal activity going on in his agency. Again, there was a very strange silence in that room, filled with senators and media but lacking any testimony from the head of the EPA.

Here in California, we have the same silence ringing in our ears. With the threat of a biochemical assault hanging over the heads of 7 millions citizens, people are demanding answers to their questions and are being met with silence.

I want to know why U.S. Congressman Sam Farr’s direct demand that USDA Secretary, Ed Schafer, and Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Bruce Knight, explain to him how the LBAM was classified as a class A pest in the first place has still not received a reply over a month later.

I want to know why Major Tim Wilcox, whose baby nearly died after being forced by the CDFA to inhale Checkmate Pesticide in 2007, has never received the slightest acknowledgment from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to whom he wrote, pleading for help.

I want to know why neither Sen. Diane Feinstein, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Senator Carol Migden and Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s letters to the USDA and other officials have received no reply.

I want to know why the Monterey Bay Aquarium refused to let their neighbors speak to their staff regarding the dangers of spraying Monterey Bay, and why, even after hundreds of sea birds died from Checkmate spray, the aquarium has maintained a mysterious silence about the poisoning.

I want to know why not one of the 43 Californian Audubon Society chapters I’ve contacted cares that birds have been and will be killed by blanket aerial spraying of California. I want to know why I have not received a single concerned reply.

What can you add to my list?

The policy of silence in California is deadly. Hundreds of families have already been sickened, untold wildlife has died, and our air and water has been polluted with biochemicals and microscopic plastic which causes human fatality. Again and again, our demands for reasonable answers, for rational explanations as to the logic behind this assault on California are met with, at best, lies and at worst, utter silence.

It would appear that what they are experiencing in Washington D.C., with a president who can order someone to defy congress and a host of agencies that are sweltering in sickly corruption, is happening across the United States.

Let it be remembered that when the Ford Pinto was put out on the market, the manufacturers knew that a certain percentage of purchasers would die because of a malfunction in the car’s construction. But, Ford did the math. And, they realized that the total they would have to pay out in lawsuits was less than the total profits they would make before the car was recalled. So, they made a choice. The innocent people who would die were expendable, because a good margin of profit could still be accrued by releasing the car.

And, isn’t this what we are seeing in our nation and state? For whatever dark and unspeakable reason, the profit being made off the illegal spraying of human beings makes sense to a few criminals. When infants like little Jack Wilcox go into respiratory failure, when infants die after 2, 3, 100, 450 exposures to this deadly pesticide, perhaps a few dollars will be paid out in lawsuits if anyone is committed enough to actually get a ruling against the perpetrators. The money that will have to go out, however, cannot compare to the billions coming in for CDFA and Stewart Resnick, manufacturer of this poison.

They need only bide their time. Keep mum. Spray the people. Scrape away their piles of money. Deal with some small consequences later. In this life, silence is serving them well.

When citizen Mike DeLay traveled back to his childhood home of Reedley, California to explain to the region’s farmers how his central coast community had been gravely sickened by the aerial spraying of Checkmate in 2007, his audience listened with visible discomfort. DeLay was not the first emissary sent to them to talk about the light brown apple moth - the California Department of Food and Agriculture had already been there.

Spewing their infamous misinformation regarding the ‘voracious moth’, CDFA managed to so frighten the growers with threats of mass agricultural destruction and costly quarantines that the City of Reedley adopted the first and only resolution in support of spraying deadly chemicals on the families of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties and the densely populated SF Bay Area.

Mind you, this toxic, enforced spraying will not be happening over the homes of Reedley farmers and their children. They will not be inhaling carcinogens, mutagens, endocrine disrupting chemicals, crime-inducing synthetic moth pheromones and deadly PM10 pollution. But millions of their customers all along the California coast will, and in the end, City of Reedley growers have decided that’s preferable to potential financial penalties due to the presence of the LBAM in the state.

Bottom line: their income is more important than their customers’ lives.

Reedley is known as the World’s Fruit Basket. The region’s economy depends on delivering a variety of fruits to the national and international market. When faced with CDFA’s strong-arm threats of quarantine, the city made a moral choice: spray humans so growers won’t be penalized. Unfortunately, the City of Reedley made their decision before hearing from Mike DeLay. Unfortunately, Reedley’s growers have been victimized. Unfortunately, they have been duped.

When you read the text of the resolution (see page 69 of the document), it becomes abundantly clear that Reedley’s growers have been lied to and basically blackmailed by the CDFA. The resolution hinges on the following pieces of tragic misinformation:

1) That LBAM could cause billions of dollars in damage.

In fact, even CDFA admits that LBAM has done no damage and California’s most respected UC scientists predict it never will do any damage here. Further, it is important to note that the LBAM is unlikely to make it to the Central Valley as it lives in cool moist habitats like the coast - not hot, dry habitats like the City of Reedley and surrounding growing regions.

2) That LBAM is an eradicable pest

In fact, specialists in invasion biology have repeatedly tried to explain to CDFA that the harmless moth is simply too widespread to be eradicated. As is the case with most of CDFA’s scores of ‘eradication’ programs, extinction of the moth here is unlikely to result even after years of spraying. The track record of the CDFA is all you need to see to determine that they have failed in the majority of their so-called ‘eradication’ attempts over the past several decades.

3) That Checkmate, the spray product, is less harmful than other pesticides

In fact, Checkmate has, to date, caused both acute and chronic illness in Central Coast families, nearly killed a formerly-healthy infant, killed hundreds of birds, killed cats, dogs, rabbits, fish and honey bees. Checkmate causes illness and death.

4) That OEHHA determined that the illnesses and death which ensued after the 2007 spraying were not connected to the spraying

In fact, OEHHA admitted that they were unable to determine whether or not the spraying caused the documented illnesses and death. It is unsurprising that OEHHA was unable to state for certain that the biochemical spray sickened and killed people and animals - rather than investigating the reports by contacting the victims and their physicians, OEHHA threw 90% of the claims out and refused to contact a single person on the Central Coast. Little wonder they were unable to put a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the connection between spraying people with pesticide and pesticide-induced illnesses which match, point for point, the ingredients in Checkmate.

Familiar Language
If the points in the above resolution sound eerily familiar to you regarding a moth that devastates agriculture and a pesticide that is perfectly safe to spray on human beings, it is because you have encountered the exact language in the Reedley resolution in the mouth of Ag. Secretary A.G. Kawamura. I don’t think it would be wrong to question whether the City of Reedley resolution was, in fact, authored by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. CDFA held a secret, closed-door meeting at the City of Reedley Community Center on May 14th, 2008. The evidence of the lies told there to farmers may be found in the text of the resolution which passed a few days later.

One can only wonder how the victimized farmers felt when, the very next day, Mike DeLay showed up on their doorstep with concrete information indicating that growers had just been fooled by the CDFA machine in a brand new effort to pit farmers against their customers. Nobody likes to be duped.

“Some were troubled and most did not want to believe what I was saying,” said Mike DeLay of his meeting with the growers. “I believe it created a moral problem for them and they did not want to be put in that position. I believe the farmers are, for the most part, very morally minded and good people. I was asked by one grower just before the meeting ended, demanding an answer of what I would do if in their shoes? It was clear to me that he was upset and was struggling for the right thing to do but was afraid of losing his farm. I told them that knowing what I know about LBAM, I believe the central valley does not have any risk of LBAM as it can not survive there due to hot climate and I would never support aerial spraying anywhere, ever.”

It can’t have been pleasant to listen to the mild-mannered, obviously truthful DeLay explain how he and his wife were horrifically sickened by Checkmate, how many of their friends and neighbors are still terribly sick half a year later, how baby Jack Wilcox is now being kept breathing by means of corticosteroids after his lungs were damaged by the enforced spray. It can’t have been pleasant to stand behind a resolution, passed 24 hours earlier, that asserts that growers will protect agriculture at the cost of human lives.

What the City of Reedley Has Done
It’s imperative to state first that the 7 million people of coastal California who are set to be sprayed with deadly and secret chemicals in 2008 actually understand what happened in Reedley. Kawamura and his colleagues have been here, too, trying to scare us into believing that the light brown apple moth would eat just about every green thing in the state. We know how convincing these agents are. We know how skillfully they twist statements about harm and safety. We understand what happened in the City of Reedley.

But now it’s time for the Reedley growers to extend that same courtesy back to us. Please understand, we are your customers. You have just passed a resolution that says your apples and oranges are more important than our children’s lives. We have supported you with our dollar, but we aren’t going to support farmers who ally themselves with criminals. CDFA has now been convicted twice of breaking the law by creating their false LBAM ‘emergency’. They have been found guilty of violating CEQA. These are not honest or law-abiding citizens. They are deceitful law-breakers. And Reedley farmers have just linked arms with them. You are standing in the company of California’s very worst public and environmental offenders.

We can’t support that.

We implore Reedley’s farmers to withdraw their resolution, now that actual facts have been put into their hands about the harmlessness of this negligible bug and the very real threat to life posed by the aerial spraying of Checkmate over urban areas. Baby Jack Wilcox’s life is more important than your fruit, isn’t it? What do you think will happen to this 1 year old boy if CDFA sprays him again? Do you really support this happening?

And, if humanitarian concerns have somehow ceased to rule the actions of the farmers of the City of Reedly, then they must at least consider these 2 outcomes.

1) Support spraying us, and we will be forced to boycott you. We are not going to give money to people who pass resolutions that support the biochemcial killing of our children, spouses, parents and neighbors.

2) Support spraying us, and we will sicken and die. You cannot sell fruit to dead people. Killing off your customer base is not a viable marketing strategy.

What the City of Reedley has done is to pass the one and only resolution in the state that applauds the violation of the Constitutional tenets which defend residents from human experimentation without consent. Some 25 cities in the spray zone have now passed resolutions adamantly opposing the poisoning of millions of Californians, their pets, wildlife, food, air and watershed. What the City of Reedley has done is to fall victim to the fear-mongering tactics of CDFA, buying into the deceptive mirage of California devastated by a negligible leafroller moth. What the City of Reedley has done, sadly, is to play right into the dirty hands of A.G. Kawamura, allowing themselves to be bullied and pitted against their very own customers.

Justice here would be the farmers storming the offices of CDFA, demanding at the tops of their lungs to know why they were tricked, demanding to see the science which ‘proves’ that their crops are under threat, demanding to know why CDFA thinks growers can be used as pawns and played for fools.

Reedley farmers lacked information until Mike DeLay came to town. Now they have it. And now, customers are waiting to see if they will rewrite their resolution in order to protect our health and rights, or if we will be forced to enact a boycott of the City of Reedley’s growers. Support us and we will support you. We have a common opponent in the odious CDFA.

Since the spraying began on the Central Coast in 2007, people have been asking what the synthetic pheromone in Checkmate does to people and animals. We already know that the other elements in the spray are carcinogenic, mutagenic and endocrine disruptive…in numerous cases causing Central Coast women to experience extremely disturbing reproductive health effects.

But what about the synthetic pheromone itself? What happens to humans who are forced to inhale, eat and drink this chemical?

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.

As this eye-opening article states, “bureaucrats are using the absence of evidence as evidence of the absence of harm.”

Further:

It appears that the CDPR has not been entirely honest in expressing their opinion of the aerial spray mixture (Checkmate). They seem to have neglected the well documented toxicity of some spray additives. This has resulted in the reluctance to fully evaluate the impact of the aerial spray on a very large population exposed to the spray. The evidence on the toxicity of the spray additives was clear while the toxicity of the synthetic pheromones is not yet thoroughly studied. There is a growing body of evidence indicating that the synthetic insect pheromones may also be active in mammals and probably in humans. In the fullness of time, it is likely that the synthetic insect hormones will be seen to have behavioural and cellular impacts on vertebrates and humans. Presently, these impacts have been documented in a few cases, but the field is advancing rapidly. Male sexual aggression should be considered a marker and evaluated from police records in the communities sprayed with insect pheromone from the air.

I am literally horrified to understand that exposure to the synthetic pheromone in Checkmate may cause aggressive sexual behaviors in men. What may be the toll of assaults on the innocent after a decade or more of constant, enforced spraying???

I want to state for the record that I have NEVER been duped by CDFA’s claims that the synthetic pheromone was harmless to people. But, like everyone else, my focus has been mainly on the other ingredients and the PM10 pollution of the microcapsules. The time has come to confront CDFA about the damage they are doing with the ‘active’ ingredient in the spray, and as the authors of this piece indicate, it is starting to become very clear that exposure to this ingredient may have horrific consequences for society.

This article needs to be on the desk of every public official in California. I have already been dizzy with fear over the physical dangers of flying airplanes at low altitudes hundreds of times in city landscapes…but if the substance sprayed induces criminal behavior in people? How does California intend to deal with this? How?