Well, I'm personally relieved that they are not using more adulticides currently (wish they wouldn't use any), but I worry about the open-ended language that could open up a door in the future, under someone else's watch.

I think that saying DEET is safe for babies is "pushing", certainly endorsing and encouraging, considering that DEET is what's being sold to unsuspecting parents everywhere. How many people go to these power point presentations, compared to how many people go to their website in search of trustworthy answers? ACMAD's claim that DEET is safe for babies is just plain irresponsible. Children are much more likely to get sick from DEET than from WNV, in fact they cause very similar neurological illnesses. Preventing WNV with DEET is like putting out a match with a blowtorch... Many, many, many more people die of pesticide injuries each year than of WNV.

Picaridin appears to still be too new to be discussed much, but it is a synthetic chemical with many unknowns, and it certainly shouldn't be peddled to parents as proven safe. I could find no Material Safety Data Sheet for it. If you look it up at PAN, one of the sites John Rusmisel recommended, it is littered with question marks. Insufficient data does not imply safety.

Neither does risk assessment, nor is it truly science to make a lot of theoretical assumptions about various made up scenarios, like the document by Peterson, et al. As someone already injured by pesticides, I'm so tired of being an acceptable risk. I'd like to see the precautionary principle applied in these situations, not risk assessment. For a bit of counter "risk assessment" of WNV, see some of the links below (including www.stopwestnilesprayingnow.org, the website John Rusmisel referred to), which show that there is no WNV epidemic, and that these extreme measures to combat mosquitoes can actually contribute to turning WNV into a much worse problem, not to mention poisoning many in the process.

Maxina Ventura, from East Bay Pesticide Alert, made a statement to ACMAD and John Rusmisel, which is among many relevant links on EBPA's WNV page, here:
http://eastbaypesticidealert.org/West%20Nile%20Virus.html

For direct links to the most immediately important documents:

Here's Max's 2005 statement to ACMAD, which describes her child falling ill as a result of a neighbor spraying in response to the WNV panic:
http://eastbaypesticidealert.org/alameda_mad_statement.html

Here are two articles that reveal the WNV panic to be totally out of proportion with the actual threat. There is NO EPIDEMIC of WNV. There is however an epidemic of people dying from the various effects of pesticide poisoning:
http://www.ecotalk.org/WestNileVirusNews.htm
http://www.ecotalk.org/WestNileVirus&Pesticides.htm

Also, again, the Overkill expose, which counters all the arguments mosquito abatement programs make for the "need" to use toxics:
http://www.meepi.org/wnv/overkillma.htm

For examples of others fighting toxic WNV measures:
http://eastbaypesticidealert.org/WestNileVirus.pdf (San Luis Obispo)
http://www.nospray.org/ (New York)

Oh, how I wish our municipalities would get off the toxic treadmill, and would stop believing the panic hype of the chemical industry...

Isis


isis feral <isisferal@...> wrote:

Forwarded from Lorraine, with hopefully all pictures and attachments intact:

Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 2:50:36 PM
Subject: RE: Dirty Decade Report

Lorraine,

 

I enjoyed our discussion on the pesticides used by our district.

 

You might find the following websites interesting/helpful:

 

http://www.panna.org/ Pesticide Action Network

 

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/     They have a section on mosquito management for west nile virus that I think we follow pretty well at:

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/mosquito/reportsandpublications/mosquito%20_strategy.pdf

 

http://www.stopwestnilesprayingnow.org/index.html This group is against the adulticide treatments done by the Sacramento/Yolo mosquito and vector control district which is run by David Brown, a friend of mine.

I know he would prefer to do larvicidal treatments but there comes a time during an epidemic when broader treatments are called for to save lives. What are the alternatives for mosquito control districts? If we don’t do wide spread adulticiding treatments during a west nile virus outbreak and people die how does that compare with doing the treatments and possibly harming people with chemical sensitivities?

 

We have been extremely fortunate in Alameda County to have avoided having to use truck mounted foggers in residential neighborhoods to control mosquitoes. Even though all of the counties that border Alameda County have had multiple human cases of West Nile Virus and some deaths, we have not had a single, locally acquired, human case of West Nile Virus.

 

I always welcome questions regarding our control program from interested individuals.

 

John R. Rusmisel

Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 12:01:44 PM
Subject: RE: [BayCanaryGrapevine] Digest Number 60

Lorraine,

After reading the response, I would say that we don’t “push” DEET. In fact, we have been showing numerous alternatives to DEET in our power point presentations that we have been giving throughout the county. There are several good alternatives including a new material that will soon be tested in California.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0726_050726_deet.html This article mentions Picaridin and lemon eucalyptus oil which are good alternatives. There is also another product called bite blocker which is being used by some people – it is soybean based. http://www.biteblocker.com/intro.html

 

While we have never used much adulticides in the past, our website (control program) does mention the use of Scourge as the product we would use. That has been changed to Pyrenone 25-5 for the simple reason that it does have less PBO in it than other pesticides registered to control adult mosquitoes. This year we have used no (zero) adulticides. Last year we used .1 ounce of pyrenone to calibrate the equipment.

 

For storm drain and catch basin treatments we use both solid and liquid formulations of bacteria and Altosid (chemical name methoprene s).  We also on occasion use Golden bear oil but this is more and more infrequent in use and is part of an integrated pest management (IPM) program that is geared more to reducing the possibility of insecticide resistance in the mosquitoes than for daily use. During the rainy season (November – April) we don’t actively target stormdrains because they are being flushed out regularly. In the dry season the drains don’t flow (except in areas where people over water their lawns or leave water flowing into the gutter while washing their cars) which is why they produce so many mosquitoes. I don’t know why anyone would care whether the Bti is added to a stormdrain in a liquid or solid material. We have been using more Water Soluble Packet (WSP) formulations because it is a “cleaner” method of delivering the proper dosage to a basin.

 

I am attaching a study done a couple of years ago that looked at the risk of human exposure to pesticides used for WNV mosquito control. It is a little (ok – a lot) on the dry side but it is interesting. I doubt if people with chemical sensitivities will agree with the conclusions.

 

 

 

 

Slide from our West Nile information presentations – I use the lemon eucalyptus oil regularly when I am in the sierras. DEET is a plasticizer that eats fly fishing lines so I don’t use it.

 

 

 

 

 

We use Bti and Bacillus sphaericus for bacterial control. Growth hormone = Altosid  = Methoprene s. Oil is GB 1111 or Goldenbear oil.

 

 

 

For what its worth . . .  the materials we use are often less toxic than the alternatives that others suggest we use.

 

 

John R. Rusmisel

District Manager

Alameda County Mosquito Abatement District

(510) 783-7744 x 17

(510) 783-3903 FAX

 

---

Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now.