Dear Opednews editors: The letter emailed below by the California Secretary of Food and Agriculture is a public message. Therefore, it bears no special permission to reprint it. Further, it is a message which the public must see, as a matter of social obligation. Public health is at stake here. Thank you for printing this.
Dear readers:
Please reconsider any assumption that this aerial pesticide spraying program is a matter of concern only to Californians. If it is scheduled to be done here in California, then they will do it anywhere else they wish. That's the truth. Especially if there is no consequence to those who are perpetrating it, endangering life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the process.
Please ask your physicians to come on board with public arguments rebutting the false claims below, that there is no proven connection between the aerial pesticide spraying program and more than 3,000 medical claims filed since that spraying took place. None of the patients/victims had such symptoms prior to that aerial pesticide spraying. One child almost died.
Of course, medical opinions will vary according to bias and the school of thought in which they are trained. That should be kept in mind, before you ask any physician to go public with this urgent matter. Please be very selective when asking for public medical opinions. Thank you.
To the violation of the 4th amendment, the bill permitting this spraying of a 250-mile radius of urban areas grants il-"legal" permission for sprayings to occur on private properties without owners' consent. This must be stopped, and exposed as a criminal matter. Lawsuits should be filed left and right.
Please help. Please forward this letter (below) as widely as possible. Ask for public outcry and any strategies you believe to be effective. Thank you for helping to rescue us medically endangered Californians!
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:47 AM Subject: Re: No LBAM Spraying Without Environmental Impact Reports
Dear ,
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.
This quote summarizes the nature of my concerns and the content of personal experiences which stir my activism:
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement on human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves". --Paul Revere, House of Commons