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!
From: "LBAM" <LBAM@cdfa.ca.gov>
To:
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.
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