Panic leads to pesticides...

Panic Caution: In 1999 the City of New York found the only vector of West Nile virus from birds to man to be the Northern House Mosquito, Culex pipens (Linnaeus). The adults are brownish with white or gray markings with dark legs. These particular mosquitoes are the only known vectors of West Nile virus and fly only 100 - 300 feet in their lifetime and are only minimally active at night. They breed in artificial containers, ditches, bird baths, sewers and polluted water.

New York City had only isolated incidents of infestation, yet chose to give out Deet to “protect” all of the children and to bomb all five boroughs with malathion during the daytime with helicopters and trucks. I would like to note that at temperatures above 77 degrees Fahrenheit - malathion has at least one transformation product called malaoxon that is a known carcinogen and extremely dangerous. New York City spent over Nine Million Dollars using/misusing pesticides! There were pictures in the newspapers of the daytime malathion/malaoxon spraying and of children putting on Deet during the day. None of these daytime “controls” could or would ever work, but the frost did eventually control this particular specie of mosquito.

Now it is the Spring of 2000, and the City has decided it is again time to “protect” the people. There are ads in the papers to hire untrained men for ten dollars an hour to spray more "registered' poisons. The New York "plan" that I reviewed does not mention the dangers of their “registered" pesticide "controls”. The "plan" does not indicate where to report symptoms of pesticide poisoning. The “plan” does not even mention the word “organophosphate”, nor does it alert the populace of the health effects and/or symptoms of their "registered" pesticide “controls”. Their “plan” does not consider any safer and far more effective alternatives that actually take into consideration the species of mosquito they are supposedly “trying to control.”

At an NCAMP meeting I noted that if I had violated the pesticide labels, the New York statutes regarding pesticide usage and the federal law that states that it is illegal to say that even the labeled use of any pesticide is “safe” as much as the City of New York had done during the Fall of 1999, I would have been arrested.

What can you do to safely and effectively control the Northern House Mosquito? Well, first of all note that it is called a house not a city mosquito. Screen your windows. Use Deet only if you are going out at night. Stay inside or sit in the breeze (of a fan), drain or remove any standing water/breeding sources in your backyards or add a little lime, dish soap, vegetable oil or a drop or two of Kleen Away Enzyme Cleaner to the stagnant water. These mosquitoes are not very active biters (even at night) so keep on moving. The only people normally attacked by this particular species are very old, sleeping or very sedentary.

If you insist on spraying pesticides, do so only as a last resort; and only in accordance with the label and only in those localized areas that are actually found to be infested with West Nile virus and then hire experienced people to monitor the situation and to spray when the infested mosquitoes and not the children are actually out! I do not believe spraying will control the problem as much as removing the sources of these particular mosquitoes, and removing the sources will safely and effectively solve the problem. We do not need any people to get sick and/or die from either the West Nile virus or the City's POISON "cure"!

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