PESTICIDE SPRAYING 
A truck sprays insecticide on a street in Whitestone.
A Price to Spray

When Claire Feltham opened the door to her Staten Island home last month, the city's mosquito spraying program hit her in the face.

 

Tuesday, Sept. 19, 200Newsday
 
PESTICIDE SPRAYING 
Newsday PhotoRobert Mecea
A truck sprays insecticide on a street in Whitestone.
A Price to Spray

Illness cited in lawsuit to stop use

by PATRICIA HURTADO Staff Writer

When Claire Feltham opened the door to her Staten Island home last month, the city's mosquito spraying program hit her in the face.

Speaking in a voice that was barely more than a whisper, Feltham said that while a local newspaper had reported that spraying would begin at 10 p.m. on Aug. 27, she was doused when she stepped onto the front steps of her home at 9:30 p.m.

"I was sprayed in the face,” she said yesterday. "I closed the door and immediately went in to wash my face. My eyes began tearing and I felt a tightness in my chest. I noticed my voice was getting weaker. Within an hour, my voice was gone.”

Her whispered testimony -- she said she still has not recovered her voice -- and that of two other New York City women who said they were suffering from pesticide poisoning came during a daylong hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan before Judge John Martin.

A coalition of environmental groups has filed a civil suit against the city to bring an end to the pesticide spraying program. The suit is supported by the Sierra Club.

The city is spraying the pesticide Anvil to kill mosquitoes in areas where the West Nile virus, which killed seven people last year, is detected.

Feltham's account comes a little more than two weeks after another city resident claimed that she was sprayed with the pesticide Anvil 10+10 when city trucks began spraying residential areas earlier than scheduled.

The mayor has confirmed that an Inwood woman was doused with pesticide Sept. 3 as she stood near a phone booth at Eighth Avenue and 58th Street in Manhattan. That spraying apparently began ahead of a schedule set by the city.

Feltham said her symptoms abated with time but erupted again last week when Staten Island was sprayed another time. The plaintiffs' attorney, Karl Coplan, asked about the continuing effect on her health. "It's very frustrating,” she whispered. "I can't go into my backyard and do yard work. I can't communicate with my children -- I'm a home-schooler.”

Deborah Joy Schwartz of Park Slope testified yesterday that she carefully monitors pesticide spraying because she suffers from a "multiple chemical sensitivity disorder” that makes her unusually vulnerable to the spraying. But she said that the city Health Department telephone hotline gave her bad information, forcing her to flee her home when spraying continued in her neighborhood.

She described having an allergic reaction as she walked to her Manhattan office the morning of July 28, just hours after the spraying in Manhattan had been completed. Schwartz said her faced puffed up and she began experiencing breathing difficulties, malaise, fever and sweating.

The city health commissioner, Dr. Neal Cohen, testified that in his professional opinion the spraying did not pose a health threat. Cohen said the spraying was warranted in the city, noting that a pet bird living on the sixth floor of a Harlem apartment building had died of West Nile virus.

But he would not say that Anvil is safe.

"I don't use the word ‘safe' [regarding Anvil],” Cohen testified. "I've said over and over again it doesn't have significant health impact.”

Two other defense witnesses, including Dr. James Miller, the city's West Nile virus coordinator, and Edmund Dassatti, with the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, acknowledged that there had been difficulties working out the Global Positioning Systems used to accurately apply Anvil from trucks and helicopters.

(Note:  Does knowing that these the types of pesticides are in lice treatment products and are sprayed over New York and several other states make you feel any better?)

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