Police await toxicology tests on dog

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Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read another article that was Published Wednesday, October 18, 2000, in the Miami Herald entitled:  Police await toxicology tests on dog.  BY ARNOLD MARKOWITZ  - amarkowitz@herald.com

There was nothing physically wrong with Tyson, the boxer dog who died  mysteriously while citrus canker eradicators worked next door, Miami Police  reported Tuesday. The mystery, they expect, will be solved when toxicology tests are completed.

``The county lab does it. It can take one to six weeks, but they're going to try to do it faster,'' police spokesman Delrish Moss said. ``According to the medical examiner, this was a healthy dog, and they see no physical reasons why the dog should have died, no visible injuries.''

Carolina Sanchez, whose dog died Monday in her yard at 3621 SW 19th St., reported a strong odor that she guessed was a pesticide. She blamed it on a work crew from AshBritt, a Pompano Beach contractor working for the Florida Department of Agriculture.

Officer Linda Ares, 53, who responded to Sanchez's distraught call, went into the backyard and was nearly overcome. She spent Monday night in Mercy Hospital and went home Tuesday. Moss said results of her blood test were not ready Tuesday.

A neighborhood cat who passed out also was recovering.

The eradication work was going on next door to Sanchez in Jennie Fernandez's yard, where several citrus trees were cut down two months ago.

According to Agriculture Department spokesman Mark Fagan, AshBritt had two grinding machine operators doing the work, supervised by Edmund Rosselle of the Agriculture Department. When Rosselle took his lunch break around noon, he was replaced by a division supervisor, Grisela Simon. She arrived about half an hour after Rosselle left.

At about 2:30 p.m., when Sanchez's dog was out in the fenced backyard, she noticed a strong odor and went out to see what was going on. She found Tyson dead.

News of the dog's death brought a raft of new complaints to news media and the police about pets -- cats and dogs, even a horse -- whose deaths coincided with canker eradication by the state Agriculture Department and its private contractors who cut down trees and remove stumps.

The Agriculture Department was swamped with calls from people demanding to know exactly when the eradicators would be at their homes, so they could protect their pets and themselves.

``This is creating major problems,'' Fagan said. ``We don't want people to think we're going out there wiping out their dogs. . . . This is the first report of a dog dying in the presence of citrus canker eradication workers, or following the removal of a tree.''

AshBritt workers denied using chemicals. So did state agriculture supervisors.

There were seemingly conflicting circumstances: Sanchez smelled something that presumably killed her dog, but it did not physically affect her. It stifled the breathing of the officer who arrived several minutes later, but apparently did not affect the canker workers.

``Until we get the toxicology report, we don't know what was used,'' Moss said. ``But something happened there yesterday, and it caused the death of the dog and more than likely caused the police officer to go to the hospital.

``Our concern is not so much the use of chemicals. It's that whatever happened there, we want to make sure it doesn't happen again, so next time we're not investigating the death of someone's child.''

Well Mr. Helliker, I would like to quote from an anonymous friend:  "The DACS Division of Plant Industry in charge of this citrus canker eradication program (and Medfly eradication) told me in 1999 that they were still using herbicides on citrus root stumps. When I asked if they ever received any health complaints, I was told, "No". Apparently, they forgot - or were lying."  Let us pray that we can find some truthful "regulators" that do not "forget".

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