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Have You Had Your Malathion Today?

Last night between 6:30 and 7:15 P.M. the tree-lined block I live
on in Park Slope was directly gassed eight times by a helicopter
flying only a few feet above the trees. The windows rattled from
the low frequency whooshing sound of the rotating blades. It�s
the closest I�ve ever been to a helicopter that was actually flying.
On many of the passes I could see trails of white gas lingering in
the air.

The old building I live in is very drafty.  Even with the windows
closed there�s enough of a breeze to slam doors shut. Within
minutes of the first helicopter passes I could feel a strange
metallic sensation in my throat and a tingling in my extremities
which lasted for few hours.

Outside on the streets teenagers, many caring for little brothers
and sisters or their own small kids, walked by dressed in shorts
and tee shirts as the helicopters sprayed them from directly
overhead.

In Giuliani�s New York you can get arrested for lighting up a
cigarette but it�s okay to spray nerve gas on the whole City.
Public health policy as envisioned by a lunatic.

The Mayor�s doing an excellent and very thorough job. Of
gassing the public that is. What he�s doing for mosquitoes is
another matter. By next year at this time we�ll be meeting these
mosquito�s mutant offspring, the super Malathion resistant
mosquito, popularly known as the Rudy Giuliani angel of death
mosquito.

Of course, even those indestructible mosquitoes probably won�t
have the St. Louis Encephalitis virus. To date, the City still
hasn�t found a single infected mosquito. The Mayor�s Malathion
Madness is about prevention, just in case there might be some
infected mosquitoes and just in case there is an actual
encephalitis virus on the loose.

Other City�s use a portion of their tax dollars for mosquito
prevention. Health Department employees go yard to yard
looking for stagnant water, taking mosquito samples and doing
selective localized hand spraying when and if necessary.  Not
here in New York, where our Malathion Mayor recently gave
David Rockefeller $65 million dollars to expand the Museum of
Modern Art and then gave the NY Stock Exchange a one billion
dollar tax write off as part of a real estate deal with the City. It
seems that in addition to welfare, decent schools and public
hospitals, we can�t afford mosquito prevention.

Yesterday the Mayor agreed to suspend spraying in
predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn so
as to avoid directly spraying poison gas on tens of thousands of
religious Jews who walk to synagogue as part of the observance
of Yom Kippur, the most solemn Jewish day of the year.  After
an unarmed orthodox Jew was shot 12 times by the police just a
few weeks ago, the Mayor can�t afford to further enrage his
supporters in the Jewish community by an act of blatant
insensitivity.

I�m genuinely grateful that my fellow Jewish New Yorkers won�t
be gassed on the High Holy Days, but if Malathion is as safe and
harmless as the Mayor keeps telling us, and if the need to
repeatedly douse the entire City is so urgent, why this sudden
backing down? Will the Mayor also suspend spraying in
predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods on Sunday, when
those communities are going to church, shopping or playing in
the streets? Today, 9/19/99, the Mayor says that all of Manhattan
will be sprayed from 5:30 PM until 9: 30 PM. That means
hundreds of thousands of men, women and children will be
directly sprayed. The Mayor has admitted on many occasions that
his political support is very weak in Manhattan especially among
minorities. Apparently for Mayor Giuliani, political
considerations and campaign contributions always take
precedence over health concerns.

Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists� Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTISTpres@aol.com  (718) 369-2111
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html

�The mayor dismissed complaints from environmental advocates
about the spraying, referring to them as hysterical "environmental
terrorists" who "like to get you angry because it gets them on
television." The spraying is harmless, he insisted.� More
Mosquito War Protests greet new plan for spraying-Daily News
9/18/99

�Malathion is a nerve gas...in the same family as nerve gasses
developed during WWII� -NY Times 9/14/99

"There's absolutely no danger to anyone from this
spraying...There are some people who are engaged in the
business of wanting to frighten people out of their minds."
Mayor Giuliani-Newsday, 9/14/99

�Meanwhile, officials said that several hundred mosquitoes sent
to federal labs for testing showed no trace of the potentially
lethal virus.� -Daily News 9/17/99

"Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they
want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority.
Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to
cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you
do." Mayor Giuliani, New York Times, March 17, 1994

The following is excerpted from the Encyclopedia Brittanica
Online articles on Pesticides

Pesticides are used the world over; and, even though
precautionary measures (such as using protective clothing and
respirators, monitoring contamination of equipment and clothing,
keeping workers out of recently sprayed areas, and requiring
workers to wash thoroughly after exposure) can be instituted,
poisoning not infrequently occurs in agricultural communities.
The organophosphates [which include Malathion, the main
chemical being sprayed on NYC] and the generally less toxic
carbamates exert their effects by inhibiting cholinesterase, an
enzyme that prevents stimulation from becoming too intense or
prolonged by destroying the acetylcholine involved in the
transmission of impulses in the autonomic nervous system.
Cholinesterase inhibitors allow the accumulation of
acetylcholine, causing symptoms related to parasympathetic
overactivity, such as chest tightness, wheezing, blurring of
vision, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and in severe cases
respiratory paralysis. Atropine and certain oximes counteract
their effects. (See pesticide, cholinesterase.)

Disorders due to chemical agents

Hazardous chemicals can act directly on the skin, resulting in
local irritation or an allergic reaction, or they may be absorbed
through the skin, ingested, or inhaled. Substances that occur as
gases, vapours, aerosols, and dusts are the most difficult to
control, and most hazardous chemicals are therefore absorbed
through the respiratory tract. If inhaled, airborne contaminants
act as irritants to the respiratory tract or as systemic poisons.
Toxicity in such cases depends on the contaminant's
concentration, particle size, and physicochemical properties,
particularly its solubility in body fluids. An individual's reaction
to any hazard depends primarily on the length, pattern, and
concentration of exposure but is also affected by such factors as
age, sex, ethnic group, genetic background, nutritional status,
coexistent disease, concomitant exposure to other toxic agents,
life-style, and history of previous exposure to the agent in
question.

Pesticides
The problem of persistence in pesticides can be highlighted by
noting that this attribute exists in a range from moderately
persistent (a lifetime of one to 18 months--2,4-D, atrazine);
persistent (lifetime up to 20 years--DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, endrin,
heptachlor, toxaphene); or permanent (lead, mercury, and
arsenic). Presumably, the less persistent types should be more
desirable, other things being equal; but those that degrade
rapidly, such as the organophosphate insecticides [which
includes Malathion], are extremely toxic and nonselective, which
encourages rapid emergence of resistant insects and destroys
their natural enemies. Thus, it is apparently not possible to adopt
chemicals that function without some drawback or disadvantage.
Whether pesticides are applied by spraying or by surface
application, air is the usual medium through which the chemicals
move to their intended and unintended targets. Reliable data on
how pesticides behave in air, such as distance travelled, are
lacking, because adequate monitoring is unavailable. Their
chemical and physical nature, method of application, and the
atmospheric conditions will influence their concentration and
ultimate fate. There is no doubt that pesticides may be
transported long distances on dust particles. The rate of removal
from air is difficult to predict, but in the long run the chemicals
return to earth.

�Peter Lehner, the top environmental lawyer in the office of Eliot
L. Spitzer, the New York State Attorney General, said...it was
important not to gloss over the fact that malathion is a chemical
that was designed to kill things, that it had sickened people in
the past and that the Federal Environmental Protection Agency
prohibits those who sell any pesticide from describing it as
harmless. "The E.P.A. clearly says don't call these things
harmless, because they are not," Lehner said yesterday. He said
his office yesterday called the City Law Department to encourage
city officials to change the way they describe malathion.� NY
Times 9/14/99

�...in many ways, the outbreak is not as surprising -- or as
unpreventable -- as officials have maintained..Long before the
virus showed up, for instance, the state had grown lax in its
surveillance of mosquitoes and the diseases they carry, said a
dozen experts on St. Louis encephalitis..And in New York City,
budget cuts in the early 1990's included a sharp reduction in staff
for the Health Department's pest-control unit, despite dire
warnings of the health risks that could result, documents
show...For example, it is more efficient, safer and less expensive
to monitor the state's mosquito population than it is to kill adult
mosquitoes after a virus has been detected, experts said. And
although the state has a laboratory devoted to studying viruses
and the insects that carry them, it failed to conduct tests for St.
Louis encephalitis, experts said...The most common way to
detect St. Louis encephalitis is to capture birds and periodically
take blood samples, said Robert Novak, a medical entomologist
at the University of Illinois..."What bothers me is that if you are
not monitoring mosquitoes for something, you end up using
people as a surveillance tool. That is what happened in New
York...One former city official said the encephalitis outbreak
was "completely predictable," adding, "What happened is that the
streets became more dangerous for criminals but safer for
mosquitoes and rats.� -NY Times 9/19/99 Lax Monitoring Led to
Encephalitis, Experts Suggest

�As New York City relies on pesticides to battle St. Louis
encephalitis, it has overlooked new technology for controlling
mosquitoes that uses no poisons and eliminates the risk of
breeding a pesticide-resistant strain of insect. The device is about
the size of a gas barbecue, and it emits a plume of carbon dioxide
that attracts mosquitoes. The device then sucks them into a small
vacuum, where they dehydrate and die within a day.� -NY Times
9/19/99  New Gun in Mosquito War Gets its Bug Without
Poison

Daily News Letters 9/19/99 �It Stinks!
Rego Park: To the rocket scientists who say this mosquito spray
is harmless, go sit in Little Neck Bay and take a look at all the
dead fish. Last week, I must have seen 5,000 dead fish there. I
don't think they all died of natural causes. Something smells
fishy, and it's not the fish.�

�The Big Apple has the highest asthma rate in the country - with
135,000 school children suffering from the disease�.-Daily News
9/19/99 [Asthmatics are particularly susceptible to the immediate
effects of Malathion gas]

The World�s Current Major Chemical Companies
Germany- BASF Aktiengesellschaft- Bayer AG- Cassella
Farbewerke Mainkur Aktiengesellschaft- Hoechst
Aktiengesellschaft- IG FarbenNetherlands- AKZO
NV- DSMSwitzerland- CIBA-GEIGY AGU.K.- Imperial
Chemical Industries PLC U.S.A.- Allied-Signal Inc.- Dow
Chemical Company- Du Pont Company- Goodrich
Company- Grace & Company- Monsanto Company- Union
Carbide Corporation- Uniroyal Holdings, Inc.
IG Farben-History From The Encyclopedia Brittanica Online

IG Farben [INTERESSENGEMEINSCHAFT
FARBENINDUSTRIE AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT] (German:
"Syndicate of Dyestuff-Industry Corporations"), was the world's
largest chemical concern, or cartel, from its founding in Germany
in 1925 until its dissolution by the Allies after World War II.
The IG (Interessengemeinschaft, "syndicate" or, literally,
"community of interests"), partly patterned after earlier U.S.
trusts, grew out of a complex merger of German manufacturers of
chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and dyestuffs (Farben). The major
members were the companies known today as BASF
Aktiengesellschaft, Bayer AG, Hoechst Aktiengesellschaft,
Agfa-Gevaert Group (Agfa merged with Gevaert, a Belgian
company, in 1964), and Cassella AG (from 1970 a subsidiary of
Hoechst). [Note: today these companies are among the largest
manufacturers of prescription and over the counter drugs sold in
the U.S.]

During World War II, IG Farben established a synthetic oil and
rubber plant at Auschwitz in order to take advantage of slave
labour; the company also conducted drug experiments on live
inmates. After the war several company officials were convicted
of war crimes (nine being found guilty of plunder and spoliation
of property in occupied territory and four being found guilty of
imposing slave labour and inhumane treatment on civilians and
prisoners of war).

In 1945 IG Farben came under Allied authority; its industries
(along with those of other German firms) were to be dismantled
or dismembered with the stated intent "to render impossible any
future threat to Germany's neighbours or to world peace." In the
western zones of Germany, however, especially as the Cold War
advanced, this disposition toward liquidation lessened.
Eventually the Western powers and West Germans agreed to
divide IG Farben into just three independent units: Hoechst,
Bayer, and BASF (the first two being refounded in 1951; BASF
in 1952).

From: Nazi Germany by Klaus P. Fischer, pg. 507
�Early methods of using exhaust gasses from diesel engines [to
kill Jews in the gas chambers] gave way to hydro-cyanide
(prussic acid) that had been marketed under the trade name of
Zyklon-B by a firm called Dagesh, an acronym that stands for
Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Schadligungsbekampfung (German
Vermin-Combating Corporation).�

From: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
pgs. 968 and 972
�The Zyklon-B crystals that killed the victims were furnished by
two German firms which had acquired the patent from I.G.
Farben...The gas chambers themselves and the adjoining
crematoria, viewed from a short distance, were not sinister
looking places at all; it was impossible to make them out for
what they were...The unsuspecting Jews thought they were being
taken to the baths for the delousing which was customary at all
camps�.

"I ask you not to create any undue or unnecessary alarm or
panic," Giuliani said at a City Hall news conference on Thursday
morning. "There's no point in not spraying, because there's no
harm in spraying. So even if we're overdoing it, there's no risk to
anyone in overdoing it...The more dead mosquitoes," he added,
"the better. I don't think the media should try to push this out of
proportion�. NY Times 9/10/99

[The following is a Newsday column supporting the spraying and
attacking me for opposing it]

Newsday 9/15/99
No Malathion Madness in New York
BY:  Joseph Dolman.
Joseph Dolman's e-mail address is jdolman@pipeline.com.
EDITION: ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: Viewpoints
DATE:  09-15-1999 pg.A42

    LET ME give you the good news first: Most folks have kept their
heads screwed on tight as New York City wages chemical warfare on
mosquitoes that carry St. Louis encephalitis. Other locales might have
lapsed into a California-style tizzy - but 7.5 million New Yorkers are
proving that they retain a reassuring reservoir of common sense.

    I'm not kidding. Think of it: City Hall is using helicopters, planes
and trucks to sprinkle one of the most densely populated cities on Earth
with a pesticide called Malathion - and most of us who live in the five
boroughs are grateful for the effort.

    And why shouldn't we be? The air we breathe on a normal day is
enough to kill windowbox flowers on contact and corrode patio furniture
within a month. So what's a quick glazing of Malathion - as long as it
arrests the encephalitis outbreak that has taken three lives and might
take more? Mayor Rudolph Giuliani insists the chemical is safe in
reasonable amounts. But if you doubt his expertise - and what sane
person wouldn't? - it helps to know the federal Centers for Disease
Control and other outside authorities back him up.

    Meanwhile, in Whitestone, Queens, on Monday morning - near the
epicenter of the outbreak - a runner and some walkers in Francis Lewis
Park were soaking up the golden sunlight and coolish temperatures of a
late-summer day. If they felt strong fears - if anyone in the
neighborhood did - they weren't letting it turn them into shut-in
scared-of-the-fresh-air fools.

    Nor were the thousands who packed Central Park the day before. Nor
were the multitudes that wandered out for the free Broadway program in
Times Square on Sunday afternoon or the people who have shown up for
Fashion Week in Midtown.

    Compare this to what happened in California in 1981 when Gov. Jerry
Brown sprayed parts of that state with Malathion to kill the
Mediterranean fruit fly.A few crop-dusting helicopters wound up flying
through ground fire. Other helicopter firms were threatened.
And lawsuits materialized faster than medfly larvae as frightened
suburbanites and irate farmers mixed it up in a political tsunami.

    But wait - before we go much further in this vein - honesty compels
me to point out that not everyone in New York City's moment of crisis
has been a model of restraint and reason and virtue.

    For one thing, the mayor's political opponents have been slyly
scrambling for an edge since the crisis erupted a few weeks ago. So far,
they haven't found one. But the prize for Most Lurid Try goes to Robert
Lederman - a tireless Giuliani gadfly.
    "As this weekend's Malathion marathon drew to a close," Lederman
writes, "the so-called public health crisis turns out to have been made
up of equal parts unsubstantiated epidemic, invented emergency and
Fuhreristic photo opportunity.Like a disturbed mother who poisons her
children so she can heroically nurse them, our... mayor has invented a
plague in order to rescue us from it."

Look. The ugly truth is, public health
epidemics that pit a deadly-but-invisible microbe against a
toxic-but-manageable
antidote are often sitting ducks for such nonsense. Ask any veteran of
the AIDS wars. Some people will believe anything if they can't see the
enemy without a microscope.

    Giuliani puts it another way. "There are some people with an agenda
of trying to frighten people out of their minds," he said at a press
conference on Monday, and they often land on television.

    At the same time, politicians like Bronx Borough President Fernando
Ferrer are twitting Giuliani for insufficient enthusiasm on mosquito
control from the start. Giuliani could be vulnerable here. And yet,
never in its history has the city recorded an outbreak of St. Louis
encephalitis before.
    Should Ferrer ever become mayor, I'll expect him to fight not only
the diseases we have but the ones we've never had and still stay within
budget.
    My personal favorite in the mosquito dance is Nassau County
Executive Thomas Gulotta, who last week gave new meaning to the word
defensive. The Nassau residents who may have contracted encephalitis, he
explained, were in fact bitten by mosquitoes in Queens. So, hey, don't
blame him.
    The practice of sound public health and the practice of politics
have always made for an uneasy marriage. But this time around - when it
comes to dignity and good sense - the ordinary people of New York could
show their leaders a thing or two.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a
prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only.


Malathion information sites:
http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/Biology/4S03/malathio.htm

http://www.chem-tox.com/malathion/plane/default.htm

http://www.chem-tox.com/malathion/

http://www.chem-tox.com/malathion/research/index.htm

http://www.ncchem.com/malathion.htm

http://unix.adept.net/~mcsinfo/genetic.htm

http://members.tripod.com/C_E_A_S_E/framesindex.htm

Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists� Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTISTpres@aol.com  (718) 369-2111
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html

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