THE LAST WORD
Reid, Robert Leonard
THE LAST WORD , Robert Leonard Reid ON OUR BACKS I heard the news over the telephone. My friend at the other end of the line was crying. "This is it," she said. "They're going to spray us." In...
...Most people, however, simply lock their Windows and hope for a good night's sleep...
...Neighbors spent their weekends plucking apples, walnuts, pears, peaches, and other forbidden fruits from the trees in their yards...
...Even if one is able to depart on va-cation for a few weeks, one's home and be-longings cannot make the trip, and for many people the spraying of those, too, is an unacceptable intrusion in their lives...
...it will, for instance, also kill bees and any possible natural predators of the fruit fly and predators currently being used in ongoing pest control programs...
...Among many others, prisoners and nursing home patients do not have this Option...
...I believe that aerial spraying of malathion involves severe risks to human health...
...The risks of Cancer, of deformed children, of an environmental disaster were measured for them— measured against the risk of a loss in profits, and found wanting...
...Then new Medfly larvae were found in the city of Mountain View...
...Lost in the clamor over aerial spraying has been what may be the central question of the controversy...
...Such thoughtful advice, however, counts for little when huge sums of money are at stake...
...The sound of the chop-pers passing in the night only 300 feet over-head is sinister...
...In May, efforts finally appeared to be paying off...
...One San Francisco radio talk show host suggested that it is the name of the chemical itself—malathion—that frightens people...
...The Mountain View infestation apparently was caused by state-released flies...
...I stripped my lemon tree and pulled up my tomatoes...
...We stood by as California Conservation Corps personnel sprayed malathion on the ground beneath fruit trees, and we waited at roadblocks while State inspectors checked outgoing cars for quarantined fruits and vegetables...
...Al-though malathion is toxic to the Medfly," the report stated, "it is also poisonous to other insects...
...Unlike dust or spray the fog will not contaminate food.' every afternoon to spend the night elsewhere...
...Now nightly—week after week—the helicopters come, sweeping back and forth over quiet neighborhoods, dumping malathion indiscriminately over fruit trees, lawn furniture, sidewalks, nursing homes, and playgrounds...
...Malathion is toxic for man," says Kaiman...
...It is a question not of health or of profits, but rather one of liberty...
...Call it "moondust," he said, and deliver it from a hot air balloon, and every city in California will be crying for the stuff...
...Professor Sumner Kaiman of Stanford Medical School views the matter less whim-sically...
...The spe-cious rationale applied to the present decision did not require advocates of spraying to prove that malathion is safe...
...So people who prefer not to be doused with malathion are being doused any way...
...Secretary of Agriculture John Block and the agriculture commissioners of several southern states...
...Finally, they got their way...
...As for possible hazards to human be-ings, the report concluded: "We do not have enough information on possible car-cinogenic (causing Cancer) or teratogenic (causing birth defects) effects of malathion, but we feel that caution is warranted in the use of a chemical as reactive as malathion...
...such mat-ings would produce no offspring, thereby eliminating one line of flies...
...The louder voices were those of U.S...
...as she eats a hot dog, drinks pop...
...The effects on the natural ecological balance cannot be predicted...
...In an eleventh-hour decision, the California Supreme Court had refused to stop the State of California from spraying the pesticide malathion over a densely popu-lated area south of San Francisco...
...A few frightened refugees from this chemical war zone leave the area In 1948, LIFE gave this picture the caption: 'DDT fog swirls around Kay Hefferman...
...Along with hundreds of thousands of other residents of the infested region, I had dutifully carried out the less radical measures intended to make the air war un-necessary...
...The decision was made in Sacramento and in Washington, by governments which pro-fess to want to get off our backs...
...Because an increase in Cancer rates, one possible result of malathion spraying, might not show up for dec-ades, it is hardly surprising that lawyers for several affected communities were unable to convince either California superior or supreme court judges that spraying posed a clear threat to the populace...
...Aecording to State agriculture officials, the Medi-terranean fruit fly infestation in the region had reached crisis proportions...
...From the time it became known that California had a Medfly problem, agricultural interests had pressed the State for an aerial attack...
...Several months ago Stanford's Pharma-cology Department issued a Statement sum-marizing its views on aerial spraying...
...One cannot argue that anyone is free to leave the affected areas during the periods of spraying...
...The thousands who lie awake listening to the sound of helicopters passing in the night had no freedom to choose...
...But investigation showed that some of the supposedly sterile flies had, in fact, been fertile...
...The sanetion threatened by these officials was economic: Spray, the State was told, or all of your fruits and vegetables will be quarantined...
...Officials had released millions of sterile fruit flies to mate with wild flies...
...if aerial spraying were not undertaken immediately, the infestation might spread to the Central Valley, where it would threaten California's $14 billion-a-year agricultural industry...
...rather, it re-quired opponents to prove that the pesticide is dangerous...
...Should the Citizens of a free democratic society be forced to endure a governmental action that rightly or wrongly they believe to be hazardous...
...He lives in Palo Alto, California...
...V Robert Leonard Reid is a free-lance writer who specializes in environmental issues...
...With short-term cost-effectiveness now the Standard against which decisions are measured, sophistry has been institutionalized at the highest levels of government and business...
Vol. 45 • September 1981 • No. 9
