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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 12, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------Giuliani or West Nile mosquitoes
Who's a bigger threat to New Yorkers?
By G. Dunkel
New York
When a sparrow falls to earth in the New York area these days, its death is announced on the 11 o'clock news. If it tests positive for the West Nile virus, within days the area is sprayed with insecticide.
Sports, the weather and the spraying schedule are the three topics the news media cover daily.
Many respected public health specialists, however, question whether the West Nile requires such a vast campaign of spraying. Spraying is dangerous to humans and other mammals and is not particularly effective. Why have the media and politicians like New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani raised such a furor over West Nile?
West Nile virus was first reported in the New York area in the summer of 1999. At the time of that outbreak, seven area people died and 63 were affected so badly they wound up in the hospital.
A survey conducted in the New York borough of Queens last winter concluded that 3.8 percent of its 2 million residents--about 76,000 people--had been bitten by infected mosquitoes and developed antibodies to the West Nile virus.
Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the people infected with the virus became sick enough to go to the hospital. One one-hundredth of 1 percent of the people infected died.
This year 13 people had gone to the hospital as of Sept. 28; four are still there. One 82-year-old resident of New Jersey died. All the others were treated and released.
Dr. Bela Matyas, medical director of the epidemiological program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said the information from New York showed that "95 to 98 percent of people who were infected had absolutely no symptoms at all." (Boston Herald, Aug. 27)
Unlike malaria, West Nile virus does not linger in the body. The virus will not resurface later in life, Matyas said.
Other specialists were just as emphatic. David P. Ropeik, communications director at Harvard University's Center for Risk Analysis, said statistically a person in the United States is far more likely to be killed by chickenpox than by West Nile. (Baltimore Sun, Aug. 21)
Dr. Andrew Spielman, professor of tropical public health at the Harvard University School of Public Health, tried to establish the rate at which mosquitoes feeding off infected birds themselves become infected. He claims "infection rates are probably in the neighborhood of less than one in a thousand."
Is spraying effective?
Any disease that kills people has to be treated seriously. But public health organizations have successfully controlled mosquitoes without sustained spraying for over a century.
The American Mosquito Control Association (www.mosquito.org) recommends killing the eggs and larvae. It urges that temporary bodies of water--potholes, depressions, gutters, garbage can covers, discarded tires and the like--be drained, filled or emptied.
This would require the city hiring a large number of people.
The AMCA points out that spraying insecticides is the hardest way to control mosquitoes because they are mobile. Spraying depends on good weather conditions--not too much wind, yet enough to disperse the spray. Missing a small breeding pool is likely, which means killing adult mosquitoes is not consistently effective. Sometimes spraying is necessary--for example, after a flood or in a burned-out or collapsed building. But in general the AMCA recommends controlling the eggs and larvae.
New York has not put much effort into this most effective way of controlling mosquitoes. It has only one entomologist and 22 volunteer interns to monitor its larvicide program, carried out by the Department of Sanitation. Cleanups are spotty; for example, in the old Flushing Airport in northeast Queens, discarded tires--a prime breeding ground for mosquitoes--were not removed until August of this year. (Newsday, Sept. 14)
The city has conducted its spraying in a reckless, dangerous and racist fashion.
The No Spray Coalition, composed of environmental groups like the Sierra Club along with more activist groups, sued the city in federal court to try and halt its spraying. They claimed that many of the 308 pesticide-related complaints the city admits to tracking are due to spraying that occurred without warning and off schedule.
No warning given in Harlem
In one case, videotaped by the coalition in the Black community of Harlem on Aug. 4, a spray truck preceded by a cop car with its lights flashing went up and down streets still thronged with people around midnight. No warning was given to the people sitting on their stoops, enjoying the night air. The video shows the spray settling over a fruit stand, young children screaming while they fled and people covering their mouths with cloth. (Daily News, Sept. 21)
This is perhaps the most serious incident brought up in the suit, but there are many more. One woman who was directly hit by the spray while making a telephone call lost her voice for two months and still can speak only in a whisper.
Asthma among children is at a dangerous level in New York, especially in poor communities. It is possible the spraying could exacerbate this and other health problems.
The court dismissed most of the suit, accepting the city's claim that it was responding to a public health crisis.
The city used Malathion in its massive spray campaign last year. Malathion has a long history of negative side effects, so a less potent brew, called Anvil, was used this year. While Anvil is reputedly less dangerous, even Giuliani recognizes that it is important to avoid direct contact.
The city's spraying has been so careless that hundreds of people have been seriously and immediately affected. But even the most careful procedures in a city so densely populated as New York could expose people to the chemical.
So does the risk of West Nile virus outweigh the risk of spraying, especially when there is an effective, recommended alternative?
The disease struck New York while the mayor was preparing to run for the Senate and the city had let its mosquito control program lapse for years. Many accuse Giuliani of grandstanding.
But what lies beyond his political maneuvering is the inability of capitalist politicians to evaluate a public health emergency, plan and carry out a reasonable response, especially when it involves spending money to hire a large number of workers.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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