Editor,
We are in trouble. The OC Vector Control wants to aerially spray our homes, parks, schools and churches with a pesticide that is a known endocrine disruptor, which will mean health complications for over 3 million people, increased cancer, lymphoma, Parkinson’s disease, birth defects and Alzheimer’s.
The pesticide will kill the pollinators as one of the main ingredients is sumithrin. Our air and water will be poisoned. Can you please help and sign this petition to stop this ASAP? https://www.change.org/p/help-us-stop-aerial-spraying-of-pesticides-by-orange-county-vector-control
It is especially harmful to our developing children – pregnant women and babies. Can you reach out to our City Counsel and ask them to help stop this?
There is a Facebook group online called, “Stop the Spraying.” You can join for updates.
The mosquito risk is so low right now and this should be a last resort not a first resort. The worst case scenario projected by OCVCD that they will spray to make sure five people do not get ill with a mosquito borne illness. By these hypothetical five people not becoming ill over 3 million people will have their health compromised.
OCVCD has failed to share the most important fact: we all need to check our back yards weekly for standing water and dump it. Look at the bottom of plant saucers in the yard also.
If you have any questions, we have gone to all the meetings and have much research that has been presented as far as the ill health effects to us by doctors in our community.
Michelle Schumacher, San Clemente
Here is another story as sorry as the coyotes but this time we are the ones being hunted. The only method that is successful in stopping mosquitos from spreading is sterilization by modifying male mosquitos larvae rasing them and releasing them into our environment.
Any biologist zoologist or horticulturist can tell you the plants we use in our home and corporate landscapes bananas (musa) and and birds or paradise (strelitzia) hold enough water between their stem axils for mosquitos to incubate. So all the puddle jumping and saucer draining tips are a drop in the bucket compared to the numbers our plants create.
Spraying pesticides or at least the orders to use them should be kept out of the hands of politicians and marketers; yes Zika is horrible but also poisoning the environment while trying to battle mosquitos is like pouring gasoline on the fire.
We can all get so emotional, so please think before you act on this looming epidemic and have the foresight to let the calmer minds prevail and give alternatives instead of raising alarms.
The main problem in blanket spraying for insects is that the insecticide can not be selective in it’s effectiveness and it ends up killing beneficial insects also in its path.
Many beneficial insects have a longer incubation period than mosquitoes, thus the recovery advantage is taken away from the beneficial insects, and we are faced with the consequences and repetitive spraying.
Most of the recorded cases of Zika virus gathered by the media are involving residents after visiting Zika prone areas of the Southern Hemisphere and returning having aquired exposure and testing positive for antibodies in their blood.
So another question should be why has the CCD not given just as an informative warning through the media on transmission of the Zika virus through sexual contact?