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June 30, 2008
Spray? We never wanted to spray!
In April, I told you about how citizen protests had forced the state to rethink its plans to spray an artificial pheremone over urban Northern California to eradicate a pest called the light brown apple moth. Now, upon further deliberation, the state has decided it won't spray after all, but will do what anti-spray forces had called for all along: Release sterile light brown apple moths, let nature take its course and the pests will die out.
It's a great victory for public health, common sense and people power. What's annoying is the state's refusal to admit that the will of the people was what forced its hand. After the decision not to spray was announced, the state's secretary of agriculture, A.G. Kawamura, wrote an op-ed (which the Chronicle dutifully printed) in which he tried to claim that was his department's idea all along:
In early 2007, we sought the advice of an international panel of scientists who are apple moth experts, and they advised us to begin emergency eradication efforts using the pheromone treatments - but they also advised a substantial investment in adapting the sterile insect technique for use against this pest.This technique eradicates an infestation by releasing large quantities of sterilized, infertile insects so that the wild population cannot reproduce. It has been successful for more than 30 years in California and around the globe against a variety of insects; indeed, it was the alternative that ended California's use of aerial Malathion treatments against the Mediterranean fruit fly.
Raising a captive insect colony and adapting the technique to the new pest are technically and biologically complex tasks, so we were advised that this work could take several years to bear fruit. Fortunately, our scientists have surprised us with a breakthrough - we now plan to begin releasing the sterile moths in early 2009.
Wait a minute, Mr. Secretary. Did you say that this safe, non-toxic method was previously used successfully against the notorious Medfly? And it worked? So why didn't you try that first this time?
No matter, says Cameron Scott of The Thin Green Line. It's a victory for the precautionary principle -- the no-brainer idea that if you don't know something is safe, don't expose people to it.
. . . [T}he change represents the victory of a "presumed dangerous until proven safe" approach to chemicals over the United States' standard "presumed safe until proven dangerous" approach. As Mark Schapiro's book, Exposed, reveals, European countries have long adopted the approach California citizens backed by demanding more proof that the pesticide caused neither immediate nor long-term damage to humans. Europe, for reasons likely including this legal bias, has better health outcomes than the United States.
Cameron Scott (and Mark Schapiro) are right to contrast U.S. policy, which allows industrial chemicals on the market without proof of safety, with the more precautionary approach of Europe. But there's a movement building in the U.S. for an even father-reaching revolution in chemical regulation. It's called the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, and you can learn more about it here.