by Colleen Tigges
www.eatfirst.org
In the Northwest, we are still waiting for our first case of West Nile Virus (WNV). While a few cases have been seen in Washington, those were found to have been contracted in other places. This year, Washington and Oregon health officials are bracing for the disease to arrive.
West Nile provides a good debate on the concept of “risk”. Activists love risk – it’s where they make their hay (think precautionary principle). The public is continually bombarded with purported risk, whether it’s drinking milk laced with growth hormones or eating farmed salmon full of PCB’s. But risk is not a one-way street; rather, it goes both ways. While there is certain risk in leaving your house every day (getting hit by a bus), there is also risk involved in staying home (falling down the stairs).
The West Nile debate has two sides also. There is the purported risk of pesticides used to control mosquitoes, while on the other side there is the risk of spreading a very serious disease.
First, are pesticides toxic? Yes – to bugs and other pests. Are they toxic to humans? For a moment, let’s ignore the fact that there has never been a death from the legal use of any pesticide and, for the purposes of this discussion, acknowledge that there is some risk. But that’s why the EPA sets standards for exposure. For example, the assumptions the EPA uses when setting the standard for malathion exposure ensure that a 3-year old could stand for 20 full minutes in a cloud of malathion that remains at the full, legally allowed concentration that might be released from a fogger truck. Given that malathion is less toxic than table salt, one might say that those assumptions are absurdly high.
Regardless, now consider the extremely low doses of chemical actually sprayed for mosquito vector control (remember that the dose makes the poison). When spraying for mosquitoes in attempts to slow the threat of WNV, sprayers use ultra-low volume methods, meaning that typical spray applications amount to less than 4 ounces of pesticide per acre. The actual levels of exposure that might occur from these spray applications are thousands of times lower than the EPA standards above! Even assuming some risk from pesticides, the actual risk from low doses and realistic exposure is minute.
So how does that minute risk compare with the risk of WNV? Environmental activists would have you believe that pesticide spraying poses greater risk to humans than the virus. This argument was more effective a few years ago, since WNV numbers were small from 1999 through 2001 (approximately 150 cases and 18 deaths). However, in 2002 those numbers shot up as 4,156 people contracted the disease and 300 people died. An incomplete tally for 2003 reveals 8,694 cases and 206 deaths. So, in comparison you have no deaths from pesticides vs over 500 deaths from the virus.
And more troubling than sheer case numbers is the fact that the disease is spread not only through mosquito bites, but also can be spread through blood/organ donations, during tests on animals, possibly through breast milk and in one case, to a baby during pregnancy.
Those are real numbers, real deaths – and WNV is a real risk. Truly, there is no risk comparison to be made – no one has ever died from the legal use of synthetic pesticides, while the tally continues to grow for WNV.
Risk is a tool for activists, and like many other tools, they use it when it suits their purpose. There is no logic to its application; they ignore the reality of WNV and focus on the myth of pesticide risk. These are the same people who tried to destroy the American and Canadian beef industries by screaming about the risk of human mad cow disease – and we’re still waiting on our first case of that.
Reprint permission given by AgAir Update, P.O. Box 850, Perry, GA 31069 - an international agricultural aviation publication.
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