Bill Murawski for Public Advocate of New York City

In 1999, New York City had the first cases of the West Nile Virus and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani reacted to the virus as if it were a plague that would kill thousands upon thousands of people if left unattended. His defense to this allegedly "deadly" disease was to mass spray the city with deadly man-made poisonous chemicals to kill the mosquitoes that carried the virus. The fear tactics that were used on the public had many people asking to have their area sprayed at the first sign of a dead bird. And now three years later, based on the research of scientists, activists and environmental groups, it has come to light that WNV is responsible for a minority of bird deaths. Death from persistent environmental toxins is indicated in a variety of studies and theories.

Ward Stone, who is a pathologist with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Wildlife Pathology Unit, found that one fifth of birds died of pesticide poisoning, mainly through ingestion of lawn care products. Jim West (in the table below) discusses relationships between high concentrations of air pollutants and West Nile Virus activity. The story is not the simple proliferation of a virus running amok - we appear to be contributing to the overall picture. An environmental group calling itself the Citizen's Campaign for the Environment published the Lessons From the Birds and West Nile Virus, which reminds us that our winged friends are the sentinels of the environment because of "their sensitivity to environmental conditions such as deadly gases in a coal mine or emerging diseases". My conclusion is that it certainly appears the hysteria created by our elected officials about mosquitoes carrying the West Nile Virus and the shoot from-the-hip spraying tactics with dangerous poisons caused more damage to the environment and people because proper research was not conducted to correctly address the problems of the birds dropping from the skies.

This page is intended to provide information necessary to protect your health and that of your family from the dangers presented by West Nile Virus. It is also intended to discuss the unscientific approaches taken to date to control this disease and the implications of pesticide used in our everyday lives at home, in the workplace and at school. The articles provided range from government-sponsored agencies like the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to research from independent scientists and environmental activists.

Agencies, Articles, Sites & Groups

Researchers & Activists

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is a source of information about the West Nile Virus. It has a number of questions and answers like the following one.

Q. If I live in an area where birds or mosquitoes with West Nile virus have been reported and a mosquito bites me, am I likely to get sick?

A. No. Even in areas where mosquitoes do carry the virus, very few mosquitoes—much less than 1%—are infected. If the mosquito is infected, less than 1% of people who get bitten and become infected will get severely ill. The chances you will become severely ill from any one mosquito bite are extremely small.

Although the CDC recommends the use of DEET to repel mosquitoes, the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pesticide Programs offers information about the use of DEET and it's various strong cautionary notes about the product ESPECIALLY with use on children.

If you are seeking more detailed information regarding the use of pesticides and other issues regarding the "safe" use of "registered poisons", New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's Environmental Protection Bureau is a source to get an understanding on various topics. The links are listed below.

Home and Garden Pesticides: Questions & Answers
Secret Ingredients in Pesticides: Reducing the Risks
Deceptive Advertising of Pest Control Services Pesticides in NY Schools: Reducing the Risks

The Maine Environment Policy Institute (MEEP), a non-for profit environmental group in that state released a report in May 2001 called OVERKILL: Using pesticides to control West Nile Virus mosquitoes in the State of Maine may do more harm than good. In conjunction with another environmental group named the Toxics Action Center, the OVERKILL Report was produced for Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Now that you've had a taste of the registered as safe man-made dangerous chemical poisons, it's time to introduce two websites involved in promoting the use of safe alternatives in pest management.

Get Set contains important information about safe alternatives to registered pesticides. One of the features on the site is Steve Tvedten's Corner, which is provided by one of the leaders in the promotion of safe alternatives. The second site is Safe 2 Use that features many products as well as long time safe alternative activist Steve Tvetden's (pronounced Tweeden) book titled the Best Control for Pest Management, which is available on CD.

It sometimes takes a "tongue-in-cheek"story to be told about an issue to show the effects it has on our daily lives when we are told how to protect against an imminent danger lurking in the shadows. Denis Hamill of the Daily News portrays a family preparing for the spraying of mosquitoes in their neighborhood. It reminds me of the cold-war era when there were nuclear attack drills in school. Everybody made such a fuss and life went on after the drill. And just as they didn't tell us about the potentially dangerous after-affects of using nuclear power and how it was safe, the same was done with the mass-spraying of mosquitoes.

Jim West's research has led to a theory that the West Nile Virus (WNV) "epidemic" is caused by air pollution rather than the virus itself. It's interesting to note that WNV is almost identical to St. Louis Encephalitis virus (SLE). In fact, the NYC Department of Health mis-diagnosed WNV as SLE in 1999.

We all know that NYC's air is highly polluted because of congested motor vehicle traffic. It is also near oil refineries in NJ. Anyone from NYC who travels south on the NJ Turnpike to the beaches can tell you of the stench from the oil refineries when they pass them. The increase in global air travel can also be considered a source of pollution because there are more planes flying and three major airports serving the NYC area.

While researching West Nile and St. Louis virus epidemics, Jim has found adjacent oil refineries and steel mills at virtually every epidemic site. NYC (Staten Island), NJ (Middlesex, Monmouth, Camden counties), Texas (Houston, Baytown, and Corpus Christi), California (Los Angeles), Israel (Haifa), Russia (Volgograd) and Romania (Budapest).

As of 1995, tri-state oil refineries increased the levels of MTBE (a toxic gasoline "oxygenate" additive) to as high as 15 percent. Just as the WNV epidemic was recognized in NYC in August 1999, the EPA recommended a ban on the controversial MTBE. Read WNV and the Mosquito on Jim's site and it is interesting to note that in 1999 there was a low and almost non-existent mosquito population. However, the propaganda by NYC's Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to have us believe that there is a virus being spread by mosquitoes and he is treating it as a plague.
Link to the website of Jim West. Read the critique of the WNV issue and Jim West's research by Nicholas Regush, who is a medical investigative reporter.

The websites of the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project and the No-Spray Coalition may not be visually stimulating, but here in NYC it is what's "under the hood" that counts It is because of these groups and others, that a legal action was filed against the City of New York against the mass-spraying of dangerous pesticides in the WNV issue.

And nothing is more invigorating than reading the writings of Robert Lederman who is an artist and a champion of first amendment rights throughout the Rudolph Giuliani administration. The articles listed below are a mixture of science and political commentary on the WNV issue. They are worthwhile reading because they demonstrate the relationships between pesticides and politics in NYC from Mr. Lederman's unique standpoint with that in-your-face typical New York City style that is at the forefront of the fight.

Giuliani Says Activists Caused the Epidemic
WNV, the Mayor, Mosquitoes and Immunity
Dr. Cohen's Ignorance on the West Nile Virus
The Media and the West Nile Virus

Link to Robert Lederman's web site to read more of the viewpoints of this very determined civil rights activist. In the years to come, many people will come to realize and appreciate the many contributions and sacrifices he has made to defend all of us in America.


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