Is Spraying For West Nile Pointless?

Aug. 8 -- If you live in one of the 34 states where West Nile virus has been discovered, should you draw comfort from the clouds of pesticides being sprayed into the air to kill off mosquitoes?

Maybe not.

"The chemicals have not been adequately tested for their human health effects," cautioned Dr. Sheldon Krimsky, a pesticide-risk expert at Tufts University. "There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that they cause cancer in animal studies, that they are hormone disruptors. Remember, these are neurotoxins," Krimsy said, adding that most studies done on the effects of spraying focused on agricultural spraying — not spraying in populated areas.

"We simply don't know what effects it's going to have, the indiscriminate spraying on human populations," he added.

So far this year, officials have reported 112 human cases of West Nile, more than half in the past week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most of these infections are in Louisiana. Mississippi and Illinois also have reported human infections of the virus, which began showing up in the United States in New York three years ago.

Residents Protest Dangerous Pesticides

In Hays County, Texas, residents effectively stopped spraying in many of their neighborhoods. They protested, carrying posters decrying the "chemical warfare" on their families. County commissioners agreed to severely limit mosquito spraying near those homes.

In Jefferson County, Ala., health officials are trying to decide what to do. Many cities, including Birmingham, have been spraying for weeks. County officials, though, haven't started their own spraying efforts because they aren't convinced spraying is all that effective against mosquitoes.

But after a case of West Nile infection was recently discovered in Alabama, some residents began demanding that the county spray.

Brian Debrow, the environmental health program manager at the Jefferson County Health Department, says the county may start spraying in order to ease anxiety. "The public likes seeing the trucks going down the road and spraying for mosquitoes," he said. "It gives them a sense of security they feel like something is being done."