Malathion Misery
Battling Medflies and Paranoia
A program proven safe by years of study and critical to safeguarding Florida’s
agriculture
industry has come under fire. When it comes to emotional outbursts and exaggerated
rhetoric about pesticides, facts take a back seat.
For example, Tampa Bay area television coverage of the June 4 public hearing on the
Mediterranean fruit fly eradication program in Bradenton focused on the angry
confrontation between the mother of a wheelchair-bound child and a tomato grower.
"This is my child’s life," the mother said as she pushed her son toward
the tomato grower. "You look Benjamin in the eye and tell him a tomato is more
important than my child’s life
The exchange overshadowed a discussion of the scientific basis for the use of malathion
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Florida Department of Agriculture and
Consumer Services to control the Medfly. Unfortunately, melodrama makes for good TV clips
-- facts don’t.
Reporters’ fascination with controversy is only part of the reason a program
proven safe by years of study and critical to safeguarding Florida’s agriculture
industry has come under fire. Add a small contingent of anti-pesticide activists who
spread misinformation about the program, mix in a large population of new Florida
residents who don’t understand agriculture’s importance to the state’s
economy and factor in a government-doubting electorate reliant on biased, often
inaccurate, information on the Internet and you have a recipe for disaster.
Dangerous Pests
"There’s a certain amount of paranoia [in the general public] that allows
malicious intent to spread," says Lance deHaven-Smith, professor of public
administration and policy at Florida State University in Tallahassee, and associate
director of the Florida Institute of Government.
He points to the popularity of a television series like "The X-Files" and
movies such as "Conspiracy Theory" and "Mercury Rising," and their use
of government conspiracy themes, as indications of current public sentiment. Florida
agriculture, and Florida citrus in particular, faces a potential catastrophe if the use of
the malathion bait spray to battle the Medfly meets an untimely and unnecessary end
because of that
paranoia.
Malathion is the most effective tool to battle the Medfly, one of agriculture’s
most threatening pests. Medflies are attracted to 260 host fruits, vegetables, and plant
material and represent one of Florida’s citrus industry’s most notorious enemies
because oranges, grapefruit, and specialty citrus fruit are particular favorites of the
pest.
The rapidly reproducing pest -- a female Medfly is capable of producing hundreds of
offspring during her 20- to-30-day lifetime -- ruins the host fruit or vegetable by laying
eggs in it, which causes it to drop to the ground prematurely. The larvae then burrows its
way into the ground and makes a subsequent reappearance as an adult fly.
A Medfly infestation left unchecked could quickly spread throughout Florida
agriculture, wreaking havoc on the state’s second largest industry. Every year,
agriculture pumps $16 billion into the state’s economy, providing 212,000 full-time
jobs. Citrus, Florida’s best known and largest crop, alone is an $8 billion economic
engine, providing 112,000 full-time jobs.
But raising this specter of dire consequences shouldn’t
even be necessary. Few ill side effects from the
malathion bait spray have been demonstrated in reviews of previous programs in California
in the 1980s and 1990s. One person showed a reaction to the corn syrup bait. In tests of
people who reported skin reactions in the California program, none showed reactions to the
malathion.
There’s a rule in toxicology that the dose is the poison, meaning anything is
poisonous in a large enough quantity. Malathion, as used in the Medfly eradication
program, is considered safe because it’s used in such small quantities -- 2.4 ounces
of malathion are diluted with 9.6 ounces of the syrupy bait and then spread over a
one-acre area. That’s the equivalent of spraying a Coca-Cola-sized can of the bait
mixture over a football-sized area. Homeowners often use larger quantities of malathion to
fight pests in their own home gardens. The pesticide can also be found in flea collars and
dips for pets and in shampoos to treat head lice in humans.
If a 22-pound child absorbed all of the malathion sprayed through the program on a
one-square-foot area every day for 47 days, the child would still not feel any ill side
effects, according to the Florida Department of Health. Creatures found to be most at risk
are bees and certain kinds of fish. Since bees are less active at night, nighttime aerial
applications used in the Florida Medfly eradication program helped protect them.
Preventing airplanes and helicopters from spraying water bodies by creating buffer zones
helped shield aquatic life. Nevertheless, some critics blamed the Medfly eradication
program for fish kills with little evidence and despite the fact that such occurrences are
common during the summer months when oxygen levels in the water drop.
Malathion has been safely used by mosquito control programs around the country for more
than 30 years. Thirty-four counties in Florida currently use it in their mosquito control
efforts. Yet malathion’s use for Medflies has drawn so much criticism that other
alternatives are being considered. A compound called Sure-Dye is being studied, but
it’s still not acceptable because, as the name suggests, it contains a dye that turns
objects red.
With fly counts of more than 1,300 in Umatilla, more than 550 in Bradenton, and more
than 100 in Sebring, the malathion bait spray is the only weapon available that’s
known to work. Researchers are investigating effective alternatives to malathion. People
in the citrus industry support these efforts, along with the use of an integrated
pest management system similar to the one in
Bradenton, where ground and aerial applications of the malathion bait spray are combined
with the release of sterile flies. But the malathion bait spray must still be used to
diminish fly populations before sterile flies can be used effectively.
Anatomy of a Controversy
Despite the facts proving malathion’s safety and reliability, controversy over its
use continues.
A small contingent of activists in Tampa and Sarasota calling themselves Citizens for
Responsible Alternatives to Malathion (CRAM) and Sarasota Citizens for Responsible
Alternatives to Malathion
(SCRAM) have gained support for their cause by playing on peoples’ fears. Their
tools are exaggerated claims, emotional images, and out-of-context statements pulled from
government reviews of previous programs. They have used the media’s propensity to
focus on activists’ opinions, and the power of the Internet to distribute skewed
viewpoints, to their advantage.
For instance, these activists use portions of one study to support claims that
malathion doesn’t break down in the environment for years. Yet such a statement
isn’t realistic. According to Dr. Marion Fuller, chief of the Bureau of Pesticides
for the Florida Division of Agricultural Environmental Services, for malathion to last
that long it would have to be maintained at an acid ph of 4, a condition unlikely to occur
in the outdoor environment of a Medfly eradication program.
In reality, malathion dissipates faster of than any of its sister compounds.
That’s one of the reasons why the Environmental Protection Agency has approved it for
use in people’s homes.
However, scare tactics based on pseudo-science resonate with a public raised with a
heightened sense of environmental fragility and an exaggerated distrust of government
dating back to Vietnam and Watergate. The public’s suspicious disposition toward
government also touches other institutions, including education, the media, and business,
which includes agriculture.
"It’s ‘big’ against ‘us,’ " says Jim Kane, editor of
The Florida Voter, a monthly political journal, referring to people’s perception of
these institutions. "They believe the ‘big’ guys can come up with
bucks." The special interest groups that often campaign against these ‘big’
concerns are usually a small segment of the electorate. "They’re usually
single-issue individuals," Kane said. "For many of them, [promoting or opposing
an issue] would be their whole life."
When it comes to influencing public opinion, anything short of an out-and-out
fabrication is acceptable to some of these organizations to get the results they’re
seeking. For example, Kane says, it would be tough for activists
to gain public support by merely saying that the
malathion bait spray used in the Medfly program "may be a problem." He adds,
"But if they’re saying ‘This will kill your children,’ it’s such
an outlandish charge some people might think that it’s true."
However, even the most extreme statement doesn’t register with people if it
doesn’t impact them directly. "Seeing is believing" in the public opinion
arena, according to FSU’s deHaven-Smith.
He uses the story of three whales trapped in ice off the Alaskan coast several years
ago as an example of this phenomenon. The whales received international coverage. After
seeing photographs of them in local newspapers people started giving names to the whales,
remembers deHaven-Smith.
"If the issue isn’t visible, people don’t pay attention
to it," he explains. In the case of the Medfly eradication program, people who are in
the spray zones can smell the bait spray and hear the planes and helicopters.
The bait spray smells like a chemical and the aircraft
are loud and intrusive.
"Credibility is given to alarmists when there are visible signs of spraying, which
gives a feeling of an ominous nature," says deHaven-Smith.
Fortunately the more closely an issue affects people, the more likely they are to be
accepting of it because they’ve educated themselves about it. For example, when a
prison is being built in an area, the people who live next door are less afraid of it than
the people living farther away because the next-door neighbors have gone to the meetings
to learn about it, he says.
"Ignorance is not bliss in public opinion," according to deHaven-Smith.
"The less knowledge people have, the more likely they are to be alarmed."
Turning to the Internet for information, as many people did to learn about the Medfly,
doesn’t help. Opponents of the Medfly program were quick to use the new technology to
spread their viewpoints and misinformation.
"If you think newspapers give credibility [to undeserving sources],"
deHaven-Smith says, "the Internet has no standards." In addition, people who use
the Internet are pre-selecting the information they want so it’s a way for interest
groups to "feed" their targeted audience, he says.
Given all the new technology available to help inform people, they still remain
relatively ignorant on public issues, he says. Dr. Susan MacManus, a political science
professor and pollster at the University of South Florida, agrees, noting that most people
get their political news from television programs.
Yet most people restrict the amount of time to learn about an issue to an average of 1
minute and 20 seconds, MacManus says, which makes it difficult for proponents of the
Medfly eradication program to get their more complicated message across.
MacManus, who has a unique perspective on this issue as both a Tampa resident and a
citrus grower affected by last summer’s Medfly program, believes the negative
reaction to the program stemmed from people who didn’t understand the importance of
agriculture to the state and local economies.
"There are a lot of people who moved to Florida from the urban areas of the
Northeast and Midwest who don’t understand the importance of agriculture here,"
MacManus says. "Many of them moved here for the environment so anything they perceive
as a threat to it freaks them out." In addition, they are the same people who grew up
as part of the "recycling generation," she said.
"They grew up hearing about saving the environment, but heard nothing about
agriculture being important," MacManus adds. "The key word here is
‘balance.’ That’s what’s gotten lost. There are two sides to any
story."
Bobby F. McKown is the executive vice president/CEO for
Lakeland-based Florida Citrus Mutual, the state’s largest citrus grower organization
with nearly 12,000 members.
Sept/Oct 1998 -- Florida Business Insight, PO Box 784, Tallahassee, Fla.
32302
(850)224-7173, insight@aif.com
