Sep 15, 2008 6:59 pm US/Eastern
Protestors Target Nassau West Nile Spraying
Coalitions Against Cancer Band Together To Express Their Outrage To County Health Commissioner
MINEOLA, N.Y. (CBS) ―
Nassau County's decision to do aerial spraying against the West Nile virus is sparking protests.
Cancer activists and environmentalists voiced their complaints on Monday, the same day a young victim tested positive for the virus.
His West Hempstead classmates just received the grim news – a 9-year-old hospitalized child is the latest victim stricken with the West Nile virus -- the 13th human case in Nassau County, the most in a decade.
"This year is a unique year," said Dr. Maria Torroella Carney, the Nassau County health commissioner. "We have more human cases and more deaths related to West Nile virus."
Torroella defended her county's decision to spray with pesticides last week as a last resort after the state deemed Nassau's mosquito threat "a public health threat."
But speaking before the legislature in Mineola some breast cancer groups and environmentalists openly criticized aerial spraying, questioning whether chemicals can cause cancer.
"With all the high breast cancer rates and other high cancer rates on Long Island, we are absolutely appalled," said Laura Weinberg of the Great Neck Breast Cancer Coalition.
Added Mary Joan Shea of the Oyster Bay Breast Cancer Coalition: "We need to be careful before we do mass spraying and contaminate the air, the land, the ground where children are playing."
These activists claim better prevention efforts emphasizing larvacides, mosquito eating fish and campaigns for homeowners to remove standing water from yards, could have saved thousands from exposure.
"If they had done that perhaps we would not have had the airplanes up in the sky spraying chemicals over our heads," said Neil Lewis of the Neighborhood Network Coalition.
The environmentalists pointed to the lobster and crab die-off back in 2000, wondering if aerial spraying was the cause.
But the county says they use a safer chemical now, and judging from the calls coming into its West Nile hotline, most seemed to support the spraying.
Barbara Cody of Carle Place wished spraying was a first, not a last resort. She thinks her husband might have been saved had the county acted differently.
At this point, Nassau County is not planning another aerial spray. However, the health commissioner warns that it takes two winter frosts to kill mosquitoes.
Until then, residents should use insecticides and cover arms and legs at dusk.
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