Messages from neighbors about the spray:

------------------------

September 5, 2006

Also, this Thursday evening the city will be spraying the pesticide called Anvil in our neighborhood in the hopes of curbing the spread of West Nile virus through mosquito control. Please keep your children and pets inside and close your doors and windows this Thursday evening. Along with many other citizens, I oppose the wholesale spraying of this pesticide until further studies show the long term impact this pesticide has on human health. While it is true that a dozen or so cases of the virus have been reported throughout Cook County in the last few weeks, a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health has shown the spraying of Anvil has little or no effect on the mosquito population. Unfortunately, the pesticide does have an adverse effects on mosquito's natural predators such as the dragon fly, which are not as prolific as the mosquito. Consequently, this spraying may actually be helping the mosquito population instead of hindering it. If you are opposed to the spraying of our community, please call your Alderman and let him/her know. They will listen. Tell them to follow the example of other cities such as Washington, D. C. and Cincinnati, which have curtailed the spraying of Anvil. For more information please go to www.beyondtoday.org.

Tom Gianni

also, here's a story that Tom shared with us at a neighborhood meeting:

-------------------

Why I want to stop the Spray:

a letter to my neighbors from Julie Peterson 9/6/06

I want to stop the spray because it betrays our love for our families, our neighborhood, and our environment.

I have been a high school physics teacher for 5 years. Now I organize for Beyond Today. Sure, I'd like to be able to focus on recycling and energy efficiency, but the trucks are coming to spray us with Anvil tomorrow night and all of the things we do to protect ourselves and our families from toxins and to protect our little remnants of nature are threatened.

Would you advise a teenager to start smoking? No? Remember how the cigarette ads said that it was "safe"? They just said it and we beleived because they had big advertising budgets and sometimes even got doctors to light up a cigarrette and smile, telling us with smokey breath that it was actually good for you.

Clark Chemcal tells us that Anvil is good for us. They say it will keep us safe and protect us. Like a warm blanket on a cold night. But in the same breath they whisper that we should close our windows, stay indoors with no ventilation, take in patio furniture or wash it with soap in the morning, and that our vegetable gardens are now coated with a synthetic pyrethroid which is toxic to fish and bees. Our swingsets and slides are coated with a chemical which irritates the lungs. Asthmatics will have a particularly hard time tonight.

And after all of this, a new study, from the Harvard School of Public Health, funded by the Center for Disease Control itself, tells us that all of this risk is for nothing. The spray doesn't work. It barely impacts the flying mosquitoes right near and downwind of the truck at all.

We spent millions to feel safe and all we got is more cancer.

Please call Alderman Schulter and tell him you don't want the spray.

773 348-8400.

Read Beyond Today's letter to Alderman Schulter

Please be careful to avoid bites and the spray.

Julie Peterson Sept 6th, 2006 julie@BeyondToday.com

---------------------------

Dear Commissioner Mason,

I am appalled to learn that the City is spraying again for the third time in as many weeks. I am a recent breast cancer survivor and I also have environmental "allergies or sensitivities" to insecticides and other chemicals. I have extreme respiratory distress as well as headache, nausea, muscle weakness and dizziness when I am exposed to insecticides. Avoidance is my only course of action. There is no medicine or remedy for exposure to these substances.

I believe that the Chicago Public Health Department is pursuing a policy that is causing great harm to the public both directly and indirectly. First of all, it can be inferred from the appearance of new cases of the virus that the aerial adulticide spraying is an ineffective way to control the West Nile virus and in particular, it is not working this year. More importantly, the public is not taking adequate precautions to protect themselves when they are outdoors because they believe that the CPHD is controlling the mosquito that transmits the West Nile Virus.

More importantly, The Chicago Public Health Department has unwittingly done a great disservice to its citizens in it's efforts to convince the public that Anvil is safe. By reassuring the public that the spraying is approved by the CDC, many people are not protecting themselves or their children from exposure to the insecticide. The spray is not "safe". The truth is that it is not known what the long term effects the insecticide spraying will have on the general population. (This is especially crucial now since the public is being repeatedly exposed to the insecticides not just a single spraying.) Anvil is a toxic substance which CDC allows to be used if applied properly. Unfortunately this responsibility has put into the hands of a company, Clark Chemical which was fined $1 million in New York City for not applying and disposing the spray safely and for not protecting it's underpaid employees. ( This is the same company which is doing the testing for mosquitoes and application of spray. Isn't that like asking the fox to watch the henhouse? )

Last summer as I researched to see how I would be effected by the spraying; I discovered to my horror that Anvil has been shown in studies to promote breast cancer tumor growth. Breast cancer is an epidemic not West Nile virus. Asthma rates are at all time highs numbers especially among inner city children. There are other ways to control for the West Nile virus that are more cost effective and disease preventive that will not harm the general population. I do not need to remind you that the spray not only kills those mosquitoes that it comes into contact with but other beneficial insects which also limit the spread of the mosquitoes. Interestingly, no cases of human West Nile virus have been reported in the areas near the lakefront where there has not been any spraying either last year or this year.

I am hoping the City will make efforts to retify the horrifiying image I saw on CBS news last summer during the first round of spraying. It showed a Clark truck careening around a corner and speeding down an alley followed by a plume of pesticides whilea group of black children played in the background. Would you want it to be one of your children sitting on the curb as the spraying covers them?

On a personal note, the City has barely allowed citizens like myself, who have respiratory problems, to recover from the rounds of spraying. I live in an old building in the Devon and Nagle area. I put my storm windows in my windows and turned off my airconditioning and "evacuated" to a friend's couch over by the lakefront at 7:00 pm. last Wednesday evening. I have an elderly cat who I had to leave behind in the sweltering heat that night. Despite all my precautions, I could still smell the insecticide in my living room (where I have 6 windows) when I returned home at 6 am. I was saved by the severe thunderstorms that morning washing the spray out of the air. I should also mention that I also work in the same area in the evenings and have had to take time off work dur ing those nights to avoid being accidentally exposed.

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. I truly hope the Health Department will refrain from using adulticide spraying now and in the future. I emailed Mr. Hadad extensively last summer about this matter and send copies of research. I would gladly send those on again if you are interested.


Sincerely,


Gail Dee
------------------------------

email us your letter and we'll insert it here.