Well summer is here again and in Florida it brings on hot, humid weather and mosquito season! These pesky creatures create havoc as they buzz and bite their way into our lives. The war against mosquitoes isn’t just between that insect that just landed on your arm and your hand smashing it.
As mosquitoes can be the vector for a number of transmittable diseases that can affect humans, Public Health Agencies are usually leading the fight. They wage this war in a number of ways including habitat management and a number of eradication programs. However, the costs of this is more than the millions of tax dollars that are spent.
The eradication programs include heavy use of large scale pesticide spraying using toxic, chemical products. We all know these products are unhealthy, causing all degrees of adverse events and illness, not only to us humans, but to every living creature, including our pets that are exposed. This mass spraying is indiscriminate, covering lawns, trees, sidewalks, streets, parks, patios, your pool, fish ponds, lakes, canals, outdoor furniture, your BBQ grill, and… If you get the idea, you will realize that everything that is in your outside world is affected. And yes, it also infiltrates your indoor living space as well. You carry it into your house on your shoes and your pets carry it even more through their paws and snouts.
While we are not diminishing the Public Health issues, we must weigh the risks to the benefits. If we prevent a single case of Malaria, West Nile Virus, or any of the other transmitted pathogens, is it worse to make thousand of living creatures sick from the spray? Why don’t the agencies doing the spraying issue health alerts, advisories, or warnings? Why don’t they disclose the types of chemicals that are being used and list ALL the adverse events that are available at the FDA?
We are finding more pets and people suffering with minor, but stressful respiratory and gastric conditions that are explained as “just something that’s going around” by our medical providers. Most treatments have minimal results, only diminishing when the body has time to “shed the bug.” The warning labels and inserts on most pesticides include vomiting, diarrhea, congestion, respiratory distress and other symptoms of acute poisoning. Could this constant spraying be a cause? There are much healthier alternatives to ward off these pests along with their resulting symptoms naturally.
The testing of many of these chemicals for safety is very limited. The long term effects are not known. The effects of combining these chemicals isn’t even considered even though it’s exactly what happens when they spray the yard or golf course that was recently treated.
If you are wondering when and where they are spraying, just go outside and look up and you will see the numerous Chemtrails which are sadly becoming a part of the Florida skyline.
Our mission as always is to spread some useful information. We need you to call your local authorities and request the MSDS (Materials Safety Data Sheet) for the pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals they use. We would appreciate if you could forward them to us as well so we can help your neighbors and the veterinary community to understand the challenge and find solutions to keep us healthy.
