West Nile Hysteria: the snake bite of 2002.

• Author: Fitz, Don

When in elementary school, I got a snake bite kit for when we went hiking in the woods. By the time I was in high school, someone figured out that more people were dying from snake bite kits than snakes and they stopped urging kids to get them.

The West Nile Hysteria of 2002 may have been a classic case of a cure being worse than the disease. Like bee stings, which kill about as many people, West Nile is deserving of public education and medical professionals' becoming aware of how to treat it.

What is truly astounding is that what was used as the frontline "cure" for West Nile--massive pesticide spraying--has been known for decades to be a threat to human and animal health. Those who peddle each new generation of pesticides claim that the last pesticides were harmful, but that this new, improved version is the safest on the market. During the 2002 hysteria, pesticide proponents often added reassurances that the chemicals being used were derivatives of chrysanthemum flowers.

This misleading claim ignored the fact that many plants manufacture toxins (remember poison ivy?) and that what goes into the new generation of sprays is not a plant derivative but a more deadly synthetic imitation called "pyrethroids." Pesticide advocates may claim that they "have not been proven to be dangerous," aware that this is typically heard as "the chemical is safe." In fact, it takes many decades to prove the variety of health risks associated with a chemical. We do know that the toxic mix of chemicals going into insecticide sprays exacerbate breathing disorders such as asthma.

One popular pesticide, permethrin, is a neurotoxin which is suspected of disrupting the endocrine system, interfering with sexual development, damaging the immune system, and increasing the risk of breast and lung cancers. Another favorite, sumithrin, may increase liver weight and risk of breast cancer and acute sumithrin poisoning (symptoms include hyperexcitability, prostration, slow respiration, salivation, tremor, ataxia, and paralysis).

Those advocating their use habitually fail to mention that both are accompanied by a "synergist," which is defined by the Extension Toxicology Network (EXTOXNET) as "chemical agents used to enhance the killing power of the active ingredients." For both permethrin and sumithrin, the synergist piperonyl butoxide (P130) is added. According to EXTOXNET, PBO "is suspected of causing anorexia, carcinogenesis, coma, convulsions, dermal irritation, hepatic...