For the birds
Nov. 5th, 2006 14:54![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillMy mother just reminded me of an issue that makes my blood pressure rise. I tend to forget about it most of the time, until I hear some chance mention of it and I have to take a deep breath before I snap at something.
West Nile Virus.
There are armies of trucks out there spraying the oh-so-safe totally-natural pyrethroids all over any place that might have standing water, and a lot of places that don't. It's often ineffective at controlling mosquito populations, and what they're spraying, when combined with yard runoff into streams, can be very nasty for aquatic invertebrates. Don't get me started on how "safe" and "natural" synthetic pyrethrins are -- if you believe that anything produced by plants is safe, I'm not going to say the obvious about ricin; I'll just hand you a cup of pure caffeine. Let me know how that goes down.
I'm not just speaking as a chemically-sensitive person who reacts to pyrethroids (don't use Raid when I'm in the vicinity, please). Even putting all of the flaws in the response aside for a moment, let me ask... why are we even doing all this?
When WNV first popped up, there was a panic. OMGWTFBBQ it's an epidemic it's a deadly virus coming to our country! People were calling in dead birds all over the place. And finally it started to come out what the death toll is from WNV: in the low single digit percentages. As always, the young, the old, and the compromised. For everyone else, it would pass through almost unnoticed. The fatality rate on West Nile is considerably less than any given Influenza virus, and we get the fucking flu every year. What's the big deal?
It's carried by a mosquito, OMG scary! Lyme disease is carried by ticks, and has a larger number of much nastier long-term consequences. You want a scary bug, there ya go.
It's easier to protect against than flu, really. Sure, they have flu shots, but with the reliability of the supply on those, it doesn't exactly seem like an ideal solution. Wash your hands often, stay out of public places, get your flu shot if you can... how is that different than wearing longer-sleeved shirts, using insect repellent, and staying inside more during dusk and dawn? I'm no fan of DEET (catnip oil is more effective and less nasty), but it's easy. Why panic?
We're not used to mosquito-borne disease, I get that. We don't have malaria here (there's another one that's more scary). I concede that WNV is a huge, huge problem for one segment of our population: it hits horses very hard, and there has been a lot of consternation in large-animal medicine over vaccines and prevention. But unless you have four hooves and a mane, there is no more reason to panic over West Nile than over any other virus that plagues our country. There is no reason for public agencies to be out there with trucks fogging neighborhoods with pyrethrins, especially when their efforts to notify people of the spraying schedule are sadly lacking. (What brought this up this time was my mom commenting on the fact that our county doesn't even tell us, and we're in progressive lefty NorCal.)
I shake my head sometimes and decry the sensationalism of media, but this is one where the panic has never gone away. It bothers me a great deal to see posters in the college health center bathrooms warning about the chances of WNV infection, when the audience is overwhelmingly healthy with an average age of 22. What. The. Fuck.
I'll keep emptying out any standing water I find on the property, and try to make sure that fountains and sumps either have fish or bleach tablets, but I didn't buy the hype then and I'm still not buying it now. Keep your spray trucks off my street.
West Nile Virus.
There are armies of trucks out there spraying the oh-so-safe totally-natural pyrethroids all over any place that might have standing water, and a lot of places that don't. It's often ineffective at controlling mosquito populations, and what they're spraying, when combined with yard runoff into streams, can be very nasty for aquatic invertebrates. Don't get me started on how "safe" and "natural" synthetic pyrethrins are -- if you believe that anything produced by plants is safe, I'm not going to say the obvious about ricin; I'll just hand you a cup of pure caffeine. Let me know how that goes down.
I'm not just speaking as a chemically-sensitive person who reacts to pyrethroids (don't use Raid when I'm in the vicinity, please). Even putting all of the flaws in the response aside for a moment, let me ask... why are we even doing all this?
When WNV first popped up, there was a panic. OMGWTFBBQ it's an epidemic it's a deadly virus coming to our country! People were calling in dead birds all over the place. And finally it started to come out what the death toll is from WNV: in the low single digit percentages. As always, the young, the old, and the compromised. For everyone else, it would pass through almost unnoticed. The fatality rate on West Nile is considerably less than any given Influenza virus, and we get the fucking flu every year. What's the big deal?
It's carried by a mosquito, OMG scary! Lyme disease is carried by ticks, and has a larger number of much nastier long-term consequences. You want a scary bug, there ya go.
It's easier to protect against than flu, really. Sure, they have flu shots, but with the reliability of the supply on those, it doesn't exactly seem like an ideal solution. Wash your hands often, stay out of public places, get your flu shot if you can... how is that different than wearing longer-sleeved shirts, using insect repellent, and staying inside more during dusk and dawn? I'm no fan of DEET (catnip oil is more effective and less nasty), but it's easy. Why panic?
We're not used to mosquito-borne disease, I get that. We don't have malaria here (there's another one that's more scary). I concede that WNV is a huge, huge problem for one segment of our population: it hits horses very hard, and there has been a lot of consternation in large-animal medicine over vaccines and prevention. But unless you have four hooves and a mane, there is no more reason to panic over West Nile than over any other virus that plagues our country. There is no reason for public agencies to be out there with trucks fogging neighborhoods with pyrethrins, especially when their efforts to notify people of the spraying schedule are sadly lacking. (What brought this up this time was my mom commenting on the fact that our county doesn't even tell us, and we're in progressive lefty NorCal.)
I shake my head sometimes and decry the sensationalism of media, but this is one where the panic has never gone away. It bothers me a great deal to see posters in the college health center bathrooms warning about the chances of WNV infection, when the audience is overwhelmingly healthy with an average age of 22. What. The. Fuck.
I'll keep emptying out any standing water I find on the property, and try to make sure that fountains and sumps either have fish or bleach tablets, but I didn't buy the hype then and I'm still not buying it now. Keep your spray trucks off my street.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 23:25 (UTC)Yes, WNV is not a big deal, and preventative measures make sense to me more than dosing the place with insecticide. People need to take the tips from other mosquito-laiden countries and buy coils, mosquito netting, and make netted porches to sit in while they enjoy their sunset meals.