Doctors Are Warned of Malathion Health Risk : Medfly: The public is being told the pesticide poses no hazard but officials gave physicians a different message.

Although state and local officials have told residents repeatedly that the current levels of malathion spraying pose no health hazards, they also have cautioned Southland physicians that direct exposure can cause eye and throat irritation, chest tightness, headaches and nausea, it was disclosed Thursday.

The apparent discrepancy bolstered claims by malathion critics that the state has adopted a reckless and cavalier attitude toward public health concerns in its assault on the Mediterranean fruit fly. Among those critics were about 400 people who demonstrated Thursday night in Garden Grove in one of the biggest malathion protests in Southern California since aerial spraying started last fall.

Nonetheless, the helicopters hit Orange County as scheduled around 9 p.m. Thursday to begin spraying parts of nine cities covering 36 square miles for the second time. State officials got the go-ahead for the job hours earlier when a Sacramento Superior Court judge rejected a second request by the cities of Huntington Beach, Garden Grove and Westminster to halt the malathion spraying.

In refusing to halt Thursday night’s spraying around Garden Grove, Judge Anthony DeCristoforo Jr. said from the bench that he uses malathion liberally to rid his back yard of pests and said he would not second-guess state agriculture officials.

Pointing to the “enormous economic damage” that the Medfly could do to parts of the state’s $16-billion agriculture industry, the judge asked: “Don’t we face a greater disaster if we do nothing than if we do something?”

In urging the judge to allow the spraying to continue, a deputy attorney general reaffirmed the state’s position that use of the spray mixture of one part malathion to three parts bait over about 300 square miles of Southern California is safe.

“No Health Hazard,” declares one headline on a bright yellow notice that the state has distributed door-to-door to hundreds of thousands of Southern California residents who live in the spray zones.

In an accompanying “malathion fact sheet” to residents, state officials said: “If convenient, stay indoors at the moment of application in your area to avoid spotting of personal apparel.” There is no mention of health effects in the handout.

But a somewhat different story is told in newly disclosed letters that were prepared by health department officials in Los Angeles and Orange counties, reviewed by state officials and mailed recently to thousands of local physicians.

The “Dear Doctor” letters in the two counties, virtually identical, assert that officials expect “no serious or long-term health effects” from malathion exposure.

Nonetheless, each letter acknowledges that moderate, airborne exposure can cause “direct irritant effects. . . . Persons directly sprayed with the pesticides, or breathing fairly concentrated vapors from sprayed surfaces, might experience eye and throat irritation or chest tightness. If exposure is prolonged, headache or nausea might develop.”

The physicians’ letter was disclosed as part of a deposition from Orange County Health Officer L. Rex Ehling. The document was received Thursday by the Legal Aid Society of Orange County as part of a lawsuit seeking to force the government to provide shelters for the homeless during spraying. Local armories were opened for the homeless Thursday night because of the cold weather.

Malathion protesters, pointing to medical evidence of their own, have grown increasingly vocal in their attacks on the safety of the pesticide. But the physicians’ letter marks the first official indication that state and local officials recognize potential health hazards associated with malathion.

Gera Curry, spokeswoman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture, stood by the state’s repeated assertions about malathion’s safety and said of the cautionary notes in the letters: “Doctors among themselves tend to be a great deal more conservative and think of worst-case scenarios.”

Added Orange County Health Officer Ehling: “You have to consider your audience. We’re not concealing anything from the public, but on the other hand we don’t want to suggest symptoms to anyone. With the physicians, we were being a bit more technical in the event symptoms do occur. We wanted to be frank with them.”

But Robert Cohen, executive director of the Legal Aid Society, said: “This is outrageous. They’re telling the public one thing and physicians another.”

Telling physicians that nausea or other symptoms may develop, Cohen said, “is qualitatively different than telling people you don’t want to get your clothes spotted. If you’re a homeless person, getting your clothes spotted may not be a top priority but getting sick would be.”

Sickness was foremost on the minds of those with homes as well Thursday, as about 400 residents braved cold winds and temperatures in the 40s to stage a sunset anti-malathion rally at the intersection of Harbor and Garden Grove boulevards in Garden Grove.

The group, buoyed by honking and waving from supporters in passing cars, included scores of young children. One little girl carried a sign that read: “Don’t Gamble With My Health.”

Several mothers said they came to the rally because they fear malathion may harm their children. “I think what they’re spraying is actual poison, and it’s going everywhere, and my kids have to breathe it,” said Vikki Wheeler of Orange.

County Supervisors Roger R. Stanton and Harriett M. Wieder, joined by elected officials from many of the nine cities affected by Thursday’s spraying, urged people to let their state legislators know about their unhappiness with the malathion spraying.

Wieder said she could not understand how the state would declare a state of emergency because of two Medflies found in Orange County while declining to declare an emergency in the recent oil spill off Huntington Beach. She said she was also disappointed that the courts had refused to stop the spraying.

“It’s obvious that the courts don’t work,” Wieder said. “But you can get your message heard by going to the legislators. . . . You can get them to change the laws, and that’s what has to be done.”

While city attorneys have not yet decided whether to pursue further legal action to try and halt the sprayings, the word from the bench was not encouraging at the morning hearing in Sacramento.

After the hearing, DeCristoforo told reporters that he hoses down his flea-infested dogs with the pesticide and even sprays malathion around a breezeway entering his home. “I’m not careful at all. I get it in my eyes,” he said.

Huntington Beach and Garden Grove attorneys portrayed the state’s malathion campaign in the county as a massive overreaction to the discovery of two flies, only one of which was a pregnant female, and said it is unfair that the Crystal Cathedral was exempted from the Jan. 25 spraying because an outdoor dinner for 2,500 ministers was under way.

Dep. Atty. Gen. Charles Getz said the Crystal Cathedral exception was made last month because there was no way to warn the participants before the spraying. Thursday night, he promised that the cathedral would be included in the second application of gooey malathion.

“They will be sprayed tonight,” said Getz. “I hate to tell Dr. (Robert) Schuller but he will have to get out there with the Windex and clean the windows.”

Staff writer Bill Billiter contributed to this story.