State Doctors Group Asked to Consider Spraying Halt

Three Southland physicians have asked the California Medical Assn. to consider a resolution that calls for the termination of malathion spraying until safety concerns have been assessed.

The resolution, which is scheduled to be discussed by the CMA’s executive board today at the start of the group’s annual meeting at the Disneyland Hotel, alleges that the state has not proven that the pesticide used to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly is safe.

Gov. George “Deukmejian seems more concerned with fruit flies than with humans,” said H. Rex Greene, a Pasadena physician who along with two other doctors introduced the resolution. “The state has not shown (malathion) to be safe. If it’s not shown to be safe, they have no business dumping it on citizens.”

The one-page resolution cites “acknowledged data gaps” in federal and state studies of malathion risks, asks if spraying contributes to ground-water contamination and points out that Japan has banned the use of the chemical.

The statement calls for the “immediate halt to aerial malathion spraying” and asks the other 38,000 members of the medical association to write letters to elected officials demanding that spraying be stopped.

Jane Wessell, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, said Thursday that she had not heard about the resolution and could not comment about specific parts of it. However, she did compare the resolution to other failed legislative and court actions taken by Southern California cities to halt spraying.

“Everyone is doing that. What’s so different about that?” Wessell asked. “They have a . . . hysteria going on.”

The CMA’s executive board will decide whether the resolution warrants being heard at the association’s annual meeting.