Medical Assn. Refuses to Oppose Spraying

Leaders of the California Medical Assn., lending their voice to the debate over efforts to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly, on Monday rejected overwhelmingly a resolution calling for a moratorium on malathion spraying until the pesticide’s health effects can be studied further.

The vote came at the CMA’s annual House of Delegates meeting in Anaheim. While it was interpreted by some association leaders as a declaration that malathion spraying is safe, proponents of the resolution said it failed because of political, rather than medical, considerations.

“There is no demonstrable danger from spraying of malathion,” said Charles M. Hair, past president of the association. “We accept the fact that our agriculture is severely threatened and this does not propose a danger to our patients.”

Added Dr. Mitchell S. Karlan, a member of the CMA’s scientific board: “We are taking a step that to our knowledge, malathion is safe.”

But Dr. H. Rex Greene, a Pasadena oncologist who in three days of committee meetings led opposition to spraying, disagreed that the vote meant the association had endorsed the safety of spraying malathion over infested neighborhoods.

“I think CMA really doesn’t want to take a position,” he said. “We’re not saying malathion is safe. We’re not saying malathion is unsafe. We’re afraid of stirring up the public and causing undue fears.”

Greene noted that most of the members of the 353-member House of Delegates are from agricultural areas not being sprayed.

He contended that studies so far do not prove malathion safe. “I tell my patients I don’t know, but I hope they don’t have any children in the next five years,” he said.

Declaring that current studies of the chronic effects of malathion are “deficient scientifically and must be repeated,” the resolution had asked for an immediate halt to aerial spraying. An amendment to the resolution, which also failed, had asked that CMA’s Scientific Board review the safety of malathion spraying. It was rejected by an overwhelming voice vote.

Dr. L. Rex Ehling, Orange County’s health director and a CMA representative for California Family Physicians, said a 1980 study of spraying in Santa Clara County found “no significant health risk.”

In a related development, a bipartisan group of 36 state Assembly members on Monday jointly voiced their support for the spraying, which since an infestation was discovered in August has become a biweekly ritual for vast sectors of Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The lawmakers, who represent primarily rural districts and who are seeking to maintain legislative support for the use of malathion, stated that spraying is safe and insisted that the campaign to control the Medfly should continue, despite the hardship for Southern Californians.

The legislators predicted a wide range of devastating effects if aerial spraying is halted, including severe economic losses for growers. They maintained that if the Medfly made its way into agricultural fields, the result would be more farm use of pesticides, higher food costs, threats to worker safety, embargoes and loss of jobs.

“As Californians, we are all in this together,” the legislators said in a joint statement. “Malathion bait spraying is not for the benefit of California farmers at the expense of Southern Californians, but must be continued for the environment, public health, and economic good of the entire state.”

The pro-malathion contingent emerged on the eve of a session before the full Assembly to take testimony from Deukmejian Administration officials and scientific experts on the use of malathion.

Representatives of the state’s farm regions are concerned that urban legislators are gearing up to block the spraying program.

In at least three Southern California cities, concerns about malathion have prompted city governments to attempt to ban low-flying helicopters over their borders.

This novel attempt to keep out the Medfly eradicators has proven to be largely symbolic, and on Monday the Federal Aviation Administration issued a general but pointed reminder that it was responsible for policing aircraft.

FAA Regional Administrator Jerry Chavkin issued a statement saying that Congress has passed laws, which have been upheld by the courts, limiting to the federal government the power to control the flight of aircraft, including helicopters engaged in aerial spraying to eradicate the Medfly.

Chavkin said he hoped “reason would prevail over emotional responses if the airborne dissemination of malathion is resumed.”

Despite Chavkin’s warning, the Azusa City Council was contemplating both a legal and aerial challenge to the renewed spraying in the East San Gabriel Valley.

The city planned to rent a helicopter from Pasadena, which earlier had tried to shadow and cite a state squadron of malathion-spraying copters, and do the same thing by sending an Azusa police officer aloft. Azusa is among nearly a dozen communities in Los Angeles and Orange counties that has opposed aerial spraying either by passing ordinances or threatening to file lawsuits.

Spraying was to resume Monday night in Azusa, Irwindale, Glendora and the Brea-La Habra Heights area, but the operation was canceled because of strong winds.

Times staff writer Richard C. Paddock contributed to this story from Sacramento.