State Medfly Panelist Says Pest Is in Southland to Stay

In a harsh assessment of the state’s war against the Mediterranean fruit fly, a key scientific adviser to the eradication program told the state Assembly on Tuesday that the pest has taken hold in Southern California and may be impossible to root out even with years of aerial spraying.

James R. Carey, one of five members of the state’s Medfly Science Advisory Panel, said his analysis of Medfly discoveries over the past 15 years indicates it has become “endemic” to parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties and almost certainly will become more entrenched.

Carey’s testimony came at an unusual hearing of the entire state Assembly, where top scientific and government experts were summoned to discuss the Medfly infestation, the health risks of spraying malathion and alternatives to use of the pesticide.

The one-day Assembly hearing, convened as a “committee of the whole,” provided the most high-profile examination to date of the Deukmejian Administration’s handling of the eradication program, which began last August.

With his controversial testimony, Carey provided politicians who oppose the spraying with additional scientific ammunition to continue attacking the eradication effort.

Carey, a professor of entomology at UC Davis, told the legislators he believes the pattern of Medfly discoveries in the past shows the state’s strategy has consistently failed and has little chance of success in the future.

“It just hasn’t worked; there’s no way around it,” said Carey. “We can knock the numbers down to a low level, but that’s not eradication. They’re still there.”

A parade of scientists and government officials, however, contradicted Carey’s analysis and argued that California has succeeded in eradicating the fruit fly in the past--most notably in the Santa Clara Valley in the early 1980s. Carey conceded that most of his fellow panel members don’t support his position.

“The eradication is working,” said Henry Voss, director of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “We did it then and I am confident we can do it now.”

Voss and Jack C. Parnell, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, testified that failure to eradicate the fly in Southern California could lead to a devastating infestation in the fertile Central Valley, bringing with it the threat of greater use of pesticides and quarantines on California produce by other nations.

If California abandons its eradication program, Parnell said, the U.S. government could be compelled to step in and resume the spraying.

“The solution must be left to science and the best technology we have,” said Parnell, who preceded Voss as California’s director of food and agriculture. “If we cut and run because of emotional appeals, we will all lose.”

Carey, as one of the scientists advising state officials on the eradication, is one of the few insiders to question publicly the Department of Food and Agriculture’s eradication strategy.

If the fly has become entrenched in Southern California, as Carey believes, the state would be forced to consider two equally dire alternatives: embark on an even more intense spraying campaign or simply learn to live with the crop-destroying pest.

“It’s a real dilemma,” Carey said in an interview. “I understand the ramifications, but eventually, you’ve got to belly up to the problem and deal with it head-on. You can’t pretend they’re not there if they really are.”

Other entomologists, such as professors Kenneth Hagen and Donald Dahlsten of UC Berkeley, have made a similar argument in the past, and Dahlsten supported Carey in testimony before the Assembly on Tuesday. But agriculture officials largely have ignored them as isolated dissenters with little scientific evidence.

Carey began his study because of one question that has nagged him ever since he joined the science advisory panel three years ago: Why are only some portions of California plagued with frequent infestations and not other parts of the country?

Agriculture officials maintain that previous infestations were started by contaminated fruit mailed from overseas or brought into this country by tourists or immigrants. They say there are more Medfly infestations in the area because Los Angeles is one of the largest and most ethnically diverse areas in the country.

Carey, however, said he believes the arguments go against common sense. To begin with, there are other ethnically diverse regions, such as San Diego, that have rarely experienced an infestation.

He said if travelers were to blame for bringing the Medfly into the country, why haven’t other cities, such as Dallas or San Francisco, experienced as many infestations as Southern California?

Carey began his study by mapping all 442 adult flies trapped over the last 15 years in Southern California.

The starting point was the 1975 infestation in Culver City--the first in the state’s history. That infestation was followed by an outbreak in 1980 around Northridge and another in 1981 near Baldwin Park.

In each case, the state declared eradication of the fly after a program of aerial malathion spraying and sterile fly releases.

The areas around Culver City, however, had new infestations in 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987 and 1988. There also were new finds in Northridge in 1988 and 1989, and Baldwin Park in 1989 and 1990.

“Not only did it occur in the same county, but in the same cities and in some cases, the same neighborhoods,” he said.

Carey said he believes the recurring infestations show that the Medfly has never been eradicated, but only had gone undetected by the state trapping network.

“It’s like a disease,” he said. “Remission and cure are two very different things. We can spray this into remission, but we can’t go on like that forever.”

Carey said there are other recurring pockets of Medflies that include parts of East Los Angeles and Westminster in Orange County.

After his testimony before the Assembly, officials from the state Department of Agriculture denounced his conclusions as “ridiculous” and “without scientific backing.”

Isi Siddiqui, the department’s assistant director, said malathion spraying has eradicated the pest from many regions, some of which have gone for years without new infestations.

He said the fast breeding of the fly defies Carey’s claim that a small population of flies could exist undetected by the state’s network of traps. Once the flies begin to breed, their numbers would be high enough in a few generations to assure that at least one would be trapped, he said.

“It’s ridiculous for Dr. Carey to make these accusations,” Siddiqui said in an interview, adding that a majority of the science advisory panel does not support Carey’s findings. “The doctor doesn’t have the data. He has a gut feeling, that’s all.”

The delay between reinfestations is the biggest flaw in Carey’s argument, Siddiqui continued. For example, after the Northridge infestation, it took eight years before trappers found another fly there.

“Does that make sense?” Siddiqui asked. “You could have millions of flies in just three or four generations. Why didn’t we find them?”

The state is covered from one end to the other with Medfly traps and in the Los Angeles Basin there are five traps for every square mile. Siddiqui conceded that the traps are inefficient and a small population of Medflies could elude detection, but only until they began to breed and multiply.

Even if the fly has established a permanent residence in Southern California, Siddiqui added, it would not change the Department of Food and Agriculture’s resolve to eradicate the pest. “Living with the Medfly is simply unacceptable,” he said.

Director Voss told the Assembly that no new Medflies have been found in three weeks and he is “cautiously optimistic” the current eradication program is working.

In an attempt to appease Southern Californians angered by the aerial spraying, Voss announced that the state will begin notifying residents by mail when their homes are to be sprayed--a program that will cost $250,000 for each aerial treatment.

MEDFLY SPRAYING MAP: B2