It’s Too Early to Celebrate : Not Much Room for Error in the Medfly Equation
At the risk of being a killjoy, we think it’s too soon to pop champagne corks over the announcement that the state’s controversial campaign of malathion spraying to eradicate the Medfly is scheduled to end May 9. The surprise announcement by state agriculture chief Henry J. Voss raises hopes without resolving the nagging doubts.
Voss said that next month the spraying schedule will step up to once every two weeks because the warmer spring weather provides a better breeding atmosphere for the fruit-destroying pest. But in May, when the state is due to receive new shipments of sterile Medflies--which will mate with fertile flies and halt reproduction--the state should no longer have to resort to multiple malathion spraying. Voss did not say that spraying will end for all time. He said that widespread multiple spraying of the type that Southern California has endured since last fall should not be repeated, assuming that experts in Hawaii can make good on their promise to supply millions of quality sterile flies each week.
There is not much room for error in this tenuous chain of assumptions. Relying on three sterile Medfly production plants when one already has trouble making deliveries worries the state’s science advisers. It concerns us, too. The state still is not dealing with the more fundamental questions: Since the public naturally wants health safety guarantees and scientists are likely to qualify any such guarantees, should the state impose the application of aerial pesticides upon a populace that has had no say? If so, under what circumstances?
As the bitter malathion battle has proved, in the air and in the courts, the blanket spraying of pesticides is unacceptable to many, even as a stopgap. Use of sterile Medflies as a biological tool against the pest makes sense. But the current hurry-up mentality in breeding flies runs the risk of errors that would simply take the anti-Medfly effort back to square one. A few rushed moves at a Hawaii plant could lead to the breeding of more fertile, not sterile, flies. That could lead to more aerial pesticide spraying and more public outcry. It’s a cycle no one wants to repeat.
Los Angeles and Orange County residents are tired of hovering helicopters and malathion mist, and agricultural officials are no doubt weary of being portrayed as just a step above baby snatchers. A publicly discussed strategy that anticipates pest problems has the best chance of holding off both future Medfly infestations and political imbroglios.
