‘You Decide’ Debate on Malathion Proves Indecisive

The formal protests are fewer these days, the media coverage is becoming scant. The aerial assaults on the elusive Mediterranean fruit fly seem inevitable. The challengers, in the courts and in the streets, have lost.

For five months now, the state has sprayed sections of Orange County with malathion. In Los Angeles County, add three months to that.

Now the state’s head Food and Agriculture man has declared a unilateral truce to take effect in a little more than a month’s time, earlier than expected, but still there is a caveat. Newly discovered infestations will be sprayed at least one more time.

So it is ongoing, this battle, against a bug, and against the perception of lies. The issue has become personal. It is deeply felt on both sides.

The Associated Students of Fullerton College sponsored a malathion debate Thursday and subtitled it, “You Decide.” About 60 students were there, presumably to make up their minds.

Pro or con, the participants’ name cards read, three debating on each side.

“Why doesn’t the public get a chance to vote on the spraying?” one student asked, and then Dr. Peter Kurtz, senior medical coordinator for the state Department of Food and Agriculture, stepped up to the mike.

“Why can’t we vote out cancer and abolish it?” he said. “Before they used to have quarantines against tuberculosis. . . . We didn’t give them a vote. . . . If we were to vote on this, we may take a wrong action, not knowing what the action should be. . . . I know this sounds like Big Brother. I hate sounding like Big Brother.”

Then the question was put to Cal State Fullerton biology professor Lon McClanahan, one of those on the other side.

“The last time I checked, this was still a democracy,” he said. “People should have a right to look at the facts. . . . The state says that they know everything about malathion spraying, and that those of us that oppose it don’t know anything. I don’t think that’s right. I wish you could vote on it. I’m sorry we have an opinion here that Big Brother knows best.”

And so it went. Emotions ran high on this subject, as they always do. Matters of economics and convenience juxtaposed against others of good health and long life.

Bits of studies were quoted, percentages thrown about here and there, fears and doubts debated back and forth. What one called a warning, another called a threat. There seemed to be exaggeration emanating from both sides.

But indisputable truth was something that nobody could rightly claim. If it were there, up on that stage, perhaps its light would have shone into all of our eyes.

What we were left with, then, was a plea for trust. The government says it will spray us because it knows that it must.

Still, the doubts linger, stubborn and strong. We can’t vote on malathion spraying directly, but many are already predicting the fallout on elections the next time around. They say politicians who didn’t fight the spraying will pay.

Two recent polls conducted by The Times, one in Orange and Los Angeles counties and the other statewide, showed that 57% of the respondents want an immediate end to the spraying. No more than 35% said the spraying should go on.

One out of every five people whose neighborhoods have been sprayed complained of specific health problems they blamed on malathion.

More studies, most people say, need to be done. The government’s word isn’t yet good enough.

“I, standing before you, I am a government official watching out for you,” said Dr. Kurtz. “I am a father. I wouldn’t do this to other people if I didn’t know it was safe.”

“I think you heard a lot of opinions here today,” McClanahan said. “You have to make up your own mind. If I have to make the decision, I don’t want to be sprayed.”