Spraying Misery on the Nonwhite? : Malathion: Minority communities believe there is reason enough to demand race-specific testing.
Doctors in the Compton and Lynwood areas have noticed a measurable increase in patient complaints of eye irritation, nausea, upper respiratory problems and flu-like symptoms following each aerial spraying of malathion. While the complaints are by no means peculiar to Compton and Lynwood, elected officials in these cities have expressed grave concern for the health of their predominantly African- American and Latino populations.
At a press conference this month, community leaders called for the state Department of Food and Agriculture to conduct race-specific malathion testing to determine whether aerial malathion spraying, which is to be repeated in Compton tonight, has a deleterious effect on nonwhite populations. There would appear to be good reason for such testing.
The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and the Charles Drew Medical School have revealed that high levels of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer of the respiratory system, infant mortality, AIDS and other ailments already prevail in the African-American and Latino communities. Recognizing this, local officials desire to protect their vulnerable constituents from foreign pesticides that, in the long run, may indeed prove to exacerbate certain existent disorders.
Also, a number of distinguished scientists have amply demonstrated that people of color have a higher sensitivity to and a lower tolerance level for certain chemicals than whites. For example, Dr. Keh-Ming Lin and pharmacologist Russell Poland of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center are researching the dosage of certain drugs given to psychiatric patients of different ethnicities. Their studies have revealed that Asian schizophrenic patients require significantly lower doses of the drug haloperidol (Haldo) than do Caucasians. Further, the researchers discovered that the minimum dose required to produce strong side effects of such drugs was much lower in Asians.
Evidence of a similar nature has been compiled at the California School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles. Researchers there discovered that when treated for mental disorders, blacks and Latinos by and large have also required considerably less dosages of various psychotropic drugs than whites.
Perhaps it is a bit ambitious to extrapolate from ethnic-related drug research the conclusion that malathion spraying is likely to harm African-Americans and Latinos more than whites. Nevertheless, the findings of these studies certainly should make more than just Compton and Lynwood officials ask if it isn’t time for race-specific malathion testing.
