Illness Probed for Possible Pesticide Link

State investigators were trying Friday to determine if a 36-year-old woman who has been in a coma for two weeks was gassed when a pesticide that environmentalists have been trying to outlaw for more than a decade was used to fumigate a building next to her home.

The case of Sandra Mero of Toluca Lake promises to renew an intense, years-long debate over use of the highly toxic gas methyl bromide.

Environmentalists have repeatedly tried to ban the chemical, which has been blamed by state authorities for 18 deaths and hundreds of illnesses over the last 13 years, but have been unable to overcome resistance from the agricultural and pest control industries, supported by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Mero, an assistant for an entertainment company, was in critical condition Friday at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank, a hospital spokeswoman said. “She is a critically brain-injured young lady fighting for her life,” said her lawyer, Larry Feldman, who added that he is planning to file a suit.

He said that on March 8, the day after the gas was used on a neighboring building, Mero told several friends by phone that she awoke feeling ill. She went back to sleep and was found unconscious in her home the next day by her landlady, Sally Stevens, Feldman said.

Feldman said Mero’s home, in a group of buildings in the 10400 block of West Valley Spring Lane, was connected by seven pipes, one to two inches in diameter, to the fumigated studio just 15 feet away.

The owner of the fumigation firm involved said Friday that the pipes were not easily visible in the studio, and that there is no proof that Mero’s coma was caused by methyl bromide.

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation is investigating the case for methyl bromide poisoning, said Bob Donley, chief of pesticide investigations for the county agricultural commissioner’s office. No finding that the gas was involved has been issued.

A woman who would identify herself only as a cousin of Mero named Mary said at the hospital Friday that Mero’s doctor had found 27 parts per million of methyl bromide in her blood--well above the lethal dose of 24 ppm.

The chemical would have been illegal for use in California if a ban that was to go into effect in March 1996 had not been delayed by the state Legislature. Legislators acted at the request of farm groups and Gov. Wilson, who called a special session of the Legislature to deal with the issue.

Methyl bromide will be outlawed in 2010 in the United States and many other countries under an international agreement signed in Montreal in 1993 because of fears that it damages the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from harmful solar rays.

Environmentalists also paint it as a danger to farm laborers who work with it and harvest crops in fields where it has been injected into the soil. The California Legislature acted in 1984 to ban it by 1991, but farmers complained that the ban would cause about $500 million a year in losses to strawberry, nut, cherry, nectarine, grape, cotton and vegetable crops.

The state Department of Food and Agriculture estimated potential losses at $346 million from smaller harvests, plus $241 million in lost exports, which the department predicted would eliminate 10,000 jobs.

California currently uses more than 20 million pounds of methyl bromide annually, about one-seventh of worldwide production. About a fifth of the state’s usage goes to fumigate homes and buildings to kill termites and other pests.

Methyl bromide fumes, which attack the central nervous and respiratory systems, bring on dizziness, vomiting and disorientation, and have been associated with birth defects.

State regulators said the deaths attributed to the gas all occurred because someone--often a homeless person or burglar--entered a structure during fumigation or during the several days thereafter when buildings are supposed to remain vacant until the gas dissipates.

Robert Evans, owner of Evans Exterminating Co. of Burbank, which used the gas on the studio next to Mero’s home, said the building was inspected before fumigation and was completely enclosed with a tent.

He said he did not see the pipes extending from the wall because they were obstructed by a chair.

“The [pipe] system installed there is so unusual,” he said. “I’ve never seen conduits run from one structure to another in all of the houses I’ve inspected.”

It could not be determined Friday what the pipes were used for, and the building owner could not be reached for comment.