Woman’s Coma Studied for Links to Pest Killer

State investigators were trying Friday to determine whether a 36-year-old woman who has been in a coma for two weeks was gassed by a pest killer used to fumigate a building next door to her home, a chemical that environmentalists have been trying for more than a decade to outlaw.

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 California authorities for 18 deaths and hundreds of illnesses over the past 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 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 said he is planning to file 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 compound of buildings in the 10400 block of West Valley Spring Lane, was connected by seven pipes, from 1 to 2 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 Mary, a cousin of Mero’s, 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 had not been delayed by the state Legislature three weeks before it was to have taken effect last March. Lawmakers 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 Legislature acted in 1984 to ban it by 1991, but farmers complained the ban would cause about $500 million a year in losses to the 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 now uses over 20 million pounds of methyl bromide annually, about one-seventh of worldwide production. About a fifth of the state’s usage is for fumigation of 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 homeless people or burglars--unknowingly entered a structure during fumigation or during the period of several days when the structures are supposed to remain vacant, to allow the last of the gas to dissipate.

Use of the gas is closely regulated, they said, and inspectors frequently make unannounced visits while exterminators are using it.

Robert Evans, owner of the 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 system installed there is so unusual,” he said, referring to the pipes. “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. But sources said it was believed they were installed years ago to carry electrical wires to the home for a previous occupant.

Feldman said Evans should have seen the pipes and capped them before fumigating, describing them as six pipes 1 inch in diameter and one pipe about 2 inches in diameter.

“They were visible and wide open, and the chemical went into her room,” he said. “What’s astounding is how could you use that chemical and not cap them or know where they are going.”

Evans said that if methyl bromide got into Mero’s home, she should have been warned of its presence by an irritating agent, similar to tear gas, mixed in with it to alert people to the presence of the gas.

Evans’ company has been cited about 15 times for minor violations of state regulations, Donley said. Evans said the violations were all “very petty.”