Transition Island Blog

California Plans to Use Citizens as Guinea Pigs: Why Every U.S. Resident Should Care

Taken from an American Blog

Beginning this summer, airplanes will fly 500-800 feet over California, spraying hundreds of thousands of California residents with untested pesticide called CheckMate.

The State’s Department of Food and Agriculture is initiating the largest aerial pesticide spray in the history of the United States because it’s afraid the light brown apple moth will take over our plants.

• Never mind that the evidence suggests that this moth has been with us for decades causing no harm whatsoever (and has, in fact, been controlled by natural predators).
• Never mind that scientists across the globe have dealt with this moth before, and advised California that widespread spraying will do no good.
• Never mind that the State’s previous spraying last year resulted in well over 600 reported ill health effects.
• Never mind that a man named Stewart Resnick, an agribusiness man whose farming company happens to own the manufacturer of CheckMate (the pesticide to be sprayed on us) has made generous political contributions to our State’s officials.
• And never, ever mind that 19,000 citizens and counting have said out loud that they do not want to be sprayed.

And why should anyone who lives outside of California care? One simple reason: we are the nation’s guinea pigs. The USDA recently announced plans to survey all 50 U.S. states to see if the light brown apple moth can be found anywhere else. If they do…

Read more…

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opinion:
I don’t know the facts of this case.
I do know this sort of protest is an expression of outrage from ordinary people about politics and big business behaving in scandalous ways. And I’m sure Californians are not the only Guinea Pigs in the world!