A
Metro Health Board member/physician told them to stop making blanket claims of
safety but they continued. An EPA representative called the Health Department's
toxicologist and spoke to him about making claims of safety but nothing changed.
When a citizen confronted the former director about these statements she wrote
back, "The product we use is safe and harmless based on EPA standards. If it
were not 'safe', we would not be using it." The director is now gone. As
of December 1, 2007, the toxicoligist made false claims of safety at a Fisk
University presentation despite the fact that we've asked the new Director of
Health to address this issue. In 2008, an EPA representative stated that they were concerned about the statement's made by staff. He said he would call (for the second time) to try to address the matter.
Video and audio are in Quicktime
Meet the Department's toxicologist Samni Areola. He doesn't let the EPA tell him
what to do. Listen to him claim the
pesticide is safe. 2M
It takes a couple of minutes to load this
video but it is worth the wait. 13M Areola speaks about the daily dose of
sumithrin you can have every day without a public health risk and more! Listen to audio only of this clip.
6M
A number of citizens who spoke with Areola about symptoms they were experiencing reported that he told them the pesticide could not
have caused the problems. He failed to inform them that the symptoms they were
complaining of and the treatments for those symptoms could be found right on the
label for the pesticide the Health Department uses.
Hear Public Relations Officer Brian Todd makes
false claims of safety. (Who are the toxicologists Mr. Todd is referring to?)
2M
Brian Todd says the pesticide could be 80,000 times
stronger and still be safe. 3M
We are asking citizens (especially
authorities, experts, scientists and health care professionals) to contact the new director Dr. Bill Paul.
Let him know this is not acceptable. Please ask him to require a
statement in his mosquito control policy about the inherent risk of pesticides.
Ask him to take action against employees who make public statements that there
are no risks. After five years of trying to get their staff to stop making these
claims, we would suggest that immediate dismissal would the perfect action to
take.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
(EPA) states that no pesticide can be considered 100% safe.
Manufacturers and distributors of pesticides are not allowed by Federal Law to
say that any pesticide is safe. Health Department officials should consider this
when they make their erroneous claims that the pesticide is harmless.
