http://insectsinthecity.blogspot.com/

WAKE UP, all the “registered pesticides,” and herbicides for that matter are unsafe for children! How any ill people out there can attribute being “sensitized” by pyrethroid exposure!

Children should able to learn in a safe environment and we as parents need to demand that!

We should not tolerate being scoffed at and put off by “professionals” who perpetuate the myth that these products are safe!

The suffering and damage caused by this stuff to pets and children across the country has been happening for years and as a health professional, and mother I can’t just sit by silently!

I have a little ten year old who deserves better than this and who has suffered needlessly! A child that I worry about each minute he is away from his controlled environment, in the fear that some shallow minded person who actually believes the stuff is safe might spray it around him! I have spent more than one time in an ER wondering how many more of my son’s brain cells are being killed1

So excuse me for not sitting idly by while someone who has no care or clue as to the impact of this poison on children can make fun of the efforts of others to try safer pest control! I think not!!!!

Many thanks to Beyond Pesticides for your perseverance and continuing to submit this very important legislation.

The School Environment Protection Act is based on practitioners’ experience managing buildings and grounds without the hazardous pesticides that Mr. Merchant says are necessary. While Mr. Merchant focuses on the pesticide products, these managers are focused on the systems in place that exclude unwanted organisms from their site, by managing sanitation, harborage, entryways and conducive conditions that enable pest problems. Yes, sometimes a pesticide product will be necessary. The question is which ones. Here is where SEPA utilizes modern approaches, green chemistry on the cutting edge of technology that has made the chemicals that Mr. Merchant doesn’t want to lose obsolete. He refers to this new modern technology as “the most primitive products with limited usefulness.” I think if you ask the companies that are out in the marketplace selling services to parents and other customers that are looking for “green” services, they will tell you that they have all kinds of modern tools in the tool box, from mechanical, biological, to chemical products derived from natural substances that meet the standards of SEPA and work just fine when they are needed. But, the great thing, is that these same folks will tell you that if an IPM program is operating effectively with all the systems in place, they simply do not need to use much pesticide product at all.

IPM is an evolving methodology. Years ago IPM practitioners did not differentiate among all the pesticides available in the marketplace. They were highly dependent on very hazardous materials, except they only used them when their monitoring told them it was necessary. So, in most cases, even the most chemical-dependent IPM system was still dependent on chemical products. Today’s IPM system that are a part of the “green” movement and not stuck on pesticide-dependency put much more emphasis on practices and management and only use selected products as a last resort. As a result, many are finding that pesticide products become the exception rather than the rule and when they use them, as a last resort, they rely on “green” products that meet the health and environmental screen in SEPA.

We told three decades ago by many at that time in extension, many like Mr. Merchant, or as he says, “most professionals working to implement safer and better pest control,” that organic was impossible to commercialize, that it was unrealistic, that it “takes away the best pest management tools,” and now it is over a $20 billion industry with increasing support from extension and practitioners worldwide.

SEPA is cutting edge legislation that embraces the experiences across the country where schools and communities have rejected the old arguments of Mr. Merchant and are meeting the challenges of land and building management with new and creative approaches that manage pests and protect the health and environment at the same time. Don’t believe those who tell us that we cannot survive without hazardous pesticides.