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  • 2017-09-21 (xsd:date)
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  • Were Houston Residents Warned to Use Gas Masks During Mosquito Spraying? (en)
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  • In September 2017, the Stranger Than Fiction News Facebook page claimed in a post and video that authorities in Houston, Texas had warned residents to put on gas masks while aircraft sprayed for mosquitoes in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey: The video features graphics (edited to look like those used in authentic news reports) which read: Breaking news: Houston to spray neurotoxin for mosquito control. In the video, a local news broadcast is edited so that a narrator's voice claims that aircraft are spraying neurotoxins everywhere: Authorities in Harris County, Texas did schedule mosquito spraying during the week of 14 September 2017, and they did sanction the use of naled, which is not allowed for use as a pesticide in the European Union but is authorized for use in the United States. The process by which the European Union and the United States review potential risk from chemicals differs, and often times results in conflicting assessments. In the European Union, naled is not authorized for use as a pesticide; it carries warning labels indicating that it is a toxin and an irritant, though these effects occur at higher concentrations than would be expected from mosquito spraying. On 13 September 2017, the Harris County Department of Public Health announced that a program of aerial spraying would begin the following day in order to counteract the risk posed by mosquitoes, which had been present in unusually large numbers in the surface water left behind by Hurricane Harvey: A spokesperson for the Harris County Department of Public Health told us that the spraying was officially scheduled to continue through 20 September 2017. The announcement continues: Dibrom is a brand name for naled, the chemical highlighted in the Stranger Than Fiction Facebook video. The federal Environment Protection Agency (EPA) says of naled: Naled's classification as a neurotoxin stems from its ability to cause cholinesterase depression, a harmful lowering of the levels of cholinesterase, an enzyme important to the functioning of nervous system. (In fact, that's how naled works: it lowers cholinesterase in insects to a level that proves fatal to them.) Again, these effects — which have primarily been investigated using animal studies — are not relevant to the concentrations found during mosquito spraying. The primary research on pesticides and cholinesterase depression in humans revolves around farmworkers or other groups who are exposed to pesticides on a daily basis, and at much higher concentrations than the ultra low-volume mist involved in aerial mosquito spraying, especially by the time that spray reaches the ground. An Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson told us that they have taken the risks into consideration: Dr Jeffrey G. Scott, a professor of entomology at Cornell University, told us: On the whole, the claims made in the Stranger Than Fiction video (seeking as it does to warn viewers that authorities in Houston, Texas are spraying a deadly neurotoxin that causes brain damage) are mostly false. It's true that the Harris County Department of Public Health, in collaboration with the United States Air Force, did spray naled over the county in September 2017, and naled is an organophosphate pesticide which kills insects by lethally suppressing their nervous system (i.e. is a neurotoxin). However, authorities in Harris County did not warn residents to wear gas masks during spraying, and the risk of neurotoxic damage to humans is largely limited to close exposure to naled in high concentrations — not the type of exposure expected in aerial spraying, which uses naled at an ultra-low volume and involves significant dissipation of the chemical by the time it reaches the ground. (en)
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