CDC press office told me that I would have to contact the individual state public health agencies for more information. So I called Louisiana and New York, but no luck. They also were not releasing the information I sought.
It seems I'm not alone in my failure. According to the No Spray Coalition, New York City claimed 7 fatalities to West Nile in 1999, "Yet to date none of the names or medical histories of the deceased have been released... Independent research indicates that all 7 were over 75, one had a serious heart condition, two had cancer (and heavy chemotherapy), and all had bad immune systems. No death was histologically connected with WNV as the cause of death."
Why not release victim information? Could it be that if the public were to understand that the so-called victims really had serious underlying medical conditions, that it would put an end to the panic and an end to the pesticide spraying?
Pardon me for being suspicious, but in my mind it's not surprising that states like Louisiana, Mississippi, and Illinois are claiming some of the highest rates for West Nile. They've had a long love affair with the chemical industry. That cozy relationship could contribute to the high number of victims in any number of troubling ways.
West Nile is a virus that we will learn to live with and should refuse to get excited about. What's alarming is a pesticide industry that does more harm than good, a public health service that withholds the facts, and a press corps that seems incapable of asking the tough questions.
Lynn Landes http://www.EcoTalk.org
Links:
· http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/wncount.htm
· http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0812-06.htm
· http://www.nospray.org
It seems I'm not alone in my failure. According to the No Spray Coalition, New York City claimed 7 fatalities to West Nile in 1999, "Yet to date none of the names or medical histories of the deceased have been released... Independent research indicates that all 7 were over 75, one had a serious heart condition, two had cancer (and heavy chemotherapy), and all had bad immune systems. No death was histologically connected with WNV as the cause of death."
Why not release victim information? Could it be that if the public were to understand that the so-called victims really had serious underlying medical conditions, that it would put an end to the panic and an end to the pesticide spraying?
Pardon me for being suspicious, but in my mind it's not surprising that states like Louisiana, Mississippi, and Illinois are claiming some of the highest rates for West Nile. They've had a long love affair with the chemical industry. That cozy relationship could contribute to the high number of victims in any number of troubling ways.
West Nile is a virus that we will learn to live with and should refuse to get excited about. What's alarming is a pesticide industry that does more harm than good, a public health service that withholds the facts, and a press corps that seems incapable of asking the tough questions.
Lynn Landes http://www.EcoTalk.org
Links:
· http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/wncount.htm
· http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0812-06.htm
· http://www.nospray.org