The city will not spray the controversial pesticide malathion this summer even if there’s another West Nile encephalitis crisis, Health Commissioner Neal Cohen said yesterday.
Last year, officials approved its use to combat the epidemic, which claimed the lives of seven people and sent 61 others to the hospital.
The city’s decision not to use the chemical is in stark contrast to last year, when officials insisted that spraying malathion – which environmentalists say contains carcinogens – was safe.
“You virtually have to drink it in order to create the damage they are talking about,” Mayor Giuliani said then.
The chemical is under review by the federal Environmental Protection Agency – and Cohen said that until it completes its study, the city won’t use it.
Later, responding to a question, he said that would be the policy even if there’s a mosquito crisis.
Hours before testifying before the City Council, Cohen joined Giuliani and other top city officials in College Point, Queens – a hotspot of the virus last year – to unveil an elaborate mosquito-attack plan.
“What is being done, starting now, is the spreading of larvicide throughout the city over a one-month period,” Giuliani said. “The way the public can help and assist to reduce the risk is to clean up any standing water you have.”
He also said mosquito-eating fish would be released in sewage-treatment plants.
Spraying would be a last resort, he said. If it has to be done, three pesticides will be used: Scourge (resmetrin) Anvil (sumethrin) and Agrevo Permanone (permethrin). They would be dispersed primarily by truck, unlike the massive aerial spraying last year.
Meanwhile in Washington, it was announced that Dr. Stephen Ostroff, director of the National Center of Infectious Diseases, will oversee federal, state and local prevention programs.