My asthma attacks did not improve. I left for two months, two weeks at a time, but always becoming ill again upon returning. Amazingly, I had no asthma problems while I was away, even the two weeks I spent in FRESNO with my sister. After two months my symptoms were better but not completely gone. There are other ways to control LBAM without spraying people trying to sleep in their homes. I know pheromones are used regularly. They are used in organic farming and I eat organics, but using a chemical and forced to breath it deep into your lungs is not the same thing. I’m all for “using pheromones for insect control” on fields. But I’m not an insect and I don’t have any fields.

It’s never been sprayed over urban areas until now, and the chemicals are untested chemicals. I hope you don’t have to find out the way we found out on the Monterey Bay.

thank you so much for your article re. snails, lice etc and for your coverage elsewhere of the lbam situation. i understand you want to have a choice whether to use a toxic or nontoxic product especially when it comes to your home or your son’s head and i applaud your decision to shave rather than poison. for people with asthma or immune-compromised disorders like chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivity, we really can’t choose toxins and poisons ever yet they are all around us and now may fall from the sky for years. i also wanted to point out a sentiment i am hearing from the bay area which is not true and that is that you can just leave your house during the spray for a few days or a week or you can barricade yourself inside and come out a few days later and you will be fine. if you are sensitive to the spray (and this includes shorter reactions of healthy people) you will not be fine.

we have been sprayed and it is not true. we don’t want you to find out the hard way. i left for 6 days during the spray, came home and had to leave for a month.
expensive and inconvenient. the product was time-released for 30 days. 3 months later some of us still feel sick and are about to be re-sprayed in 7 weeks. there is no protection in your car and little in your house. they are trying to develop a product to last for 60 or 90 days (read lasts 6 months) so they will not have to spray so often because this “frightens us.” this is only after one spray. they plan to have this stuff in the air year round for 2-10 years.