They're gonna do us in one way or another. I've been sprayed for Gypsy Moth, now New York is gonna be sprayed. The bastards will rot in their next lifetime...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Health workers in helicopters and trucks will spray all of New York City with insecticide to stem a rare outbreak of mosquito-borne encephalitis that has claimed three lives and may be spreading, officials said Thursday. "By the time we are finished we will spray the entire city," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said at a news conference to announce plans to extend the spraying of the insecticide malathion from the boroughs of Queens and the Bronx to all five city boroughs in the coming weeks to kill mosquitoes. "The information we received is that there is a possibility that if you don't continue to spray, the whole thing can start up again," Giuliani said of measures to fight the first recorded outbreak of St Louis Encephalitis in New York City. Three people, all of them in their 80s and living in the borough of Queens, have died since the Sept. 2 outbreak of the viral infection that can swell the brain, cause fevers, delirium and weakness. The disease is named after the city where it first appeared in 1933 and is more commonly found in the southeastern United States. The number of confirmed cases has risen to nine from five in recent days, and for the first time health officials have confirmed a case outside of Queens, in Brooklyn. But officials said there was no reason for alarm or panic. New York City Health Commissioner Neal Cohen said 56 other people were waiting for laboratory results from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to find out whether they were infected. Earlier, officials said there were 48 suspected cases but eight more were reported Thursday. Officials said the CDC had recommended that the entire city be sprayed with malathion, which they say is not harmful to people, pets or vegetables. "You have a very large population at risk," Roger Nasci, a CDC entomologist said. "We believe this is the best approach." Health workers using three helicopters and six trucks will expand the spraying effort starting Thursday in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx between 5 p.m. EDT and 9 p.m. EDT and Friday from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m., the periods when mosquitoes are most active. Manhattan will be sprayed from trucks. "We will continue spraying for the next few weeks and will set up a schedule for regular spraying until there is a frost," said Jerome Hauer, director of the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management. Authorities have used helicopters and hand-held spraying devices since the outbreak to spray malathion in Queens and the Bronx in parkland, nonresidential areas and public schools. The New York City Health Department advised residents in potentially affected areas to wear long-sleeved shirts, long pants and socks and to use insect repellent when outdoors, especially at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active.

-- anon (so@what.com), September 10, 1999

Answers

MY neighborhood has been REGULARLY sprayed for Mosquito's for YEARS!

GET A GRIP!! EEE is NOT FUN!! ANd it has been PROVEN to kill!!

Malathion, on the other hand, in the usually encountered doses in skeeter spray program is no more than a nuisance.

(Please READ THE QUALIFIER before flaming.)

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), September 10, 1999.

Chucky Cheeze, I could say that your response was so freakin naive that I'm suprised you know what Y2K means, but I won't.....

anon

-- anon (wo@what.com), September 10, 1999.

To spray or not to spray... Hardly matters. They'll be loudly criticized either way.

If the gov does nothing & thousands die (unlikely but possible), the public will be screaming for someone's head. If they do decide to spray & save all those lives, the public will be screaming for someone's head.

Human nature. Them 'skeeters must be laughing at us.

-- there is (no@right.answer), September 10, 1999.

Wow, you people are really stupid...

-- anon (so@long.com), September 10, 1999.

Anon,

No, we are not stupid. I'm disappointed that you would take that position just because there are those who see it differently. This isn't an either-or-situation, as you wish to present it. Look at the reply from "there is" to get the correct viewpoint on this. It comes down to choosing a lesser of two evils, unfortunately. So, make your own choice, and then tell us why the deaths from that are acceptable.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), September 10, 1999.

What's a little blood sucker anyway, leave the skeets alone. They need to go after the real blood suckers....welfare recipients.

-- sucked dry (suckeddry@suckeddryy.com), September 10, 1999.

Double Wow. You people have really bought party line huh, hook line and sinker. Sorry to offend you, but I call it like it is. Because you dumb dumbs 'believe' what They tell you, you make an informed choice? Tis to laugh...

Anon

-- anon (so@long.com), September 10, 1999.

Anon.....

and your stellar credentials are WHAT?

C'mon, give us the URL of your dissertation or science lab reports.karen

-- karen (karen@karen.karen), September 10, 1999.

Anon,

I think you are one of those who suffer from tunnel vision. Anything outside your narrow range of vision is either non existent or nuts. Too bad for you and your "Wow, Wow, Dummy, Dummy" thinking pattern.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), September 10, 1999.

Ahem, please take your 'credentials' and toast slighlty, add a little salt and tamari, then chew, chew chew. You idiots, if the government told you that computers would work on Jan 1, would you believe them? We need insecticides like we need genetically engineered foodstuffs. GET A LIFE, GIVE YOUR STUPID HEADS A SHAKE...

Anon

-- anon (so@long.com), September 10, 1999.

Three elderly people are dead, and they are going to spray an entire city, at a cost of - how many hundreds of thousands of dollars? It's a mosquito-born disease, so if people DO use a little "off" and stay indoors until the next frost (30 days? 15?) there will be no problem. More people have died this year of food poisoning in New York, but you don't see them shutting down all the hot dog stands. Since it's a matter of historical record (not "conspiracy theory") that biowarfare experiments were performed in New York subways, AND the more recent "chemtrail" phenomenon has demonstrated clearly the the govt. is spraying the entire U.S. population, especially densly populated areas, with something (exactly what is unknown at this point IMO), I think it's not unreasonable to look at this sort of thing critically, and even demand third-party monitoring of the procedure.

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), September 10, 1999.

Thanks liberty, nice to hear from someone that makes sense. Now you know why we get sprayed. The sheeple think we need it, or 'it won't hurt'. God help us...

-- anon (so@long.com), September 10, 1999.

Thanks liberty, nice to hear from someone who makes sense. Now you know why we get sprayed. The sheeple think we need it, or 'it won't hurt'. God help us...

-- anon (so@long.com), September 10, 1999.

"Since it's a matter of historical record (not "conspiracy theory") that biowarfare experiments were performed in New York subways, AND the more recent "chemtrail" phenomenon has demonstrated clearly the the govt. is spraying the entire U.S. population, especially densly populated areas, with something (exactly what is unknown at this point IMO)..." [snip]

I don't know about the subway thing. But I've read nothing so far to convince me that we're being sprayed from above. Can you provide a link with some actual proof (& not just speculation)?

-- thank (you@in.advance), September 10, 1999.

anon,

I think YOU are the one who has been sniffing from the RAID can a bit to long. I think YOU are the one who has "bought, hook-line-and- sinker" the clap-trap of some,(very),small nut/fringe group. LOOK OUT!! They are tossing bug bombs thru the window....Yaaaaaaaaaaa.

-- orkin man (thinkyou're@screwed.com), September 10, 1999.

I'm wondering why they didn't drop buckets of snow, or alter the weather when all those elderly people died this summer from heat exhaustion. The technology is there, but then again, population control....

-- easy come easy go (easycomeeasygo@easycomeeasygoo.com), September 11, 1999.

Here in NC they used to use chlordane in standing water sites to kill mosquitoes. After doing this for years and years they found out it was so carcinogenic it made Barbie dolls lumpy. They stopped spraying of course, but the stuff doesn't break down well so now it is seeping into water supplies, stuff that was sprayed two decades ago is still working its way through the environment.

We think we're so damn smart.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), September 11, 1999.

Anon- I sympathize with you. i was horrified to hear of the plan to spray NYC. It is truly nuts. If that were planned in my state, the planes would be shot down for sure. There is no way to sanitize all of life and make it risk free. to spray toxic pesticides- and malathion is a toxic pesticide- to eliminate something that has stricken down three elderly people is nuts. And I say this despite having an elderly grandmother living in NYC myself.

On the other hand- it's a great trial run for air applications of whatever the gov't might want to someday apply.......yeah, I know, I'm a paranoid rightwing freak.....

-- farmer (hillsidefarm@drbs.net), September 11, 1999.