Malathion

Malathion is bad stuff, no question.It's a pesticide, designed to kill something (in this case, mosquitoes). The less contact we have with it, the better. Like any pesticide, it ought to be used as sparingly and carefully as possible. Is the state Department of Agriculture, which runs Maryland's mosquito-spraying program, doing that? This is the question County Council members ought to be asking now that a grass-roots effort to halt the use of malathion has found its way to them.A small group of citizens wants the county to stop paying $52,000 a year to participate in the state program unless it abandons the use of malathion.

State agriculture officials refused yesterday to discontinue using malathion to kill mosquitoes, despite complaints that it can cause health problems."

Members of the Anne Arundel County Council agreed last night to consider future changes for the annual mosquito control contract with the state because of objections to use of the pesticide malathion.Council members said no change could be made in the contract covering the current mosquito season.Opponents of the use of malathion met informally for about 45 minutes last night with several council members before the regular session. They asked the county to change its contract with the Maryland Department of Agriculture, which sprays malathion to kill adult mosquitoes.

Foes of the pesticide malathion will ask the Anne Arundel County Council to do what it can to end the mosquito-spraying program.Backed by a petition with more than 300 signatures, a committee of about six people will ask county officials tonight to renegotiate the county's agreement so that the state uses more larvicides."

Del. Marsha Perry is asking state mosquito control officials to tell communities that the pesticide sprayed to kill adult mosquitoes may cause serious health problems.Ms. Perry, of Crofton, made her request at yesterday's meeting of the Governor's Pesticide Council in Annapolis. She was among several people who questioned the use of malathion, which is in the midst of testing for likely reregistration by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.The pesticide is used in most states to kill mosquitoes.

Government on Air: Brawn, No BrainsAs an employee who commutes daily from Anne Arundel to Howard County, I will be subject to the Environmental Protection Agency's employee commuter program -- the topic of your July 23 editorial, "One Metro Area, One Airshed."While my neighbors who work for the federal government in Washington can commute alone, I must find someone with whom I can share my ride to and from work.Employer trip reduction programs are costly and have only a slight effect on pollution.

A Talbot County woman says the state's mosquito-control spraying last month killed her entire crop of farm-raised striped bass, and she is questioning the use of a pesticide that is toxic to aquatic life on the Eastern Shore."

The nerve agent linked to the Tokyo subway system poisonings is odorless, tasteless and doesn't irritate the skin. But it can kill within seconds if its vapors are inhaled.Sarin, or what the U.S. Army refers to as Agent GB, is a straw-colored liquid that to date has been developed for military use only, though it has similar properties to commercially produced insecticides such as malathion and parathion.And, apparently, it is not difficult to manufacture."That's one reason they call chemical weapons the poor man's atom bomb," said James M. Allingham, spokesman for U.S. Army's Chemical and Biological Defense Command, headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Q. My husband is a commercial airline pilot. Is there an anti-depressant drug he could take safely? He is 53 and flies from California to Europe and back each week. He is on Lipitor to lower his cholesterol. He has tried St. Johnswort, but it hasn't helped enough. Yes, he is tired from his demanding schedule and regular jet lag. But he is also depressed, and the situation is getting worse for everyone in our family. A. Your husband should talk to his doctor. In rare cases, Lipitor has been associated with clinical depression.

Citronella candles, an electric bug zapper and Malathion couldn't control the mosquitoes in the pond behind deLois Stevenson-Nicholas's Highland Beach house. Now she's staging an amphibian assault.Yesterday afternoon, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources dumped about 1,500 tadpoles and frogs into the pond.Most were bullfrogs, which on maturity weigh a pound or more and love a meal of bugs."They will eat every insect they can shove in their mouth," said H. Robert Lunsford, chief of the DNR's freshwater fisheries division.