We are circulating a petition by the Pesticide Awareness Foundation, please contact us to request one and return filled out to 1324 State St. J#172, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 or contact: Drora at 685-4881 or Julie at  963-1625.

Pesticides have been linked to a number of public health impacts, including cancer and reproductive harm. Children are very susceptible to harm from pesticides and it is unacceptable to expose our children to unnecessary health risks. Santa Barbara County and City are applying toxic pesticides on our parks and in our schools. As concerned citizens and parents we would like to prevent the use of any pesticide and use non-chemical ways to deal with the "city's bugs."

In October 1998, Julie and her then 2 year-old daughter suffered severe reactions from exposure to the pesticide Dursban via neighborhood drift. An internationally-recognized toxicologist diagnosed chemical poisoning in Julie and her daughter. After many futile attempts to get protection from future spraying, Julie and her family moved. During the next year, the focus was to get well. In October of1999 Julie headed in a new direction. She took a course offered by Landmark Education, in Los Angeles called, "Self Expression and Leadership";  where she received training in how to create a community project, and enroll leaders in her project. She created a possibility for her community of Safety, Vitality, and Health. From this came the idea for California's First Organic Festival and PAAC (Pesticide Awareness And Alternative Coalition).

In the beginning, Julie found and enrolled Yumi Bollag, Drora Katzav, Estelle Foster and later found Andrea Chamberlain from Ocean Futures. This comprised a powerful board that brought life to the dream and created in an extraordinary festival with a sold out vendor and non-profit capacity and with a waiting list.

Pest Control Kills What Again?
You might have heard this next story but I feel it is important to keep telling it : It is the story of Joshua Herb. He  came into the world a healthy, happy baby. When his parents, Vicki and Glen Herb, brought him home, they set him up in a crib by a window in their house in Charleston, West Virginia.

But soon Joshua started losing his reflexes and acting as though his stomach hurt. "Now we know it was because he couldn't breathe," Said his mom in a later interview. In addition he was unable to keep food down.  When the Herbs took Joshua to the doctor, they learned that his diaphragm has stopped working properly so that when he breathed, his lungs moved out of sync with each other.

The Herbs consulted several other doctors, all of whom were baffled. "One of them said he had a virus; another said he had a milk allergy, etc. The Herbs had their own theory, They suspected that their son had been poisoned by pesticides.  Once a month, the Herbs had a local pest control company send someone to their house to spray for ants, roaches and other bugs. One day shortly after they brought Joshua home from the hospital, the exterminator paid them a visit. He followed his usual routine, coating baseboards and windowsills throughout the house with a pesticide called Dursban - including, it turned out, the bedroom where the newborn lay sleeping.

Josh's crib was right below the windowsill, the exterminator was not aware that Josh was in the room when he did it. By the time he sprayed the windowsill, it was too late. The active ingredient in Dursban is a chemical called Chlorpyrifos, which is one of the most common pesticides used by pest control companies. Every year in the United States, there are thousands of cases of Chlorpyrifos poisoning , symptoms of which include nausea, muscle weakness, loss of reflexes, vomiting, abdominal cramping and diarrhea. Josh had blisters all over him and he started excreting a yellow fluid through the pores of his skin.

Today, at ten years old - an age when most kids can swing a bat or kick a soccer ball - Joshua is confined to his home with 24-hour nursing care and must use an oxygen system to breath. Since he was poisoned as an infant, Joshua has experienced no muscle growth, no nerve development, and no bone growth. In  Julie's case there is no way to be certain what is the extent of damage caused to Izzy from being exposed to the same chemical as Josh- Dursban, but her blood work is still showing abnormalities today.
 

Use of Poisons a Major Threat
In 1995, Americans spent $11.3 billion on pesticides, 118 companies produce millions of pounds of pesticides each year, 384,000 certified applicators spray these chemicals inside homes, schools, day cares, schools, factories and offices. American use 11 million to 17 million pounds a year of Dursban, it is the main ingredient in RAID, D-CON, DEXOL, ENFORCER, ORTHO and more than 900 other products, Once sprayed it can cling to carpets, furniture and toys, lace food children eat, etc. A study by researchers at Rutgers University found that a three to six year old child can absorb or ingest a total of 208 micrograms of chlorpyrifos per kilogram of his weight a day.

In 1995 in a study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measured the residues of twelve pesticides in 1,000 adult urine samples taken. Chlorpyrifos was detected in 82 percent of the samples. When they compared their results to data from an earlier testing done ten years before, they found a fivefold increase in the pesticide residue. (The most prevalent pesticide found was 2,5-dichlorophenol, or DCB, which is a pesticide used throughout the world in toilet deodorizers and moth repellent. Researchers found DCB in 98 percent of their sample population).
 

Not So Cheery...
Chlorpyrifos has turned up in "Cheerios"..., In June 1994, General Mills, the maker of the popular breakfast cereal, disclosed that one of its contractors Y.George Roggy, had sprayed Dursban on imported oats headed for storage. Roggy, a licensed master fumigator who had taught pest control at the University of Minnesota, substituted Dursban for Reldan 4E, an EPA registered pesticide because Dursban was less expensive, even though DowElanco has never registered Dursban for use on food ingredients. Roggy pocketed $85,000 from the deal but was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.

Even though it was illegal for General Mills to be selling oats and oat products with detectable Dursban residue, General Mills sold 110 million boxes of Dursban Laced oat cereal and tried to get federal regulators to allow them to sell 55 million more as animal feed!!. Eventually the company abandoned its efforts, and the additional boxes were destroyed.

In 1995 the EPA discovered that for ten years DowElanco had been hiding from federal regulators no fewer than 302 lawsuits and other claims for money damages alleging Dursban poisoning. The EPA slapped them on the wrist by giving them the fine of $876,000!
 

The Guinea Pigs Pay Taxes
The government recently decided to phase out Dursban. It is about time.  But...Dursban is not the only dangerous chemical found out there. Only one percent of lawn chemicals reaches its intended target the insects the rest is left to contaminate soil, run into nearby streams and ponds float into your lungs or penetrate your skin. Around 300,000 Americans get sick every year as a direct result of pesticide poisoning. Those that were poisoned have extremely high rate of cancer, birth defects, liver and kidney damage. Of the 36 pesticides most commonly used by Americans on their lawns, thirteen can cause cancer, fourteen can result in birth defects, 21 can damage the central nervous system, and fifteen can damage the liver or kidneys. Yet of all of these 24 have never been fully tested by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Another Pesticide Diazinon caused 903 verified human poisonings between 1952 and 1980 alarm bells didn't go off at the EPA until the chemical started killing birds, in particular ducks and geese. (In 1985 in New-York 700 Atlantic brant birds died in one field). Diazinon, a poison developed by Nazi scientists during WWII is the Nations fifth most popular lawn-care chemical (SPECTRACIDE, BUG-B-GONE, GARDEN TOX) Users of the chemical who inhaled it while cutting their lawns suffered permanent damage to their bodies, eye damage, brain seizures, nightmares, viral growth on their vocal cords, constant nausea & dizziness.

Did you know that golf courses are regularly applied with up to seven times as much pesticides per acre as do farms (Report by the NY State's Environmental Protection Bureau) Greens keepers have been found to suffer from higher rates of brain cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, two cancers most commonly associated with long-term pesticide exposure.
 

The American Dream is Ours to Reclaim
There are so many stories that reach me these days about misuse of pesticide that causes irreversible damage to kids mental and physical faculties .It is great to have so many cancer institutes, but why not eliminate the cause to so many cancers - pesticides.
Pesticide Awareness and Alternatives Coalition (PAACoalition)  is dedicated to educating the public regarding the dangers in pesticide use and effective alternatives. We have written articles to the media, we would like to start approaching day cares, schools and other facilities that host our children and educate the care givers regarding the harm pesticide can cause children and provide them with possible alternatives to their pest problems.

The Organic Festival enables us to bring the alternatives to the public, and especially to groups in the public that are not usually are aware as much of the pesticides danger like low income families.;

We are planning to get organic staples from coffee to veggies to soaps and natural pest control. All that together with many non-profit organizations that can provide information in English and Spanish about different aspects of pesticide contamination of our environment will provide many people with their first bit of information regarding pesticides they might be using without a thought.

We would like to have you supporting our effort bringing to existence the first California organic festival. With your help we can change the grim reality of pesticide overuse. Below you can see the different levels of sponsorship we have and what each level provides in marketing and promotion of your business. The more support we get from our sponsors, the bigger this event can turn too.

Please help us make this event the best it can be.
Make Julie's story -The Lemon - Into a delicious Organic Lemonade!!

Thanks,
 Hope you having an organic day!

Drora Katzav
PAAC's Administrator

The First Annual California Organic Festival

Volunteer with First Annual California Organic Festival