Evidence Must Be Kept Secret!  

    In absence of any scientific evidence whatsoever as to the efficacy of adulticide spraying, vector control and public health officials have made claims around the state (on the radio, before city councils, to concerned citizens, etc.) that their "study" of the 2005 spraying of Sacramento proves that spraying works, and they say this is all explained in a paper they are submitting for publication.  

    After a number of past discussions with them about the details of their "study," our entomologist had critiqued it for us.  The information he was able to obtain suggests that this "study" is a scientific embarrassment, perhaps as CYA action on their part after impertinent citizens began to ask them for evidence that spraying adulticides "works" (slows the transmission of West Nile virus to humans).

    On July 27, 2007, in a meeting with Sacramento City Councilmember Rob Fong, Vicki Kramer, Chief of the Vector-Borne Disease Section of the California Department of Public Health, produced a paper she claimed contained the evidence gleaned from the 2005 Sacramento spraying.  She offered it as proof that adulticiding works and indicated that they were getting ready to submit it to a peer-reviewed journal.  She noted to us that they had repaired certain problems in what they had previously released.  She did not provide us with a copy of the paper.

    On August 1, 2007, we made an email request of Vicki Kramer for a copy of the paper.  We never received the courtesy of any reply whatsoever to this note.  On August 8, 2007, we thus filed a Public Records Act request for copies of any risk/benefit analyses on which they had relied and for a copy of the paper in order finally to get a complete look at what they considered evidence.  In an email response on August 20, their attorney supplied several items in response to our queries about risk/benefit analyses (a copy of the 2007 California plan, a copy of a 2006 paper about ground spray we have already critiqued, a copy of a 2005 paper primarily about ground spray in several southern states, and a copy of a 2004 paper about ground spray in New York City) but denied our request for a copy of their paper about the 2005 spraying of Sacramento "on the ground that the public interest in withholding this draft from public scrutiny prior to its publication outweighs the public's interest in disclosure of the draft."  Let's see now, it is in the public interest that we be kept in the dark about the evidence that proves it is good for us to be sprayed with poison?  What a bizarre concept.  We think it is clear to anybody who has been watching what these efforts are desperately trying to protect.

    The paper about the spray in the southern states did include a test of aerial application, but it was of malathion (Naled), which is not used here.  Once again, we must note that ground spray is a completely different method than aerial spray, which means that vector control and public health officials had no appropriate risk assessments before they sprayed these urban areas aerially. 

    On August 31, we explained that if they had wanted to keep their "evidence" secret they could perhaps have chosen to do so, but that once they chose to advertise it as justification of their spray campaign the law does not provide for selective disclosure.  In a second email response, on September 4, they produced some numbers and one chart they said was in the paper, but this at best continues to be selective disclosure.

    In a subsequent email note of September 11, Senior Staff Counsel Barrow indicated that he was reviewing our assertions and authorities.  We responded on September 12 that the law leaves them no discretion in the matter and that we would hold off until the following week to file a Petition for Writ of Mandate, in anticipation of receiving the paper in the meantime.  We also made an additional Public Records Act request of any and all documents that were used in the preparation of or are cited in the report/paper.  Barrow responded on September 18 that the California Department of Public Health was still reviewing our request. 

    We then asked by what date they would make their decision, Barrow responded only that the matter was under active review, and on September 25 we indicated that if the requested documents were not provided by noon on September 28, we "will file a Petition for Writ of Mandate requesting the Court to direct the Department to turn over the requested documents and to award petitioners their attorney's fees and costs."  It is very important to get a detailed look at what they consider sufficient evidence to justify spraying people in urban areas indiscriminately with poison.  These last three emails are posted here, in reverse order.

    What are they hiding?  Why would they keep evidence secret?  Of course solid scientific evidence would not be kept secret, and certainly none of us would want our names associated with anything like this.  There are too many design and execution problems with this "CYA study" to repair it after the fact. 

    At 10:20 on the morning of September 28, they faxed us a copy of a draft of a paper entitled "Efficacy of aerial mosquito adulticiding in reducing human cases of West Nile virus in Sacramento County, 2005."  However, their attorney also faxed us a letter that claimed that "CDPH has no such documents responsive to the request set forth in your PRA request, dated September 12, 2007."  This is a most remarkable statement, as it would seem to imply that the draft paper was either written in the absence of any data or all data and other materials were destroyed after the draft was written.  Why would CDPH not want people to see the data upon which the paper is based?  A quick note back indicated that "DPH's refusal to acknowledge the existence of the requested documents is the most egregious violation of the Public Records Act that I have ever encountered," and stated that "As it appears that DPH will only comply with its obligations under the threat of litigation, if the requested documents are not made available by 12:00 noon on October 8, 2007, my clients will be left with no choice but to file a Petition for Writ of Mandate in Sacramento Superior Court."

    At 2:00 in the afternoon of October 10, we received a fax from Senior Staff Counsel Barrow that, lo and behold, 175 pages of documents relevant to our request of September 12 had indeed turned up after all.  He indicated that our request had previously seemed to be more limited in focus.  Apparently our September 28 threat of litigation served to clarify the focus for Senior Staff Counsel Barrow.  He also indicated that some other relevant documents may be in the hands of Ryan Carney, "who is not a CDPH employee."  However, Carney is listed on the draft report as an Associate Public Health Biologist for the California Department of Health Services, Vector-Borne Disease Section.  Maybe he is like Dick Cheney -- works for both CDPH and SYMVCD but is employed by neither.  We will attempt to get these documents also.

    We plan to critique the draft, as serious design, implementation, and analysis problems that were apparent long ago still remain, but a full critique is not possible without full information, including the distribution of case reports with case id; onset date and region for the 152 cases detailed in the main table; the mosquito mortality data from SYMVCD, including "sentinel" caged mosquitoes and the weekly population samples for mosquito abundance and infection rates in the mosquitoes; the bird infection rates from sentinel chickens; field population samples; and detailed maps of the indicated zones.