Unpublished response sent July 3, 1998 to:

Mr. Howell Raines
Editorial Page Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
Fax: 212-556-3815

      It should be obvious to most New York Timesreaders that Michael Fumento's attempt to get the Environmental Protection Agency to refocus the spotlight away from chemicals and on "dried cockroach excrement" as the cause of asthma in children is tainted with the distorted lens of pro-industry bias (Pesticides Are Not the Main Problem, Op/Ed, June 30). Not only that, he is wrong.
      Fumento uses fragments of facts to make anti-environmentalist arguments, presumably to support his next paid speaking engagement before the Chemical Manufacturer's Association. A detailed medical database search for information on the causes of asthma produced several hundred studies which document the connection between asthma symptoms and polluted air--mainly high tropospheric ozone and particulate pollution.
      To quote one study from the Archives of Environmental Health, "Associations of respiratory admissions (to hospitals) with (high ozone levels) were large, significant, homogeneous, and immediate."
      A tiny portion of these studies, many of which deal with allergies in context with asthma--since they are related by the respiratory system and trouble breathing properly--mention something called the "cockroach allergen." Apparently, a few scientists study the possibility that the reason people in urban areas suffer more allergies and asthma is somehow, wildly, due to the density of the cockroach population. This is like saying more people commit suicide in Northern Europe because the grass is not green for part of the year.
      Many more studies focus on dust mites, but I suppose such a microscopic bug is not provocative enough to get Fumento the adequate attention level for another column fomenting the fallacy that ingesting chemicals is actually good for you. A house full of pesticides is better than a house with crumbs in the kitchen.
      Even though the prospect defies all common sense, let's just say for the sake of argument that cockroach feces does have something to do with asthma in city kids. Does it occur to anyone else to ask: Could it be the chemical load the bugs carry around and dump?
      Fumento's main point is that we should spray more chemicals and "declare war on cockroaches" rather than continue cleaning up the air. Yet even if there is the smallest shred of truth in his position, this would be a hopelessly flawed argument. Even though the chemical industry hates to admit it, the cockroach seems to become immune to every new chemical compound the industry scientists devise to kill it.
      The cockroach has been around about 300 million years. The evolutionary odds are that it will inhabit this planet long after the human species kills itself off. Logical conclusion: You will never get rid of asthma in children by eliminating the roaches, because you will never get rid of the roaches.
      I know from personal experience that the only thing guaranteed to rid a building of cockroaches is boric acid, which kills by dehydration. Nor does the chemical industry or the pest controllers want us to know this, because boric acid is plentiful, relatively cheap, and easy for anyone to apply.
      Just ask the people of Mexico, for example, what they use to kill cockroaches. They know how to kill roaches cheaply without having to pay the bug man.
      Roaches eat the white powder, ideally mixed with something tasty like common corn meal. In their attempt to get fluids, they eat the carcasses of each other, until the entire breeding nest wipes itself out.
      I'm not sure if they eat each other's feces, although why wouldn't they if they eat each other? Perhaps this is the answer to curing our society of asthma, not to mention the cockroach allergen problem.
      Although I think not.
      After researching the issue and writing about it myself (see "Breathing Easier, Metropulse, March 20, 1997), it seems to me the EPA has its spotlight focused properly--the new ambient air quality standards passed last summer address particulates and ozone levels. Now if we could get the power generators away from coal (or at least injecting ammonia into the coal-fired boilers), and pass municipal regulations in cities to get the old pickups off the road, we could all breath easier.
      Yet I suspect the politics of bombing roaches with pesticides plays better in Metropolis than putting the bug killers out of work, especially if you make your own living trying to dim the spotlight of truth about environmental science.

(Glynn Wilson is a veteran reporter, free-lance writer, and a doctoral candidate in Science Communication at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He holds an MA and a BA in Communication from the University of Alabama).

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