Sprayed (2017) - full transcript

Hello?

Yeah, hi. Michael. Hi. Is this Craig?

- Yes it is. How are you? - I'm good, Craig. How are you today?

Pretty good. What's happening?

Well it's just that they're spraying again so I am just trying to shut it down

and we're going to the federal courts to try to do that.

In August 2016, neurotoxic chemicals banned in Europe were first sprayed

over Miami residents to kill Zika mosquitoes.

As you're aware many people were upset including myself

and have addressed the city of Miami Beach previously

regarding the spraying of Naled onto our community.

People seem to be more concerned about the spraying,

about the cure, people would say, for the Zika.

I'm growing herbs that I'm thinking are organic,

and they just sprayed Naled all over them.

These are mango trees, this is an avocado tree.

I don't want, I don't use pesticides on these trees

and now they've been treated with pesticides for 11 weeks.

It scares the hell out of a mother to think she could get Zika

and cause harm to her fetus.

Zika is a concern because we want women

to be able to have children

without the fear of birth defects.

Visiting hospitals and seeing babies being born,

and in a large amount with a very strange phenotype,

that means disproportional to face

and very experienced doctors now,

neurologists, pediatricians, radiologists saying

we've never seen something like this.

In 2015, over 2000 babies with microcephaly were born

in Brazil over a short period mostly in the dry Northeast region.

This state of Pernambuco was the most hit.

Elsewhere, it is called Zika virus.

Here, was it also Zika virus?

Perhaps this (virus) has suffered

some kind of mutation.

The percentages of cases in Brazil

that were confirmed to have Zika

was only about 12 to 15 percent.

We can't nail down one or a few factors that were,

you know, the culprit, in this story.

If you're in the position that you're desperate to do,

you just grab the pesticides and you just spray it.

In 1965 I delivered the first deformed babies.

And I was very shocked.

At that time I could not sleep, I could not eat, I could not work.

I thought about the reasons why we have so many suffering

and I realized that

Oh, maybe the increase of birth defects

may be linked to the spraying mission.

During the Vietnam war (1962-1973), the US Air Force

sprayed a cocktail of neurotoxic chemicals (codename: Agent Orange)

to defoliate trees and destroy enemy food production.

My father went to war in the southern Vietnam battlefield in 1972.

He saw airplanes that sprayed Agent Orange into the Southern battlefield

and he has been infected with Agent Orange ever since.

He has...

my father has epilepsy now

and

now I am having a sequel in my body.

I was a soldier. I saw planes spraying. Leaves falling.

I did not know it was Agent Orange

and I continued my daily life.

We are in Brazil in the Northeast region

Pernambuco, more precisely in the city of Belo Jardim.

In the interior, 185 km (115 miles) from the capital.

Here, like other cities in this state

we had a Zika virus scare.

There was a boom

of 6 or 7 months, when many women

gave birth to many babies with microcephaly.

And now, this number dropped drastically.

The Zika virus started it spread over Brazil in Pernambuco

somewhere in Pernambuco.

The first cases were detected here.

How it arrived here nobody knows.

There are a few studies. There is one study from a Brazilian group

that when we infect the laboratory animals

that are susceptible to Zika virus.

If we infect those animals,

you can get the puppies with several congenital malformations.

They infect Zika into lab mice.

Now, there's an important wrinkle in this story.

And that is that these are immuno-deficient lab mice.

This is an indicator that Zika has the potential to kill brain cells.

Doesn't say it's doing it, but it shows that it can.

If you have a fetus that has some abnormality

and you find a virus in the liquids in the mothers

it may be connected, but there is still a lot of difference to prove it.

In the case of pesticides or chemicals, the chemicals were there already

so we have chemicals being released in the environment for several years.

So the question is, why do we start to document microcephaly

only a year ago?

And we start to see microcephaly cases

when we start to see the Zika virus infecting people

so we have correlation on that.

I realize that correlation doesn't necessarily represent causation

but if you've got correlation numbers so close to perfect

it requires us to take a second look

and that would bring chemicals under scrutiny.

It never crossed my mind that because of this mosquito

she would be born with a tiny head

that she would be born with microcephaly.

All I had at the beginning of my pregnancy

was a mild virus.

Nothing that required hospitalization or staying in bed.

A simple rash and a slight fever

that lasted one night

and was resolved at home.

There were two things that happened about nine months

before the microcephaly epidemic began.

One of them was the start of the Zika epidemic

and the other was the use of pyriproxyfen in drinking water.

Microcephaly appears to be a general developmental disruption

that can be the result of many different kinds of problems

during the fetal development.

There is nowhere else in the world that uses pyriproxyfen

in drinking water as it is being used in Brazil.

Pyriproxyfen has similar chemical activity in human beings

to retinoic acid, which is basically vitamin A.

It turns out that vitamin A

if given at the time of (fetal) development, actually causes microcephaly.

Science is always about disagreement.

Science is always about dialogue,

and scientists have to be prepared to discuss their data

how they came to their reasoning and be in a dialogue with the public.

The town experienced the Zika scare

at the same time as the drought.

It hasn't rained in this municipality for 6 years.

With climate change, we get warmer seasons,

more rainfall, more humidity

and of course mosquitoes love that.

Very clearly, the Florida Department of Health and

believe this community want to do something to protect the community against Zika.

How safe is it to bring kids, to bring life into this world,

when there's this kind of straight out poisoning happening,

and we're not even told to take any precautions.

There was an issue with spraying without telling people in advance.

It killed the bees, that was wrong. You cannot do that.

You have to tell people in advance so they can protect

whatever needs to be protected.

They started spraying August 7th.

Video by Miami resident

They did 10 square miles.

They would start at 6 a.m.

and they wouldn't be done until around 11 o'clock in the morning.

They were spraying 100 feet over us,

so you could literally feel the Naled go on you like a little light rain.

- You could also see it in water. - And you could taste it in your mouth.

Video by Miami resident

You would get this headache for like 4 to 5 hours

of pounding headache you could not get rid of.

No aspirin in the world was going to get rid of this headache, ok.

We were bombed 2 to 3 times a day.

We only walked at night.

We dared not walk during daytime.

During the day, with just one bike riding by

they would start bombing.

When the planes started spraying

I could see a thick layer of dust, smoke everywhere.

We thought it was a smokescreen.

My son is disabled.

He too is an Agent Orange victim (second generation).

I've been on the beach, living here since I was really young,

since probably 1978

so I watched the whole beach unfold, stage by stage.

I was very involved in its entertainment and nightlife creation

so back in the early 90s

I opened, I don't know, about 100 or so of its nightclubs over the years.

So in doing that, we got a huge following I guess,

got to know everybody in the town

and became friends with everybody in the town.

We had all kinds of cases here.

A valet parker who was parking cars at 6 in the morning.

He literally got sprayed and within 30 minutes

his whole, entire body was all rashes.

We posted the picture, the picture went viral,

got shared like 10,000 times on our Facebook, somethings like that.

and it was hard to actually prove that that's what happened

because that neurotoxin, believe it or not

only stays in your bloodstream for about 6 hours.

Like so for instance, if there was an Aedes aegypti out right now,

chances are it's going to be hiding underneath my chair

and so if you fly over with an airplane

right now and you spray everywhere

it's sheltered, it's protected and you don't even hit it.

We started telling everybody in the press

if you get sprayed and you have rashes

to contact us and stuff.

I would get a phone call, you know

"Hey Michael, please don't use my name because

I don't want to get into a big political stir here

but we did everything we were supposed to when they sprayed.

We stayed indoors 6 a.m. until noon,

and at noon we finally turned on our air conditioning

we went outside, we let our kids play in the back yard

and they jumped in the pool.

Within 20 minutes both of our children were puking in the backyard.

We had to take them to the emergency room.

The long term consequences, we have no idea

what they're going to be.

And it's going to be very hard to link it

in 15 years if that little girl who threw up has cancer

who's going to prove it? How are we going to prove it?

We know that other agents like Agent White,

Blue, Pink, Purple, Green, etc.

they may cause many birth defects.

If you were exposed to toxic chemicals many decades,

50 years ago, it has long-term consequences

because they cause changes of DNA.

Many scientists, they accept the proof.

Only the scientists from the governments,

from the courts, from the companies

they deny it.

In my opinion they should be looking at

the specific chemicals

that they are using in the area.

As someone who has worked in public health,

when you have a problem in an area,

the first thing you do is you outline

the potential causal agents for something.

You go out and list them.

Chemical pesticides, yes. We hear

diverse stories about the problems using these insecticides

cause for the environment, and for the people living there.

And we cannot deny that these effects

are adverse for us as humans, for human health

and a pregnant woman, for example, is even more vulnerable.

It's very hard to decide what to do.

But because of that, we have several regulatory agencies

like the World Health Organization, the Pan-American Health Organization.

In the US, you have the CDC (Center for Disease Control).

The effects, these side effects of rashes and things like that.

That there was just no way they could be correlated

with the Naled spraying.

It's like from above

they don't want to hear it.

The CDC says Naled is safe, it's safe.

After the peace was re-established, the troops came back to town.

Some who survived the war got married and had children.

Some of them could not have children because they were sterile.

Many of those who were still fertile, gave birth to deformed and malformed babies.

Their children, who are the second generation

(Agent Orange victims)

cannot be detoxed because their genes have already been modified.

Therefore, we just take care of the deformed children

giving them rehabilitation sessions. We do not apply detox programs on them.

We use the detox program only for the (1st generation) victims

who were infected directly.

The second generation cannot use the detox program.

And I compared the rate of birth defects

among the mothers exposed to toxic chemicals

and I compared with the non-exposed mothers.

It's many times, at least 4 times

higher among the exposed

than among the non-exposed mothers.

We are all genetically the same, right?

So why would women and children in Colombia be immune

while here they were not immune (and got microcephaly)?

That is the doubt.

We can't tell if the data is complete,

but surely there is ample reason to be concerned

that there is another cause of microcephaly

aside from Zika infection.

Being with these moms

despite all the difficulties and limitations

that they experience day to day

we see the birth of some superior power

Things we cannot seem to explain.

Resilience is something very present

in all these mothers.

I think that, in my opinion

I think it could have been some test, you understand?

Some laboratory test.

Something that came from that.

The Department of Health does a (mosquito) control here.

They give us some product to dump into our water tanks

to combat a mosquito, you understand?

As the clock is running out

on the Zika CDC emergency travel ban for Miami Beach,

we may be going down a path that, quite frankly

might be considered science fiction.

Just a few years ago this technology didn't exist. Now it does.

Creating a sterile male used to be done through radiation

and now we're going to the extent of incorporating a gene,

namely OX513, which is from coral

into the DNA of the mosquito.

Now before we move into a Jurassic Park event,

and release this GE (genetically engineered) mosquito

into our community,

I think it behests us to understand that we need

to be very cautious and very concerned

of what could potentially occur.

We're not just randomly radiating a bunch of mosquitoes

and then hoping they are sterile.

We are making a defined genetic change in these mosquitoes

that we can follow, we can study, we can make sure is safe

and we're releasing those males to knock down the populations.

You don't know what's going to happen down the road.

They're saying only a small percentage,

when they release all male mosquitoes

there's a small percentage of female mosquitoes that go out with it.

So there is that unknown little factor.

What kind of resistance?

Are they now going to be susceptible to?

What mosquito borne disease are they going to carry?

Are we solving one problem and creating another problem?

This mosquito was developed some years ago

and it has a genetic modification that produces no progeny

after the mosquito, male mosquitoes are released

so they find the females, they copulate with the females

but the progeny dies.

The first experiments with genetically modified mosquitoes

were done in Joazeiro de Bahia, which is not Pernambuco.

The neighboring state.

And then it was again experimented in another city, in Bahia,

but far away from Pernambuco, in Jacobina.

And those experiments gave us the data to assess bio-safety.

And that was done, and the mosquitoes were finally released

for commercial purposes in 2014.

I became pregnant

at the very end of 2014

In December 2014.

That was exactly the period when there was a release

of GMO mosquitoes.

The objective of this mosquito

was to control a Dengue epidemic

as there was a huge Dengue outbreak.

And it was after this release (of genetically modified mosquitoes)

that microcephaly cases appeared.

Once someone sells a new mosquito breed,

a genetically (modified) mosquito breed

the companies assure that it will be useful

and that it will not bring harm to the environment

or to the people.

There is a liquid

transparent like water

that they extracted from the medulla through the spine of the babies.

It is a very painful exam.

Everything that was done

their experiments and examinations

we know was base material for research

and they never gave us the results

whether it was Zika or not.

I think the moment has come for the world to see

this problem in its entirety.

We are talking about lives.

As rational human beings

we need to think integrally

about multiple factors

and not reduce microcephaly

to just a mosquito.

Every day she has a new accomplishment

within her own limitations.

Every leg movement is something grandiose.

Sometimes when I bring her to physical therapy sessions

and she is treated with care and love

her brother sees what they do

and he says, Giovanna I will be your physiotherapist at home.

We have a group of moms

that we always get together

disconnected from everything, sharing

our experiences of each other.

I can tell you that thinking about the human cost

of the fact that responsibility was not taken for this

is very difficult to think about and to understand

why people would not take such responsibility.

How does one company get all the different allocations

for the entire thing.

Can you imagine what that government contract was?

Each plane US$100,000

US$100,000, US$100,000

US$100,000, spraying

I'd like to know the bill.

Don't think the naled is just being sprayed in Florida

It's all across the United States.

- Central America. South America. - North Carolina. Georgia.

It's being sprayed everywhere

And instead of using common sense,

listening to scientists and seeing the patterns

and saying there are better options as far as agriculture

there are better options

and instead of using Vietnam and what happened there

as a lesson and learning from it

there is a lot of money involved and so they turn a blind eye.

We know that chemicals cause mutagenesis.

It's what we should be looking at.

But we're not.

We're not looking to the chemical industry

or to any of these materials

Instead, we're looking at viruses.

I think we're chasing ghosts.

They always deny the relationship

between the exposure to toxic chemicals and birth defects.

Why? They cannot accept the link between the two things.

Why?

Because they don't want the world over,

to consider them as war criminals.

Nothing has been scientifically proved.

They continue leaving us with anguish and doubt.

That's what is going on.

All the lab results are given to us.

All of her lab results were given to us.

All, except Zika.

My heart tells me this was not from a mosquito.

I think the only explanation for not giving us the lab results

is that the State is preventing

future indemnization.

This lawsuit, we still have not been able to confirm yet,

if we are winning the case or not.

For example, here in Thai Binh, my hometown, my comrades -

some of them have given birth to the third generation

even more deformed than the second generation.

And for the fathers who were soldiers during the war

the deformity level in the daughters is

more severe than in the sons.

What's terrifying to me is when we spoke to lawyers

about the harms of these chemicals

and how low they were sprayed and the duration they were sprayed for

and how we all came in contact with this Naled

there is no way for us in 10 years,

if we get cancer from these sprays, like leukemia

or we get Parkinson's which is related to these chemicals, by the way

there's no way to sue our city for that.

There's no way.

Regulatory capture is a well-known and understood issue

with corporate control over the regulatory agencies

that are responsible for regulating the corporate activities

in the public interest.

Because of regulatory capture, regulatory agencies

do not reflect the public interest

in the way that they should be according to their mandate

as government or in general, government organizations.

As decision makers in this case

I as a physician, and a resident, and a taxpayer

and a voter

wish that you first do no harm to our community

and I believe you focus the resources

on the best and safe proven mosquito practices

and control techniques available to us

and anyone violating the trust of the public

by suggesting or deciding to do otherwise

will be held accountable with great vengeance.

If they really cared about pregnant women

I don't know, take a poll, ask people

ask women if that is what they really want.

And I think that if we would have allowed them

to continue doing what they were doing

without being the opposing voice to it

they would have continued over and over

to Miami and North Miami, to Bal Harbour,

to Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale,

and they would have just destroyed the entire coast

all the way to the north to Maine

I think they would have kept doing this.

The county held a budget meeting for Zika so I asked them,

okay, how much money are you allocating to the diseases

or the sicknesses, the illnesses you might have just created by

spraying us with Naled.

Shut my mike off. Next please.

I would like to respond to this.

I believe that we have to explore every solution.

Just like you're saying we don't know about the science.

We don't know about the mosquitoes. We want to have every possible

tool in our toolbox.

Yesterdays the Keys voted on it and I would suggest we do the same here,

and I think it won 58%

of the people in the Keys wanted to explore the GMO mosquito.

- Wait! Let me finish. - I'm just...

I'll listen.

And nobody's saying that they want Jurassic Frankenskeeters

and all of this scary stuff

but I don't see any problem with an exploration

but further your speech would be great at the county

because they are the people that are in charge of

mosquito control.

In Brazil, the mothers interviewed still

cannot get written proof they had Zika.

In Vietnam, after 50 years the victims are still

unable to convince the courts that birth defects

are linked to the chemicals sprayed on them.

Only the by-product dioxin is being tested.

In Florida, spraying of neurotoxin Naled continued post-Zika,

this time against harmless marsh mosquitoes.

Dr. Hall filed for an emergency injunction in Federal Court

to stop the Miami spraying. The first hearing was held on July 12, 2017.

The World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control

did not accept our interview requests.

Describe the first mosquito that bit you.