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THE NALED ASSAULT ON PUERTO RICO Sarah Ratliff*: What is your understanding about Naled? Its health effects, both short and long term and its effectiveness at killing the zika-causing mosquitoes. Lastly, what effects are you aware of on the environment and ecosystem? Sadhu Govardhan: My understanding of Naled is based on independent research that I conducted when I found out that it was secretely being sprayed in Puerto Ricon in order to "control the Zika virus". Here a brief summary and the general conclusion about the Zika virus by global independent research, as well as government funded research: The Zika Virus Disease (ZVD) is spread by one specific mosquito species (Aedes aegypti ). The virus can cause fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis for up to 7 days. 80% of all infected people have absolutely no symptoms. The 20% of people who are infected (primarily because of a weakened immune system) show the symptoms described above, and nothing more. Once a person has been infected by this virus, he or she is likely to be immune to it in the future. Conclusion: this virus should be classified as fairly harmless. Here a brief summary of what Naled is and the conclusions about this insecticide by global independent research, as well as government funded research: First, Naled (also known as Dibrom, Bromex, Fly Killer-D, Lucanal, RE 4355) is manufactured by the AmVac Chemical Corporation and distributed since 1993. It took about a decade before it was restricted and/or banned in many countries around the world. The main reason for this is that like all organophosphates, it is highly toxic to the nervous system. In lab tests, it has been found that Naled increases aggressiveness and leads to deterioration of memory and learning. Naled also interfers with prenatal brain development. According to the International Center of Research on Carcinogens, it causes cancer (leukemia, pancreatic cancer). The worst application of Naled is aerial (as it was done in Puerto Rico) because it's toxicity increases up to 20-fold this way and it can drift up to 1/2 mile. Naled has been found to be highly toxic for fish, birds and beneficial insects, especially bees; it has lead to convulsion, paralysis and death. Unlike most other inseciticdes, Naled even interfers with the photosynthesis of plants and therefore causes damage in our flora. Breathing in Naled has been found the most dangerous form of ingestion. The toxocity of Naled can persists up to several days. Even worse than Naled is its breakdown product, dichlorvos, which is linked to microcephaly and which causes havoc in the environment, and especially watersheds. In short, the toxic, acute and chronic, long-term effects of Naled on humans and nature are horrendous. What adds insult to injury is that research conducted by the New York Deparment of Health showed that Naled spraying only achieved short-term reductions in mosquito population, but that these populations increased 15-fold over the 11 years of spraying that had been conducted.
If you want to know more about these topics, I would recommend Dr. Bergman's presentation ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhB4_etq6_w). If you want to know more about Naled, I would recommend: http://nospray.org/?s=naled and http://pesticideinfo.org/Summary_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC33362 Sarah Ratliff: Are you aware whether the farms in your area have been sprayed with Naled? Sadhu Govardhan: No. But what I do know is that according to the EPA website, 14 still undisclosed sites in Puerto Rico have been secretely fumigated during February and March of 2016. As soon as activists found out about this fact from EPA's website, EPA changed all entries related to Puerto Rico. EPA also decided to discontinue to test Puerto Rico's water, starting in July of this year. In other words, EPA vehemently supports the corporate industry, regardless how toxic their products are. EPA's love affair with toxic chemical producers is, however, finally catching up with them and also tarnishing their reputation.*
Sarah Ratliff: In your opinion, what is the purpose behind spraying the whole island with Naled? Sadhu Govardhan: This question is simple to answer: Profits! Enormous profits. Here is the usual way wide spread panic about a new dangerous virus is started: the pharmaceutical / biotech industry make sure that the rumor of a new, extremely dangerous virus or disease exists, and if not controlled, it could kill millions. Next, the corporate media echoes their lie. This is done on a regular basis, so that the consequent income from vaccinations keeps coming. In the last years, we have heard about the Swine Flu, the Bird Flu, Ebola, Measles, etc. They all have one thing in common: they are in the news overnight, the panic spread by the media causes millions to buy a worthless and often dangerous vaccine, and a few weeks later, you don't hear a word about them anymore. At the end of the day, the pharmaceutical industry has made tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. What makes matters worse is that there is increasing evidence that new viruses are not only made up scares, many of them are a form of bioterrorism carried out by the biotech industry. Corporations like Monsanto live and thrive by producing toxic chemicals that are globally used. They have absolutely no moral compass and they are ready to harm or kill any amount of people, no matter who they are. The original idea and recommendation to spray Puerto Rico with Naled (the exact dosage is still undisclosed), an evironmentally devastating insecticide that is restricted and/or banned in most of the EU, Canada, Japan and several African countries, came from politicians with vested interests and of course AmVac. Puerto Rico is a haven for pharmaceutical and biotech corporations who can work here without any oversight. They generally don't pay a cent of taxes here, but in order to modify various laws, they do bribe our local politicians and feed them with false propaganda. As a result, the Zika virus scare and spraying of Naled was promoted by our government in general, and particularly by our State Epidemiologist, Johnny Rullan, Secreatary of Health, Ana Rius, Secretary of Agriculture, Myrna Comas and Head of the Department of Natural Resources, Carmen Guerrero. Frankly, they should all be forced to resign for the crime of harming the people, flora and fauna of this island. It is a tragic fact that we have a history - or more accurately - a historical tradition, of experiments being conducted on Puerto Ricans for the past 100+ years. For anyone who wants to have a deeper understanding of the history of this island, I would strongly recommend to study Denis Nelson's bestselling book "War Against All Puerto Ricans". It's an excellent summary of what has been done to this country over the past century. Sarah Ratliff: How do the people of Puerto Rico react to the spraying of the island? Sadhu Govardhan: As with so much that goes on here, the masses are well kept in the dark and the corporate media will make sure that they misunderstand the issue as much as possible. The self-educated and free thinking part of society, however, have reacted very strongly to this crime. Seeing how much reaction this latest government crime has caused, there is at least a silver lining of hope here: this issue has united many activists, government watchdogs and environmental groups. It has served as a reminder that toxic experiments are still conducted on a regular basis on the people of this island, and that it is imperative for the people of Puerto Rico to monitor their government, as well as the corporations that are poisoning our land, closely. So far, we had some demonstrations around the island, as well as some positive newspaper coverage. We heard excellent statements and testimonies by many professionals and activists.Some include Victor Ramos, M.D., president of the Physicians and Surgeons Association; Fernando Cabanillas, M.D., who is also a professor at the University of Texas; an oncologist or Angela Meyer, a locally known actress and TV producer. Also particularly noteworthy for me is Silvia Gomez, a courageous environmental journalist with Telemundo. More people, however, are needed to stand up and help to expose our government for its assault on the island. Sarah Ratliff: What science was used to back the decision to spray the island? Has this been done in other countries? Sadhu Govardhan: Absolutely no science was used to back the illegal decision to spray the island. It has been done behind the backs of our people, and we only know this since the beginning of July (2016). Naled has been sprayed in the U.S. and the resulting horrific effects have been documented especially in California, Oregon, Louisiana, Idaho and Florida. To my knowledge, it is by now highly restricted or outright banned in the U.S., Canada, Vietnam, Australia, as well as parts of Europe. Our politicians just blindly accepted one-sided, deceitful Naled propaganda material and made sure to please their friends, allies and donors of the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Sarah Ratliff: Do you know of any Zika research findings in other parts of the world? Why is Zika considered to be so dangerous by most people? Sadhu Govardhan: Yes. Studies have been conducted since 1952, especially in Africa, Asia, South and Central America. The main reason why Zika is considered to be dangerous is a simple lie that has been spread: that it is linked to microcephaly (small head and incomplete brain development). This is a genetic anomaly that is primarily caused by malnutrition and chemical toxins (such as Naled) in the womb. (http://www.healthynaturalcures.org/doctors-name-monsantos-larvicide-cause-brazilian-microcephaly-outbreak/ ) In other words, the culprit in this case is not a mosquito but primarily toxic agrochemicals and malnutrition. There is no evidence whatsoever, that the Zika virus has ever caused a single case of mycrocephaly. Despite decades of studies that never linked Zika to microcephaly, the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to declare that it is. It is an unfortunate fact that the WHO systematically spreads propaganda that leads to worldwide fears - and untold numbers of completely unnecessary vaccinations - which ultimately just means more profit for big Pharma. This begs the question of who is funding and controlling the WHO. Officially, the WHO claims to be mostly funded by governments, but there are countless examples that show a vested interest by the WHO to support the pharmaceutical industry. Just a few months ago, President Obama announced that $1.8 billion should be spent on a vaccine to prevent microcephaly. Neither our governments nor so-called independent organizations like the WHO have even the slightest interest in studying the cause and effect of the Zika virus: their only interest is to give more money to the pharmaceutical industry to produce new vaccines. This is essentially a case of one hand washing another: the pharmaceutical and biotech industry fund political campaigns and to return the favor, money is then later on funneled back to them. One of the largest Zika infections in history was in Argentina: about 75 percent of the population were infected with the virus, but according to the Argentine's Physicians Organization, "not a single case was directly linked to birth defects". Another interesting fact: Colombia (where the Zika virus is similarly common) has not reported any microcephaly cases yet.(Here one of the most updated studies:
http://necsi.edu/research/social/pandemics/statusreport).
In other words, the microcephaly - Zika virus link is not just a myth: at this point it can be called a straight out lie because there is not a single confirmed case, with tens of thousands of Zika-infecteced cases researched.
What is known, however, is that microcephaly is linked to the pesticide pyriproxyfen, which is cross-reactive with retinoic acid, which causes mircrocephaly, and that it is being used in drinking water in Brazil. Sarah Ratliff: What alternatives are there for combating the Zika virus? Sadhu Govardhan: Again, Naled does not combat the Zika virus. Since mosquitoes can and do transmit other, actually serious viruses, the issue is partially one of mosquito control. And yes, there are indeed very effective natural and safe means of mosquito control. One of them is a completely safe mosquito egg pheromone trap: the mosquitoes are trapped by the pheromone and drown in water. This has been used widely around tropical regions and found to be quite effective. The most natural control, however, are natural predators like bats and birds (primarily swallows): bats can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes per hour, and swallows can eat their own body weight of mosquitoes per day. Unfortunately, both bats and birds are decimated by the use of agrochemicals and insecticides like Naled. We just had a survey done by ornithologists from Missouri at the Guanica State Forest this year, and they concluded that we have a 66 percent decline of warblers over the past 20 years in Puerto Rico. We also lost a very high percentage of grass birds, like some of the munias, for example, because of the intensive use of pesticides and herbicides produced by the biotech industry (needless to say that Monsanto always plays a leading role) and promoted by our Department of Agriculture. In other words, we are systematically decimating bat and bird populations and then we act surprised if mosquitoes become a plague. The real issue here is not Zika or the mosquitoes but the recklessness of humans who contribute to the destruction of our environment. Sarah Ratliff: Sadhu Govardhan: Sarah Ratliff: Zika has been an issue for many years. Why has it started to spread suddenly? Sadhu Govardhan:
People have to understand that this is a continuous strategy: every year there will be a new scare, a new threat and people will be asked or at one point even be forced, to buy a new vaccine or spray a new chemical. If there's no convenient virus around to use, its extremely easy for the biotech industry to create one. After all, who can or will stop them? The corporate media that lives off of them? The politicians who get well-paid by them? I think it's time for people to understand that we live in society that is controlled by a few at the expense of the vast majority of people and the planet in general. All we have to fight back, is knowledge and numbers. Corporations can literally match every $1 we spend fighting them, with easily $10,000. So, monetarily we have only 1/10,000 a chance to fight them (and a judicial system that may or may not be just). But if the vast majority of us stands up and exposes the atrocities committed by thieves and murderers in the garb of leaders in society, we have a very good chance to turn the wheel around and save the planet as well as ourselves and future generations. * Sarah Ratliff is the author of "Being Biracial: Where Our Secret Worlds Collide". She is a professional writer and acclaimed editor, as well as a concerned activist who lives in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
UPDATE 07/16: Since this interview was just a casual question and answer session, all links were added afterwards. I authorized the interviewer, Sarah Ratliff, to add links at her discretion.
For some reason, the interview went viral, and was read by tens of thousands of people within just the first few days of being published online. I hope that the people of Puerto Rico will organize themselves in order to fight what is about to come. Copyright by Sarah Ratliff and Sadhu Govardhan, July 2016.
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