Attorney General To City Officials: Stop Claiming Malathion Is Safe

City officials including Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Health Commissioner Neal L. Cohen have repeatedly violated federal and state regulations by offering public assurances that the pesticide malathion is safe, The Queens Courier has learned from the New York State Attorney Generals office.
Judith Enck, a spokesperson for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer confirmed officials of her agency have notified the citys corporation counsel to "cease and desist" this practice.
Peter Lehner, chief of the Attorney Generals environmental protection bureau, notified the citys corporation counsel, Michael Hess, that safety claims about pesticides are in violation of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Law.
"We are absolutely concerned that the Mayor and the Health Commissioner are continuing to assert malathion is safe," Enck told The Queens Courier.
The comment that officials are in violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and the New York State Environmental Conservation Law came after a flood of inquiries to government agencies in the wake of repeated safety assurances by the officials.
Enck said no action was planned against the officials.
Earlier in a letter from Lehner to Dr. Kathleen Gaffney, Commissioner of the Nassau County Health Department, the agency called upon the health commissioner to stop calling the pesticide safe and "comply with both the letter and spirit of the law in future public statements."
Enck pointed out that well over 100 companies have agreed to cease and desist from making deceptive health and safety claims and some have paid substantial penalties for their violations.
"These prohibitions accurately reflect the inability of science to provide any assurance that pesticides are free of risk of harm and that the statements of public officials exceed the limits of the law," Lehner told the Nassau official in a letter.
While not admitting any violation, Cynthia Brown, a spokesperson for the Nassau County Health Commissioner, said that agencies and personnel of the Department had been instructed to "comply with applicable laws on environmental matters."
The latest comments branding malathion safe followed an announcement last week that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is probing a possible cancer link. City officials have not yet decided to spray malathion next spring if there is another outbreak of last summers encephalitis epidemic.
The Attorney Generals office put Nassau County officials on notice that the assurance of safety offered in your public notice exceeds the limits of the law."
The state agency pointed to statements made by Giuliani that "this is a very safe chemical with a good track record." It referred The Courier to a New York Times article on last summers spraying program as an example.
In answer to a Queens Courier question last week about malathions safety in light of the EPA investigation of possible cancer links, Dan Andrews, spokesperson for Borough President Claire Shulman, said she was sure the product was safe.
There has been a surge of complaints about public officials statements giving malathion a clean bill of health despite ongoing studies of the pesticide. Community residents shouted their misgivings over the product at two recent public meetings, one in Forest Hills, and a second in Douglaston.
Victor L. Robles, Chair of the City Council Health Committee, last week notified Congressman Charles B. Rangel, senior member of the New York Congressional Delegation, to look into the status of investigations of malathion being conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the EPA.