Wanted to follow up on the WNV epidemic from a few weeks ago. It turns out that it is going to be very difficult to determine whether or not the abrupt spraying of pesticide over our homes even worked! According to a sacbee.com article, “it may be impossible ever to draw firm scientific conclusions on how much the pesticide treatments helped to stem the West Nile virus.” Apparently, this has a lot to do with budget restraints on the vector control agency.

I don’t want to go off on a rant here, but aren’t budgets the sort of thing you work out in advance? Like, maybe a year or so? Perhaps when we were told last year that this virus was out there and potentially could hit us hard if we didn’t wear long sleeved shirts, spray on the DEET, and stay inside during peak skeeter hours, the powers that be could have also been preparing themselves fiscally. Realizing that this could get to a point where mass spraying of potentially cancer causing chemicals would be required.

I don’t know, just seems a little Bush league (pun intended) to drop this stuff on us with no real, shall we say, exit strategy? (hey, we’re kicking it up a notch here at the rag so work with me!)