Matthew
Matelko (and others): Asthma, Stomach Aches and Bleeding Scalp
When
school administrators installed automatic insecticide dispensers in
classrooms, restrooms, and the cafeteria at Jurupa Hills Elementary School
their intent was to control the flies that were a chronic problem due to the
school’s location just across the street from a chicken ranch. When these
same administrators hired a pest control firm to do additional spraying on a
monthly basis for other “pests” such as crickets, silverfish, ants,
earwigs, spiders and roaches, undoubtedly they believed they were helping
create a better learning environment for the children in their care, and it
surely never crossed their minds that the “solution” they were providing
might cause more harm than the “pests.” But that is just what did happen.
Parents
began to notice strange symptoms in their young children after they began
attending the school. Five-year-old Matthew Matelko suffered rashes and
blisters on parts of his body that came into contact with classroom surfaces.
Matthew also developed a smoker-like cough, diarrhea, stomach pains, and
shortness of breath. One fifth-grader experienced fatigue and unbearable
stomach pains, and was eventually hospitalized. She missed months of school
due to her illnesses. Another kindergartner began to suffer bleeding blisters
on his head and hair loss when he started attending the school. Other children
also experienced asthma-like symptoms. The day after a dispenser was installed
in one classroom, the teacher returned to find that silkworms that she had
been rearing for a class project had all died.
Pyrethrins,
the active ingredient of the pesticide used in the automatic dispensers, can
be readily absorbed via inhalation. Symptoms of overexposure include contact
dermatitis, allergic respiratory reactions such as rhinitis (inflammation of
mucous membranes in the nose) and asthma, and some irritant or sensitizing
reactions. According to information from the manufacturer, symptoms of
exposure to the specific product used in the dispensers include headaches,
nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and dermatitis.
The
families’ doctors were initially baffled by the children’s strange
symptoms. Matthew’s mother was the first to suspect that pesticide exposure
at the school might be the cause of her child’s ill health. She contacted
the county Department of Agriculture to request pesticide application records
from the neighboring chicken farm, and then learned that the school itself was
applying pesticides. Her request for records triggered an investigation of the
school’s pesticide use practices by the Department of Agriculture.
Investigators did find some violations of pesticide laws (some of the
pesticide dispensers in the school’s cafeteria were located too close to
food handling surfaces). But no air or surface swab samples were taken in
classrooms or anywhere else.
Following
the initial contact by the Department of Agriculture, the school principal
ordered that the automatic pesticide dispensers be turned off. However, school
officials continued to assure parents that pesticides were not the cause of
their children’s health problems. “Experts” consulted by the school
district, relying on strictly theoretical calculations, wrote letters stating
that any exposures the children would have received from the pesticide mists
that were automatically dispensed over their heads every fifteen minutes would
be far lower than a dose that could conceivably cause harm. The parents of one
child were told that his bleeding scalp was likely caused by the family’s
shampoo.
Skeptical parents were not
convinced. Several families initiated lawsuits against the school and/or the
pest control company that serviced the pesticide dispensers. One case is still
pending. [Update: Jury
found in favor of Stanley Pest Control ]
[Matelko,
Janine. Pers. comm. ; Friedman, Michael. Pers. comm. Hixson, Lorena. Pers.
comm. 12/99-1/00; 1995. Pesticide Episode Investigation Report. San Bernardino
County Department of Agriculture, 3/28; 1998. Lethal consequences. Inland
Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario), 2/10; 1999. EPA Recognition and
Management of Pesticide Poisonings; 1990. MSDS, Purge III Insect Killer,
Water-bury Companies, Inc. (8/1)].
Matt's Sister:
Chrissy
Garavito
Loss
of Consciousness and a Sudden Death Due to Cardiac Arrhythmia
When
a middle school in Fontana, California hired a pest control firm to apply
insecticides in an effort to control flies and other insect pests at the
school, surely school administrators did not believe that they could be
putting children at risk of serious harm or death. When eighth-grader Chrissy
Garavito started visiting the school nurse multiple times a week after
experiencing headaches, nausea, and dizziness in class, the nurse was
concerned enough to phone her mother, but no one suspected pesticides might be
the cause of the girl’s health problems. Even after Chrissy experienced
multiple frightening episodes at the school where she inexplicably stopped
breathing, lost conscious-ness, and had to be rushed to the emergency room,
school officials and medical experts did not connect pesticide exposure with
her condition. Doctors diagnosed her at different times as having epilepsy,
hypoglycemia, and finally, “psychosomatic” illness.
Finally,
just a month after completing her first year in high school, Chrissy suddenly
stopped breathing and collapsed into a coma while playing baseball at a local
park. She was rushed to a hospital, but this time she was not so
lucky--doctors were unable to revive her and she never regained consciousness.
She died six days later, after being taken off life support.
Electrocardiogram
(EKG) tests taken during the week she was on life support showed that Chrissy
was experiencing an unusual and very serious disturbance in her heart rhythm.
It was also during this week that Chrissy’s mother, Janine, first learned
that an EKG taken after one of her daughter’s earlier episodes at the middle
school had also shown the same abnormal heart rhythm. These EKG results now
led doctors to speculate that Chrissy might have had a previously undiagnosed
genetic ‘syndrome’ known to put certain people at heightened risk for the
heart rhythm disturbance.
Things
might have been left at that, except that Chrissy’s mother was not content
with these vague answers. Wanting to find an explanation for why her athletic
young daughter would suddenly collapse and die, she ordered extensive genetic
testing on her daughter’s body tissues. The results failed to identify any
known genetic factors that might have predisposed the girl to the heart rhythm
abnormality.
Continuing
her search of the medical literature and consulting with experts, Janine
learned that the heart rhythm disturbance that killed her daughter can also be
triggered by exposure to some specific classes of chemicals, and that these
chemicals include certain medications, as well as certain nerve-poisoning
insecticides.
Doctors
ruled out exposure to medications as a cause of Chrissy’s problem. Janine
then requested the pesticide application records from her daughter’s middle
school and from other local agencies, and learned that the herbicide Roundup,
and several nerve-poisoning insecticides, including diazinon, chlorpyrifos,
cyfluthrin, and cypermethrin were used regularly at the school during the time
that the girl had experienced seizures and other illness symptoms.
Insecticides were also regularly sprayed in the community by the County Vector
Control agency, and various herbicides and other pesticides were used
regularly in the park, including on the baseball field where the girl died.
Several
major classes of insecticides, including organophosphates and synthetic
pyrethroids, kill insects by disrupting their nervous systems. While these
chemicals do not all act by exactly the same mechanism, they all disrupt
electrical signals in a way that has the potential to cause heart rhythm
abnormalities. Perhaps more surprisingly, exposure to some commonly-used
herbicides, including those used in the park, can also cause rapid heartbeat,
heart palpitations, disruption of electrical signals in the nervous system, or
other adverse neurological (nerve-poisoning) effects in humans.
Though initially sceptical,
a cardiologist (and director of electrophysiology) at Loma Linda Medical
Center con-sulted by the family now believes that exposure to nerve-poisoning
pesticides is the only likely explanation for what could have triggered the
heart arrhythmia episodes that eventually killed Chrissy Garavito. The school
district has signed a legal settlement with the family, and a lawsuit is still
pending against the city and county [Matelko,
Janine. Pers. comm. 12/99, 1/00; Platt, Dr. Mark (Loma Linda Medical Center).
Pers. comm. 12/99, 1/00; 1996 and 1997. Pesticide use records from Southridge
Middle School and Fontana’s Village Park. San Bernardino Department of
Agriculture; 1998. Pesticides. Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario),
2/9].
Original:
http://www.pesticide.org/factsheets.html#articles