home page

Published: Sunday, October 2, 1994 

Section: TRAVEL

Page: 1

The ongoing, complicated controversy over "disinsecting" aircraft cabins with toxic pesticides in certain countries has gotten even more convoluted.

Some passengers - including a California woman who filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against one airline - have claimed that the spraying has had devastating effects on their health. But several dozen governments - mostly in the tropics - still require all incoming planes to be sprayed while passengers are still aboard to prevent alien insects from entering their countries.

With only one country - Chile - having so far capitulated to pressure from the United States to end such requirements, U.S. airlines are suddenly faced with a new dilemma-the effective loss of the only product now registered for that purpose by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Meanwhile, a loophole in the federal law governing pesticide use is enabling at least one major U.S. airline to circumvent EPA rules on flights to Australia and New Zealand by switching to a "residual" method of application not officially permitted.

The practice of spraying aircraft cabins with passengers and crew inside and ventilation systems turned off, reported in the Tribune's June 5 Travel section, has come under sharp criticism by members of Congress and intense scrutiny by federal agencies.

In addition to asking those governments to reconsider their "disinsection" policies, Transportation Secretary Federico Pena also has proposed a rule that would require airline and travel agents to warn ticket buyers about the procedure. Meanwhile, the EPA had requested additional testing for the one product now permitted to be sprayed aboard U.S. planes with people present.

The spray in question is labeled as "hazardous to humans" and carried warnings that it shouldn't be inhaled or come into contact with skin or eyes. Exposure to it is reported to have caused adverse reactions in some individuals, particularly those suffering from allergies, respiratory problems and sensitivity to chemicals. However, rather than submitting the product, Airosol Aircraft Insecticide, to the expense of a new round of testing, the pesticide's manufacturer, Airosol Company Inc., of Neodesha, Kan., has agreed to voluntarily change its label to prohibit its use on board occupied aircraft once the current stock of 50,000 cans is depleted-probably within the next three months, according to company president Carl Stratemeier.

Whether a reformulated airline "disinsection" product now being tested can get regulatory clearance for use around people-and get it before the existing supply runs out-remains to be seen. In the meantime, the development leaves open the question of what U.S. airlines will do if they find themselves unable to legally apply the only pesticide they currently have permission to use to satisfy the landing requirements of more than two dozen countries with no registered substitute available.

United Airlines, however, reportedly has taken steps to end its reliance on the controversial practice of spraying while passengers and crew are on board. United spokesman Joe Hopkins has confirmed that the airline is halting the procedure this month on all flights to New Zealand and Australia, and substituting the application of an Australian product containing a 2 percent solution of permethrin to its planes every eight weeks by personnel of Qantas, the Australian airline.

Residues of the permethrin would then linger in the cabins during the intervening periods for the purpose of killing insects.

In addition to the fact that the spray involved, Perigen-500, is not registered for any use by the EPA, the agency does not allow permethrin itself to be used in passenger compartments at all (and only at maximum concentrations of 0.5 percent in cargo holds). That's because, according to George LaRocca, EPA product manager for permethrin products, it is regarded as a possible human carcinogen and therefore not permitted in a food-preparation area such as an airline cabin.

By having its planes sprayed in Australia, however-in a manner similar to the way Qantas and Air New Zealand disinsect their fleets-United has apparently found a way to avoid having to comply with the EPA's restrictions on the use of permethrin and prohibition on products not registered in the U.S. The residual spraying, Hopkins noted in a written response to a list of questions, will be done "on the authority of, and with permission from, the Australia and New Zealand governments."

"Unfortunately, it's a FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act) loophole that we have absolutely no control over," said EPA Registration Division Director Steve Johnson, in responding to the United plan-one the airline also would like to consider for aircraft entering other countries if approvals from their governments can be obtained, according to Hopkins.

What if residues of the chemical were to be found in the galleys? "It would be sort of a tricky situation, and I don't know from an enforcement standpoint whether we would have any leg to stand on to do anything," Johnson said.

To what degree passengers and flight attendants may be exposed to the residues remains an unanswered question as well, since no EPA studies of the sort that would have been required had the product been registered in the United States have been done-and no information has been forthcoming from Australia.

When queried, a Qantas agent answering the airline's toll-free number said he had been told at a seminar that the pesticide would have "completely dissipated before passengers come in contact with it." But that answer would seem to contradict the very concept of a "residual" treatment aimed at killing insects over a period of time, he acknowledged.

Such a claim "makes no sense," said Becky Riley, spokeswoman for the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, who cited an army study "showing that even after 10 launderings, almost half of the permethrin remains in treated fabric. If a washing machine can't get rid of the insecticide, doing nothing certainly won't dissipate it," she said.

Nor are the group's concerns about the health effects of permethrin limited to its possible carconogenicity. NCAP Executive Director Norma Grier, for instance, says the chemical has been shown by animal studies to cause damage to the liver and lungs, and that exposure to it also can result in tremors, salivation, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of coordination, and irritability to sound and touch.

Hopkins admitted that "carcinogenic risks (of permethrin) were considered," but said procedures had been developed "to protect persons during the application of the pesticides to minimize health risks." He also noted that "the EPA approves the use of permethrin as an insecticide" (without mentioning the restrictions on its use in aviation) and said that the World Health Organization had called permethrin the safest chemical available for this.

The United spokesman said the switch to residual disinsection was being made "because it is less expensive than alternate treatments and eliminates the requirements for aerosol sprays, which customers dislike."

According to Johnson, however, there are indications that this latest development has begun to alarm the airline industry.

"I got a call from American Airlines, very concerned . . . that Airosol has gone by the wayside" and wanting to know, in the absence of another registered product for use around people, "what they are going to do about those direct flights to Mexico aircraft and other countries. And I said, `Well, I guess they'll become indirect flights." '

Canceling U.S. landing rights, however, isn't the only course of action to which a country that requires disinsection may resort, he said. There is also "the potential for a passenger to be exposed to even more problematic chemicals besides this pesticide"-one of "several things that were of concern" to the EPA upon hearing of the Airosol company's decision, given the agency's inability to control non-U.S. activities.

Stratemeier's belief, however, is that the "new" disinsection spray developed by his company in conjunction with Sumitomo Corp.-one containing the same active ingredient, d-phenothrin, now found in Airosol Aircraft Insecticide (also marketed as Black Knight Roach Killer), but a different propellant formulation designed to comply with a phase-out of ozone-depleting chemicals-will soon be made available for use in occupied aircraft cabins. All it needs is EPA approval of its test results.

The product in question, Johnson said, could possibly be cleared for take-off by the beginning of 1995. "They are relying on existing chronic toxicity data that we've already reviewed. What Sumitomo (which is sponsoring the testing) has to do is provide us with some new acute toxicity information" involving six new studies, he said.

However, should "just one of those studies turn out to be problematic," he added, "then it's all over."

In addition to Australia and New Zealand, countries identified in a recent DOT survey as requiring the spraying included American Samoa, Argentina, Antigua, Barbados, Belize, Cape Verde (a frequent stop on flights to South Africa), the Congo, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Panama, Seychelles, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Yemen.

The Air Transport Association also has listed Guam, Saipan, St. Maarten, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Venezuela and Bolivia. Those listings have not been verified, however, and St. Maarten has since denied it has such a requirement.