The American Spectator

p>The NOAAH letters specifically noted APHA presentations that “focus on the ‘wisdom’ of avoiding pesticides by eating only organically-grown fruits and vegetables and encouraging pesticide-free methods to control cockroach allergens [a.k.a., bug poop] from contributing to children’s asthma attacks.” br> br> “The APHA appears to be trying to scare people into eating organically-raised foods. But we know these aren’t accessible to all, particularly those in the inner city,” Marchman said. “They also cost more. To suggest you’re harming your family by not buying these is wrong-headed. Conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables are abundant, safe and economical.” /p>

Organic food is meant for Birkenstock-wearing, loft-living yuppies with a need to show the world they can afford to pay extra for produce that’s often inferior. It’s not for low-income families who already lack the vitamins and other nutrients that they require and that fresh produce provides, even as they over-consume calories. “The ‘buy organic’ approach is sure to contribute to the fast-growing and real concern of obesity, especially in our children,” says Marchman.

As to cockroaches, although environmentalists keep trying to blame air pollution for rising childhood asthma rates, air pollution levels have been dropping for decades.

Moreover, black children have as much as six times the rate of asthma deaths as white ones. Why would air pollution discriminate on the basis of race?

A 1997 landmark study in the New England Journal of Medicine should have settled the issue. It found that over a third of inner-city children were allergic to roach droppings. Yet over half of their bedrooms “had high levels of cockroach allergen in dust.” And guess what? You don’t kill cockroaches with kindness; it takes chemicals.

“Because we do a lot of work with public housing agencies we know that pests, and particularly cockroaches, are a huge issue” says Marchman. “We know a healthy balance of house-cleaning and pesticides can help rid these communities of pests.”

With its chemical-bashing obsession, the American Public Health Association has made itself a pest. Certainly it is an association, but at the convention it did little to live up to its name. For its speaker it got a D-cup; for concern over American public health it gets an F.