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Note: At the end of this story there is an additional short article detailing a 1987 United Airlines interoffice memo that reveals the company was well aware of the dangers of the pesticide it was using in occupied cabins, even as it continued to reassure passengers the spray was harmless.

U.S. AIRLINES might not want to think about it, but they'll be forced soon to deal with the issue of spraying passenger cabins with insecticide to comply with foreign government regulations.

About two dozen countries require disinsecting of aircraft cabins with passengers and crew inside and ventilation systems turned off to kill insects and rodents that may have tagged along. The practice, though, has been criticized by members of Congress and federal agencies.

Transportation Secretary Federico Pena has requested that foreign governments reconsider such requirements; so far Chile, El Salvador and the Cape Verde Islands have honored that request. Pena also has proposed a rule that would compel airline and travel agents to warn ticket buyers about the procedure.

Pena's action is just a small step, however. Airlines are in the process of losing the only product the Environmental Protection Agency has approved for disinsection.

If the airlines can't use the insecticide, known as Airosol Aircraft Insecticide, they could lose landing rights in the countries at issue or will have to spray passengers with pesticides not sanctioned by the United States after their flights have landed in those countries.

The EPA has drafted a formal request for new toxicity testing of Airosol Aircraft Insecticide, the one product now permitted to be sprayed aboard U.S. planes with people present. Airosol is labeled as "hazardous to humans" and carries warnings that it shouldn't be inhaled or come into contact with skin or eyes. A number of people have reported adverse reactions when exposed to it.

However, rather than submitting the product for EPA testing, the pesticide's manufacturer, Airosol Co. Inc. of Neodesha, Kan., has agreed to voluntarily change its label to prohibit its use on board occupied aircraft when the current stock is depleted, according to company president Carl Stratemeier.

Whether a reformulated airline disinsection product now being tested can get regulatory clearance remains to be seen.

According to EPA registration director Steve Johnson, the airlines are finally paying attention to the pesticide problem.

"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 and other countries. And I said, `Well, I guess they'll become indirect flights.' "

Other destinations, including Jamaica, Costa Rica and Belize, offer airlines another option: periodically spraying with a residual pesticide. Because the latter method is against EPA regulations, though, airlines are divided on using this alternative.

United Airlines, for instance, allows residual spraying on its flights to Australia and New Zealand. United spokesman Joe Hopkins has confirmed that the airline allows an Australian product containing a 2 percent solution of the pesticide permethrin to be applied every eight weeks. Residue of the permethrin is supposed to linger in the cabins and continue to kill bugs during the intervening periods.

The spray used there, Perigen-500, is not registered for any use by the EPA. In addition, the agency does not allow permethrin to be used in passenger compartments at all and only at maximum concentrations of 0.5 percent in cargo holds.

By having its planes sprayed in Australia, however, United has apparently found a way around the EPA restrictions. 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."

The EPA's Johnson noted, "Unfortunately, it's a FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act) loophole that we have absolutely no control over."

United stands alone, though. American Airlines has refused to take Jamaica up on its recent invitation to switch to residual spraying with permethrin.

"They don't understand the fact that we can't use a product that is not approved by the EPA," says Tim Smith of the American Airlines press office. He added that the company wouldn't "feel comfortable" applying such a product to planes outside the United States, even if it could legally do so, because "there's no way of knowing . . . if it's considered safe. It's just unacceptable."

Nor is there any way of knowing to what degree passengers and flight attendants may be exposed to the residues. According to Becky Riley, spokeswoman for the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, an Army study showed "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 contended.

Riley added that the coalition's director, Norma Crier, said the chemical has been shown by animal studies to cause damage to the liver and lungs, and that "exposure to it can also result in a loss of coordination, tremor, salivation, vomiting, diarrhea and irritability to sound and touch."

Hopkins, however, claimed that the World Health Organization (WHO) had called permethrin the safest chemical available.

WHO's support for airline disinsection has been denounced in Congress by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. In a letter to President Bill Clinton in May, the two contended that "WHO's outdated and ineffective aircraft disinsection standards must be revised" in order for the U.S. government to fulfill its responsibility to "protect its citizens both here and abroad."

As for the impending loss of the EPA-registered product, it is Stratemeier's belief that the new disinsection spray developed by his company in conjunction with Sumitomo Corp. will soon be made available for use in occupied aircraft cabins. The replacement spray contains the same active ingredient, d-phenothrin, now found in Airosol Aircraft Insecticide, but a different propellant formulation designed to comply with a phase-out of ozone-depleting chemicals, he said.

"All the new product needs is to have its test results OK'd by the EPA. But should just one of those tests turn out to be problematic," noted Johnson, "then it's all over." In that case, "It's not even up for consideration" as a spray that may be used to disinsect airline cabins with people present.

When asked whether the airline he represents has any sort of plan in the works for dealing with such an eventuality, Smith replied, "Certainly, we're hoping for some kind of guidance, but exactly what form it will take, I just don't know."

Sunday, January 22, 1995 Section: TRAVEL
DANGERS MAY HAVE BEEN HIDDEN
By Linda and Bill Bonvie

HAVE AIRLINES really been on the up and up with passengers in the matter of spraying flights with insecticide?

A 1987 interoffice memo, which recently surfaced, indicates that officials of one airline were told a lot more about the product being used, Airosol Aircraft Insecticide, than were the passengers exposed to the spray.

The memo, originating in the San Francisco office of United Airlines, was distributed to five of its executives in response to a passenger complaint about spraying on a flight to Cancun.

It acknowledges that "there may be individuals with increased susceptibility due to pre-existing conditions such as allergies, medications, age, etc., that will not be protected by the exposure levels recommended." And while discounting any chronic health effects, it goes on to relate how "the d-phenothrin concentrations present may result in any one or a combination of acute symptoms."

It then quotes from an EPA manual that lists sudden bronchospasm, swelling of oral and laryngeal mucous membranes, and shock as being among the reactions that "have been reported after pyrethrum inhalation."

Yet four years later, the airline was instructing its flight attendants to "reassure passengers that the spray contains no chemicals that are harmful to humans." United maintained this position in its 1994 inflight manual disinsection announcement, adding only that "you may prefer to cover food and beverages while we spray."

Capt. Ed Soliday, United's director of corporate safety, said, "We stand by our announcement that the chemicals are not harmful to our passengers."

United is also describing the residual spray it now uses to disinsect flights to Australia and New Zealand as "considered safe to humans," even though its use in aircraft cabins is prohibited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.