West Nile virus hits the Valley (LA, Riverside, San Bernardino)

LOS ANGELES - Mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus have been discovered in Glendale and the San Fernando Valley and five people in San Bernardino County have contracted the disease, prompting health officials Friday to warn of a potentially critical health threat.

Mosquitoes trapped in early June in Granada Hills, North Hills and Glendale were determined late Thursday to be carrying the potentially deadly virus.

Officials with the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District expressed concern at the discovery so early in the mosquito season -- a fear borne out Friday afternoon when state officials reported that five people had contracted the disease.

"The potential for a significant number of people to be affected is there. We know it's here in bigger numbers and it's spreading, and it's a concern," said Robert Miller, spokesman for the California Department of Health Services. "How big it gets, we don't know. How far it spreads, we can't tell either."

In Los Angeles County, West Nile previously had been detected only in birds, which serve as hosts for mosquitoes. The infected insects transmit the disease to humans in mosquito bites, which is the only way people can catch the virus.

West Nile has no cure, and most people infected with the virus show no symptoms. However, elderly residents and those with lowered immune systems can experience severe flulike symptoms, including fever and body aches. And while a vaccine does exist for horses, there is no vaccine for humans.

West Nile has been a health threat for several years, and Vector Control officials hired 10 additional employees in 2002 and allocated $500,000 for fiscal 2003-2004 to help head off problems in the San Fernando Valley.

"We've seen it go across the West and we've been preparing ever since that point. We knew it would come here eventually and now it's here," said Vector Control spokeswoman Stephanie Miladin.

"There's been positive birds all over Southern California, but once it's in the mosquito population, it increases the risk of people acquiring the West Nile virus. Now it could be a critical public health threat."

Vector Control specialists plan to increase inspections and sprayings at the Los Angeles River, Tillman Plant, Sepulveda Basin, Hansen Dam and other public water sources including channels, creeks, ponds and underground storm drains to prevent the spread of the virus.

Just in the past month, the district's Valley office inspected 12,000 water sources.

I've got one too, and it works, but it just can't keep up. There's a 3 acre pond out back that's now evaporated into a swamp. I'm down there throwing those "mosquito soaks" in there on a regular basis, and if it weren't for the ducks I'd pour 5 gallons of diesel in there...

Thus far, Oregon has been spared West Nile. But if it gets here, the eco-fags have spent the last 5 or 10 years UN-draining swamps and (using public funds, of course) getting farmers to break up their drainfields to... you guessed it - "Reclaim Wetlands".

Now, I wonder what's going to happen when people's children start dying of - not just West Nile, but malaria (which we do have up here), and possibly one of the other wonderful multicultural sharing-and-caring Third World bughole diseases that are getting loose here in the Left's "Global Village"? Having created all these ecologically and politically correct swamps, ya think the eco-fags are gonna go for spraying malathion all over them, huh? Ya think??

My county is the People's Republic of Santa Cruz. There have been many years that they have NOT done ANY mosquito abatement, and the mosquitos have gotten worse and worse. This year I heard they started abatement, last week in fact.

Too bad about that pond. Have you tried putting any of those mosquito fish in there? I think they're called black mollies. Little tiny guys. They eat the larvae. In California you get them from the fish and game department. A few nurseries carry them, too. Usually give them away for free.

But I'm pleased to hear that your mosquite machine is helping. They're very pricey, but the price is finally starting to come down, at least a little.

Look into those fish.

Now, this reply is a little late, but you're going to love it.

I have already looked into the "mosquito fish". They're called Gambusia. The local county Gummints, to their credit, actually either give them away or sell them.

However... to their even more astounding *discredit*, in typical Gummint fashion, they demand reams of paperwork, environmental impact statements signed by 18 tweetybirds, 10 snakes, 4 skunks, and a left-wing environmentalist fruitcake tweezerbeak (working our way down the evolutionary ladder, here...) - and you're not allowed to release them in any Body Of Water (all bow) which "Drains" into a "Waterway".

Apparently, something wearing Birkenstocks and 14 earrings, which just graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in "Wildlife Eco-faggery" has deicided that the Mosquito Fish are a <<< SHUDDER... >>> ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT!!!! if they get loose in the waterways. In fact, they're more of an environmental threat than the mosquitos or the West Nile virus!!!! So... "Release" of the Dreaded Mosquito Fish (more Dreaded, MAY I remind you, than the West Nile virus or its commie pinko running-dog Fellow Traveler the Mosquito) is restricted to water tanks, farm ponds, and Grandma's artificial pond.

Furtherless, anyone raising Mosquito Fish commercially has to obtain a special "Permit To Transfer Mosquito Fish" from der Gummint, for *each* delivery of dreaded Mosquito Fish to EACH suspected terrorist contemplating releasing said dreaded Mosquito Fish, specifying and stipulating and swearing on a stack of grandmothers that the Body Of Water into which the (dreaded) Mosquito Fish is to be released, has No Outlet, and does not Drain Into Any Body Of Water Attended By Nose-Ringed College Graduates Working For The Grossly Over-Funded Department Of Goverment Oversight Of Everything That Wiggles.

No, I am not kidding. I may be embellishing somewhat for dramatic effect, but those are The Facts Ma'am.

Now... just to put the (idiotic as usual) Gummint Reggilations in perspective::::::::

(1) The Mosquito Fish are just eentsy-weentsy little MINNOWS, but nevertheless the Gummint finds them to be such a threat that entire websites are devoted to pictures of Student Volunteers kneeling next to Bodies Of Water Containing Mosquito Fish, and Looking Very Concerned About The Environment,
(2) Up until the 60s, when hippies and dope destroyed all further possibility of rational thought in America, the Gummint *used* to just come around and dump Mosquito Fish in every pond it could find, all over the State, which resulted in
(2) the fact that the Mosquito Fish are _A_L_R_E_A_D_Y_ common in nearly every waterway in the State, *especially* those which the State is desperately mobilizing squads of nose-ringed college stoonts to monitor in case somebody... ah... er.... ah, dumps... *some more*... Mosquito Fish?

(Now... Are you sorry you asked, or must I *continue*...)

(MY farm pond has a (dreaded) Outlet.) (Achtung, scheweinhunden! You vill not dumpenzie das Mosquitofishen in das Ponden mit dein Outenleten - or ve vill haff you SCHOTT!!! SIEG HEIL!!!)

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