The Attorney General's Office (PGR) questions in the Federal Supreme Court the constitutionality of aerial spraying against Aedes aegypti in urban areas. Law 13,301/2016 was sanctioned by President Michel Temer last June, but the PGR accuses the release of serving the “interest of agricultural aviation companies”.
The Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI 5,592) proposed by Attorney General Rodrigo Janot maintains that the law “subverts the constitutional model and changes the legal regime for protecting the environment and health, with the potential for causing immediate damage to ecosystems and intoxication of people".
To request the suspension of the measure, the PGR is based on opinions from institutions such as Fiocruz, the National Health Council and the Department of Environmental Health and Occupational Health Surveillance, of the Ministry of Health. These technical recommendations are all contrary to spraying aerial in urban areas against the mosquito vector of diseases such as dengue, zika and chikungunya.
Among the arguments, these institutions point to problems such as drift and the need for higher doses of insecticide in aerial applications compared to terrestrial treatments. Informative Note 128/2016 from the Department of Communicable Disease Surveillance goes so far as to state that aerial dispersal “is a strategy that currently has no proven effectiveness”.
In conclusion, Janot maintains that “the dispersion of chemical products by aircraft is an activity of interest to agricultural aviation companies, which, through the National Union of Agricultural Aviation Companies (Sindag), pressure the Ministry of Health in this regard”.
The president of Sindag, Júlio Augusto Kämpf, guarantees that “there is no risk to health or the environment”, and complains that the matter is treated “prejudicedly”. “This technology is used in several countries around the world, such as Cuba and the USA, and is recognized by the WHO. The recommended products are phytosanitary products for use in urban areas”, he points out.
“Agricultural aviation is providing another tool for the country, which is experiencing an epidemic of this vector. This does not invalidate the other methods. More technology is simply added to help us get out of this situation”, concludes Kämpf.
Source: Agrolink
