Fear of EEE has Grafton joining Central Mass Mosquito Control Project

Bowing to the threat of EEE, Grafton Town Meeting voted, 102-34, to join the Central Mass Mosquito Control Project at a cost of $71,000 a year for the next three years.

While the Finance Committee opposed the measure, Board of Health member Debbie Chouinard said it will be money well spent.

“How much is a person’s life worth?” she asked.

A Grafton man is among the 12 confirmed cases of Eastern Equine Encephalitis in Massachusetts this year. Three people in the state have died from the disease, which has a 30-50 percent mortality rate. Most survivors will have severe, permanent neurological damage.

The risk of EEE has resulted in two aerial sprayings of Grafton and surrounding towns. Friday night games under the lights on Grafton High School’s field have been moved to daylight hours and other evening activities have been postponed or cancelled.

Cal Grady of Natick knows the danger of EEE quite well. In the summer of 2005, he remembers having a massive headache. 

“And that’s about all I remember of the summer of 2005,” he told Town Meeting.

Grady, then 6, was diagnosed with EEE and spent more than a month in Boston’s Children’s Hospital. He lost his speech, ability to walk, and other functions. He spent another month in rehab, learning to walk and talk again, but he still started first grade in need of speech therapy and on an IEP.

“It was all tied back to a mosquito bite,” said Grady, now 20. “I was lucky. I was 6. Adults may not recover as fast.”

But Grafton resident Elizabeth Spinney expressed fears about pesticides. Her son, 11, is a cancer survivor and she believes pesticide exposure will increase his risk of relapse.

“I try to keep this town a safe place for him to live,” she said, noting that she sprays her own lawn with peppermint and cedar oil.

Janet Rivard, who grew up in Hampton, NH, said the town, surrounded by marshes, has been spraying for mosquitos for 30 years. Most of the work involves applying larvicide to prevent them from becoming adult mosquitos and other preventative methods.

“To me, it’s crazy not to do this, to just turn away the expertise of the Central Mass Mosquito Control Project,” she said.

Dr. Sam Telford of the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine is an internationally known expert on insect-borne disease. He said EEE is so dangerous, the government has it on a list of potential terrorist tools.

“This year was unprecedented for EEE in Massachusetts,” he said. “And make no mistake — it will be around this year, and the year after that.”