Heinlein and Mosquitoes

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to levy an assessment for services rendered, the question always arises as to the value of the services, the morality of assessing for them, and who should be allowed to participate in the decision.

"'Value' has no meaning other than in relation to living beings. The value of a thing is always relative to a particular person, is completely personal, and different in quantity for each living human -- 'market value' is a fiction, merely a rough guess at the average of personal values, all of which must be quantitatively different or trade would be impossible."

"This very personal relationship, 'value', has two factors for a human being : first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him...and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy of which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted...and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.

Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain."

"I fancy that the poet who wrote that song meant to imply that the best things in life must be purchased other than with money -- which is true -- just as the literal meaning of his words is false. The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion...and the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself - ultimate cost for perfect value."
Jean V. Dubois, Lt. Col. (ret), Mobile Infantry, in Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein.

Heinlein argued that moral values were not inherent in human nature, but that they were developed by exercising the ability to protect those who were defenseless. It is because people have equated the will of the majority with the "rightness" of an action that we have people who argue that the franchise should be open to all, without any qualification. There is some resistance to the idea that only those who pay for the improvement have the right to determine that the improvement be made.

In the instance of the formation of a Sanitary District (and particularly, a Sanitary District Organized Wholly for Reduction of Populations of Biting Arthropods, i.e. a Mosquito Abatement District) according to Ohio Revised Code 6115, the district may be established by petition under the conditions (6115.05) that it be signed by at least 500 freeholders of the proposed district and "The petition shall set forth the proposed name of said district, the necessity for the proposed work and that it will be conducive to the public health, safety, comfort, convenience, or welfare, and a general description of the purpose of the contemplated improvement, and of the territory to be included in the proposed district." It is the function of the Board of Appraisers to determine the value of the service provided. It must be further recognized that any appraisal performed by the Board of Appraisers, if they fall under the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, is defined as an "opinion of value".

Such an "opinion of value" may not necessarily take the form of a monetary quantity (since no "market value" can reasonably be determined); the statute states (6115.29) "The board of appraisers shall appraise the lands or other property within and without the district to be acquired for rights of way, reservoirs, and other works of the district, and shall appraise all benefits and damages accruing to all lands within or without the district by reason of the execution of the official plan." In the case of a Mosquito Abatement District, the benefits to the freeholders of the district include not only the reduced potential for disease transmission, but also the increased ability to enjoy the property without the nuisance factor which attends the presence of biting mosquitoes. Such a value fits the criteria, "completely personal, and different in quantity for each living human"; there is, moreover, no way to accurately measure a market reaction to such value.

The benefits to the freeholders with respect to the reduction of potential disease transmission must be related to the value which they place on human life and the quality of that life. It is a given within our system that a freeholder is responsible for nuisances and dangers associated with his freehold, otherwise, he would have no inducement to procure liability iinsurance. It is therefore only necessary to establish that a danger exists to then state that the freeholder must exercise responsibility for that condition.

"Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal -- else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy."
Major Reid, in Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein.

Does a danger exist with regard to mosquitoes in the territory subscribed by the Mosquito Abatement District? The mosquitoes (and common diseases they vector) which are found in Northeastern Ohio include varieties of the species Aedes (LaCrosse, Equine, and St. Louis Encephalitis, Dog Heartworm), Anopheles (Malaria), and Culex (St. Louis Encephalitis, West Nile). There are those, even among local health professionals, who argue that discussion of these diseases with the general public amounts to "fear mongering".

What is the actual incidence of these mosquito-vectored diseases in Ohio? While malaria is not considered to be an important disease in modern-day Ohio, there was a time when it was significant. The City of Lima was named after the place whence it obtained cinchona bark for the production of quinine, a very important commodity in mid-19th Century Ohio. The Ohio Historical Society (Ohio History, v34, pp113-114) quotes a source stating (with regard to malaria along the Ohio Canal) "The victims were numbered by the thousands, many being buried in shallow graves along the canal,...".

In another place, (ibid., v54, pp413-416), the Society reviews Malaria in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1760-1790 by Dr. E. H. Ackerknecht (1945) in which he states that at the end of WW2, there were, annually, still about 5,000 deaths nationwide from malaria, and commenting on the disease's decline, says, "One of the mysteries of medicine is why malaria disappeared. After having been once very prevalent, it disappeared spontaneously long before the introduction of systematic anti-malarial measures. Here in Ohio and in the other northern states the decrease came about quite independently of any conscious effort on the part of the various health agencies."

The Ohio Department of Health reported 30 human cases of malaria in 2005, and 10 cases of dengue hemorrhagic fever. All cases were assumed to have been brought into the state by travellers from overseas. However, historically, malaria is a local disease, and dengue is vectored by the Aedes species. In addition, the CDC is aware that persons who have not travelled overseas can be infected by mosquitoes which have vectored the disease from "recent immigrants, migrant workers, and travelers from malaria-endemic countries". (Mosquito-Transmitted Malaria -- Michigan, 1995)

The OSU Extension Service, in its Factsheet HYG-2058-98, states,

"Mosquitoes may transmit diseases such as dengue, yellow fever, and malaria to humans. Mosquito-borne encephalitis is a viral inflammation of the brain. Encephalitis can infect humans, horses, and a variety of other mammals and birds. Eastern equine encephalomyelitis (EEE), although very rare is frequently fatal. A small rural outbreak in late 1991 resulted in more than 20 farm animal fatalities, most of which were horses. Transmission of the disease occurs when an infected mosquito takes a blood meal. Birds serve as natural hosts for EEE and St. Louis encephalitis (SLE). St. Louis encephalitis, like EEE is an epidemic disease, meaning that it is usually rare. It can be absent from an area for several years and then reoccur suddenly without warning. LaCrosse encephalitis (LAC) is the third type found in Ohio. It is considered endemic to Ohio and occurs year after year at low levels. Ohio has more recorded cases of this disease than my other state. LaCrosse encephalitis is the least severe of the three types of mosquito-borne encephalitis that are found in Ohio, and occurs most often in children. Small woodland mammals, such as chipmunks and squirrels serve as the natural host for the virus, however LAC virus can also be passed, transovarially, from mother mosquito to her offspring.

Mosquitoes can also transmit filariasis (heartworm) to animals. Dog heartworm is the most significant of these, however in some areas, veterinarians are beginning to see more heartworm in cats."

West Nile was unknown (or at least unreported) in this country before 1999. In 2002, Ohio had 31 deaths from WND, and while there were only 3 fatalities from WND in Ohio in 2007, it must be noted that Cuyahoga County had the highest number of cases (6) in that year. While Summit County has not had a reported human case of WND since 2002 (5 cases that year), the surrounding counties have reported cases almost every year.

While the data for the past decade seems to indicate that the danger of human infection by these diseases is very low, the danger exists. Further, there does not seem to be any specific reason why some of these diseases wax and wane over the years. There is no guarantee that something will not happen to trigger outbreaks of epidemic proportions. The only reasonable way to short-circuit the disease cycle is to eliminate the vector. The questions become, "What is the value of one human life?" and "What cost is reasonable to meet that opinion of value?"

In these questions, the Board of Appraisers has a ready answer in the form of the petition submitted to the court. The freeholders have determined that the value exists; a value which cannot possibly be expressed in monetary terms. The statute then directs the Board of Appraisers to base the assessment on the cost of attaining that value, i.e., the budget for the program. With respect to the basis for assessment, the statute is clear (6115.43): "In the case of a district organized wholly for the reduction of populations of biting arthropods, if the board of appraisers determines that each parcel of real property in the district receives a portion of the benefits received by the entire district in the same proportion that its taxable value bears to the taxable value of all the real property in the district, and the court confirms the determination of the board, the assessments for the reduction of such populations shall be uniformly apportioned throughout the district on that basis." Since, by reason of the arguments put forward in the deposition of Dr. Richard Berry (7-27-2005), larviciding and adulticiding are done by the District over all areas in its subdivision, the rate of application is the same regardless the property size, and the goal is to protect public health through prevention and control, the benefits justify uniform assessment.

The MAD was formed by freeholders petitioning the court for establishment of the district. Not all freeholders signed the petition. The statute allows (6115.08) individual freeholders who did not sign to present objections to the district, but limits the objections to a "denial of the statements in the petition".

If, indeed, authority and responsibility go hand in hand, the authority any freeholder exercises over his freehold is equal to the responsibility he bears for conditions on that land. If the necessity for the exercise of authority has been established in the minds of the petitioners, they have the moral responsibility to act, regardless the cost to themselves. Those who are not freeholders have no responsibility or liability for the freehold, and no moral authority to participate in the decisions involving the assessment.