Speaking overall here folks! Not you guys (and, I hope, me!)

I agree heat is an excellent idea for further widespread use.

Still not enough experimentation is being done in the lab. I again advocate the creation of sleep labs, people sleeping in infested rooms to observe and to nail down the exact behaviors of bedbugs. Use macro infrared photography. In vitro testing has limited usefulness.

Other ideas. Why not search for the equivalent of a parasitic wasp that preys on caterpillars, lays their eggs inside and emerges a la ALIEN - one that would use bedbugs as a host? Any research?

I read that guinea hens love to eat ticks. Two guinea hens can keep an entire yard tick-free with no freakin’ pesticides. Centipedes will eat bedbugs. Why can’t we selectively breed centipedes that will be benign to humans and continue to feast on BBs?

I think a good deal of the lab work being done now is underwritten by chemical manufacturers and so there would be no profit in finding a a nonpesticide solution.

End of rant

I’ll see your Heartland Institute and raise you a Pan UK. In this article, this plainly biased organization discusses the types of DDT misuse in Ethiopia. If we keep in mind what the Berenbaum article suggests, that DDT as a precision tool should still be used in malaria control in areas where you can ascertain that the mosquitos are not resistant (otherwise, what’s the point), we have to examine what such a precision tool becomes when it actually falls into the hands of humans. Of particular interest, see the suggestively titled section ‘Leakage’ from vector control operations. In more familiar vernacular, sticky fingers and other wild and crazy goings on.

So, extrapolating, if DDT were ever to be approved as a precision tool to fight bedbugs here where you can ascertain that they don’t have the resistant gene (just speculating, but isn’t that the scenario?), imagine what loveliness would ensue. We have people shipping our current weak-*ss prohibited pesticides out of state now. And using them against the label. DDT would be like, candy. Lemme get some of that! I’ll just spray it all over my room cause I don’t want no blood-sucking vampires. Can I spray it on my mattress? That kind of thing.

I’ll close with, since we mostly know already that dealing with bed bugs is a weird thing—as they are stealthy, somewhat hearty parasites and yet bugs all in one—then the solution is likely to be found in broadening the IPM trend with more options and in even more training of the receiver of the pesticides available right now.
1—standardized fact sheets on the pesticides being used needs to be plainly presented to the customers and adhered to with plain English spoken rationally. That’s all I have—but it is better than doing nothing but arguing and lobbying for things unlikely to occur. I feel I’ve said nothing but I’ve said a lot too.

2–What about more flexible rules on pesticide uses … Bring back this or that method for say five years and then bring in a few other pesticides for five more years. Nothing has to be forever … Even DDT wasn’t forever.

I posted the message below to the yahoo group on 5/18 in response to recent DDT discussions there. It’s equally relevant here, so I am pasting it in.

I was personally very glad to see DDT used in African for malaria, since the numbers of people dying from this disease were tantamount to a massive genocide.

However, this article from the BBC (2001) about that use of malaria in Africa, claims bed bugs in African homes became more active when the homes were sprayed for malaria:

DDT and Africa’s War on Malaria

The article states:
—
DDT is cheap to buy and its effects are long-lasting; a year’s assurance at least against mosquitoes.
But there are drawbacks. As the chemical dries, it leaves a white deposit on the hut walls, and it has been found to make bedbugs more active.
The government entomologist who leads the hit-teams, Keith Hargreaves, says most people accept that as a small price to pay.
“The bedbugs they can tolerate,” he says. “But to watch one’s children die of malaria - that no man can stand.
—

I don’t have a dog in this race, and my mind isn’t made up. Believe me, I’d love to have a silver bullet, but I think we need to be open to research. I do not believe that university researchers would not get behind DDT for bed bugs if they felt it was the safest and best solution. Any university researcher would love to discover the silver bullet that was safe and effective.

I also don’t believe the BBC has anything to gain by making this assertion that DDT has been found to make bed bugs worse, though I grant that perhaps more research is needed–perhaps it’s even been done.

We know bed bugs are insecticide resistant to other pesticides. It seems fully possible they could become so to DDT, as some have claimed they were beginning to do when it was outlawed. (And entomologist Jody G-K has given some detailed insight on the yahoo list about why it’s scientifically likely that bedbugs, known to be resistent to pyrethrins, would also develop resistance to DDT.)

Finally, as Hopelessnomo has suggested on the Bedbugger blog, I suggest we get behind research that is bound to be approved and completed fast, to help stave off this epidemic ASAP. Jody mentioned one example. Thermal treatment is another. We need methods to be perfected, put into wide use, asap. No matter how you feel about DDT, as Hopelessnomo reminded us, it’s a deeply entrenched battle. Why not get behind possible solutions which are more accessible? If DDT were to be introduced again for bed bugs, it would not be before massive amounts of research both into health concerns and efficacy at killing bed bugs. That would take a lot of time to approve. From where I stand, we don’t have that kind of time.

Nobugs