Here at the Insect World we've done a number of posts about bedbugs, though granted not as many as we could given just what a menace they have become in the U.S. in the last few years.
As the NY Times reports, a new study by the Centers for Disease Control shows that over the past few years 111 people have become very sick from using pesticides in hopes of getting rid of the critters, including, sadly, even one death but mis-use of them:
"The poisonings serve as a warning, experts said, that people could do more damage to their health by misusing pesticides than they would suffer from the bedbugs, which are upsetting and unpleasant, but not known to be carriers of disease.
“People lose their minds and, yeah, they’ll do a lot of things trying to get rid of them,” said Dini M. Miller, associate professor of urban pest management at Virginia Tech. “Certainly the over application of pesticides is one of them.”
The stories recounted in the article are quite something...
Of course it is in fact the overuse of pesticides (and the consequent evolution of resistance to them) that has lead to the current state of affairs....
For a little primer on bedbugs, check out this National Geographic video.
AY
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