I WANT MY DDT

Q: When does the bedbug truly cease to be one of New York City's dirty
little secrets?
A: When you find one of the little fuckers crawling across your own
sheets at three am!

I don't want to bore you with the statistics - but I do happen to
like this one from a recent Times article:  "Cindy Mannes, of the
National Pest Management Association, said in a telephone interview
that it recorded a 71 percent increase from 2000 to 2005 in the
number of exterminators who had received calls about bedbugs." (link)

Now, I have no idea where the little bastard came from - all I know
is that I wish I had it drawn and quartered and set on fire before I
smashed it - that perhaps MIGHT have made up for the pain from the three bites I got - but right now I am trying to be positive - and
hope that well.. it was the only one..  sigh... (delusions, I know, I
know)

Anyway, I spent the week surfing the web to find out what I
could do - The masked hunter (link) seemed like the best option but I couldn't find one for sale. But I did learn that it is only a matter of time before one can purchase some DDT!

Serious! Allow me to lay it out for you - On the one hand we have the anti-science lobby, not only do they dis the idea of global warming - they also take the banishment of DDT as a serious human rights violation - as one of their luminaries Michael Crichton says in his book State Of Fear:

Since the ban, two million people a year have died unnecessarily from malaria, mostly children. The ban has caused more than fifty million needless deaths. Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler.

These nut-jobs, who have been trying for years now to overturn Silent Spring, are fast becoming hip to the idea that the winning strategy is not dead African children but rather America's bugbitten! (link)  The Exterminator lobby is ready to seize the moment as well (link). Scroll through the comments from this recent Gothomist post on bedbug rage - this DDT thing definitely has legs! (link).   

As for me, I'm thinking of picking some up when I go to China next month. Why wait?

Comments

[bartelby]

In folks living in Latin America prevent Malaria by eating fava beans. Eating fava beans regularly prevents malarial infection. African folks with sickle cell trait are also immmune to malaria. Perhaps providing for a diet, including fava beans, in places where malaria is common. I think that might present fewer health risks than using an organochlorine like DDT. The cure for bedbugs is of course bound up with the cure for paying outlandish rent for a shoebox of an apartmment and even simpler still.

[Steve PMX]

Ever since I saw the Dateline special (I think it was Dateline) about bedbugs in hotels - I'll never be able to comfortably fall asleep in another hotel room for all eternity.

[Kim Scarborough]

I love how there's zero effort in this post to actually refute Crichton's point. Why bother engaging in argument when you can just call people you disagree with "nut-jobs"? Then everybody will just understand what you mean, and you don't have to trouble yourself with this messy "thinking" stuff.

[Bat Guano]

I spent 20 years growing up in the boonies of southwest Michigan. In that space of time I went from maybe seeing a buzzard now and then to often seeing hawks. It's a swell thing to be walking around the farm and hearing the scream of a rabbit and turning to see it nabbed by a raptor.

DDT killed birds off by weakening eggshells. Birds ate DDT treated bugs, then birds of prey ate those birds, and got DDT concentrated in their systems. Birds of prey began dying off.

It's no coincidence that the bald eagle and other raptors are making a big comeback in the decades after DDT was taken off the market. And that's why those who want to bring it back are nutjobs.

[Etherealpr]

Back in 1990 in Nigeria, I routinely encountered guesthouses and private homes where the rooms were sprayed every few days with the stuff. Nevermind its potential for bird genocide -- DDT's horrifically piercing artificial-grape-bubblegum scent should be enough reason to ban it forever.

[Listener_Paul]

Bedbugs? Pshaw. Fire Ant bites are where the real pain is.

[Emmett]

Sounds like fake grass roots efforts created by Dow and Monsanto to increase manufacturing business.
Next we will hear how good Agent Orange and Dioxin are as artificial sweeteners.

[Richard]

It seems the only really bad thing about DDT was that it was overused. Instead of spraying every few days (as the poster above recounted), a spray every few *months* would have sufficed.

Here's an excellent overview of the matter (with references, so doubters can check for themselves):

http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm

[Dale Hazelton]

What was that stuff in Combat that basically wiped out cockroaches in NYC? I wouldn't want to go back to the pre-Hydramethylnon era of coming home, turning on the lights and watching the walls crawl again. (Yes, I took my garbage out!) I'm just sayin'.......

[Ken Gray]

Check out our bedbug website (still under construction). You must understand something about bedbug abatement. The chemicals used now are worse than DDT, with the exception of diatomaceous earth. Why? If you don't get rid of an infestation, which is damn difficult, period, you have to keep reapplying and reapplying.
DDT, if used properly, which is to say only indoors, would have a negligible effect on the environment and total devastation to bedbugs. DDT was used ridiculously in the 1950s, where tons were dumped into the ocean, etc. Remember, ever time you use Comet cleanser, you are putting chlorine, a very toxic substance, into our water. Please, a little rationality and discretion. By the way, these are my opinions and not those of the Bedbugger site.