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The U.S. is in the midst of the worst bed bug outbreak in fifty years.
Photo: CDC. See the bed bug slideshow below.
The U.S. is facing the worst bed bug outbreak in fifty years--one that has apartment, dorm and hotel residents, and travelers coast to coast losing sleep, and checking their mattresses. The pests in question are small, flat, reddish-brown bugs about the size of a grain of rice that suck human blood.
Bed bugs are hard to spot with the naked eye. Before they eat, they look like little tan specks of rice. After they feast on blood they turn red or dark brown in color and are easier to spot.
Bed bugs are resistant to numerous insecticides, including a type called called Pyrethroids…mainly deltamethrin. Their numbers are supposedly increasing each year in the U.S., U.K., and Europe, and they can easily spread through dense mattress-heavy environments, such as hotels and motels, dormitories and apartment buildings. The National Pest Management Association says that bed bug calls to pest control companies are up 70 percent in the past five years.
So concerned are public health officials that the "Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009" was recently introduced in the House. Democratic congressman G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina has introduced the legislation to provide $50 million already in the Department of Commerce budget to train health inspectors to spot the insects. Co-sponsors of the bill include Reps. Don Young , R- Alaska, Ben Chandler, D- Ky., Bobby L. Rush, D- Ill. , Betty McCollum , D- Minn., Corrine Brown, D- Fla., Steve Cohen, D- Tenn., Brad Miller, D- N.C., and Eddie Bernice Johnson, D- Texas.The bill would place bedbugs on a rodent and cockroach control program in the Department of Health and Human Services.
The bill also would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the impact of bed bugs on public mental health. The bed bug outbreak has caught the attention of federal officials, as the Environmental Protection Agency recently held its first-ever bed bug summit. In other bed bug news, two shelters in Charlotte, N.C., recently suffered closures due to bed bug infestations.
So what to do? If you think you may be encountering bed bugs, or want to know what to look for and how to prevent them, the Mayo Clinic offers a guide to symptoms, treatment, prevention, and other aspects of bed bug-ology for regular folks. Meanwhile, the Harvard School of Public Health offers a guide for clinicians and health officials.
For more info: Barbara Barrett, McClatchy Newspapers, Alternative Health Journal, Mayo Clinic, Harvard School of Public Health, University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Comments
Here is a recent study conducted by UMAS, that some bed bugs in certain areas of the country have developed resistance to Pesticides and Insecticides.
www.xerobugs.wordpress.com
Bed bugs are a huge problem in the TL. They frequently infest the SROs that the poor and mentally ill inhabit in this town. The problem isn't confined to the poor however. The big tourist hotels are suffering the same infestation. As the pesticides are becoming less effective the big hotels are relying on high heat and extreme cold to kill the little buggars. Refrigerated trucks drive around the city, full of mattresses, trying to freeze them.
We offer a service which kills bedbugs using high output ozone generators. We fill the property with a ozone cloud which seeps into the bedbugs hiding places. After the treatment ozone returns to breathable oxygen. There are not chemicals used. We are located in Grand Rapids MI, but we are opening an office in Commerce Twp MI to service Metro Detroit. If you would like more information we can be reached at 616-551-7243.
Best Wishes
Denise J LaFlamme
CleanAir Treatments LLC
616-551-7243
I want to know more about this Ozone treanment. Bedbugs are rife here in Englan to but to my knolage there is no Ozone treatment avalible here - please tell me more !!!
markonline36@btinternet.com - text - 07570878436
I am not focusing the growing BB issues on chemical resistance or lack of sanitation. There are a number of issues regarding the increase in the number of pest outbreaks across the nation.There are a few large pest companies that have corporate accounts covering the entire U.S. These companies focuse on the profitability of and number of accounts utilizing the least amount of service specialist product, and time on their routes. Time and product equals big bucks in the service industry. Finally the lack of expierenced leaders in the pest industry will continue to allow problems to ballon to epidemic portion. The blame game will continue on the chemical and sanitation issues until corporations are held accountable for their lack of careing and greed.
Those sons a bit****
That photo does not show a bedbuug.
Yes, I have heard they are resistant to the chemicals too. I have read that bed bugs are much worse in a traditional innerspring mattress filled with the materials that harbor the little nasty creepy crawlies. I don't think they will infest a latex or memory foam mattress. Or at least the problem is much reduced since there is less area for them to infest. Here is some info. www.mattress-wiz.com/memory-foam-mattress-reviews Anyone have any experience with these things?
Perhaps a mute point at this juncture, but has anyone considered that this epidemic may also be connected to the mass invasion of illegal aliens! Mexico is little more advanced many so called third world countries and it is obvious that the lowest "caste" members of the Mexican/Hispanic community are the majority that are making their way into our society. If these bedbugs were exterminated in the US how else could they have covered the states so effectively. (We never had bedbugs in our home through the 50's and 60's and I never heard of anyone using DDT for home infestation treatments of any kind. DDT was primarily used for mosquito control in the streets.) The illegals typically stay in free and subsidized housing and apartments as well as overwhelm single family housing with muliple families, and they frequent theaters just like we do.
This may not be politically correct to surmise but it is just one more reason to end illegal immigration. Some diseases such as TB are also making a comeback, but noone knows why!
Think!
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