The War On Bugs

by West Virginia Rebel

Posted by on 07/07/08 at 08:43 PM from

I wondered when this little gem would resurface:

Nearly destroyed fifty years ago by DDT, bed bugs have made a resurgence in the U.S. since the pesticide was widely banned throughout much of the world.

DDT is still in use in some countries, but can only be used sparingly because it has a half-life of up to 15 years, and provokes resistant immunity in bugs at a fairly high rate compared to alternatives. The way people were spraying it around before the ban, it would have been less than useless by now.

Oh and Rachel Carson = Hitler

Posted by on 07/07/08 at 10:42 PM from

Further proof that greens are not to be trusted at all....

Posted by Ed Kline on 07/08/08 at 12:11 AM from

$50,000,000 in each of fiscal years 2009 through 2012 for giving these grants to states to combat bed bugs.

We really ought to put these people in congress in jail more often. Sadly shooting them seems out of the question.

Posted by on 07/08/08 at 06:27 AM from

provokes resistant immunity in bugs at a fairly high rate compared to alternatives.

Got a source for this?  I’ve heard a lot of reasons why DDT might be bad, but this is the first time for this one.

Posted by on 07/08/08 at 06:47 AM from

Bed bugs?  Is this a joke?

Posted by on 07/08/08 at 01:05 PM from

Retluocc1:

I’ll see if I can track down a source, I’ve recently read a few articles on the subject for a history class I took, but it’s not a difficult concept to understand in theory.  I’m not sure that DDT causes any more resistance than the alternatives, but I’m certain that reistance to DDT quickly became a problem in places where it was sprayed.

Some percentage of the insects targeted by DDT have an immunity to DDT.  The insects that aren’t immune gradually get wiped out, leaving only the immune insects to reproduce.  Those insects reproduce with other immune insects, and now all of the sudden you’ve got a large population of insects that you can’t kill.  It’s the same thing that happens with strains of bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics, it’s why doctors aren’t supposed to hand out antibiotics any time someone comes through the door. 

I’m in no way, shape, or form a “greenie”, but I do think the overuse of pesticides during the 1950s, 1950s and 1960s was especially wrong-headed.  When used in a targeted manner it’s totally reasonable, people were waging a “War on Insects” during the period that was completely loopy.  Take a look at this Time article from 1945:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,792366,00.html

They coated the entirety of Mackinac Island with DDT!  We understand a lot more about how species interact now than we did in 1945, the reason why I don’t trust the environmentalists is that I think in their hearts they still believe it’s 1945.

Posted by on 07/08/08 at 01:30 PM from

Continued pesticide exposure has an extremely high correlation with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, which is why Nebraska is pretty much considered a cancer cluster all by itself…