If there is a public conversation in Cincinnati about bed bugs, it’s not one that I can find by even the most diligent search.
I have found two reactions to State Representative Dale Mallory’s recently introduced H.B. 590, a bill which would establish a Bed Bug Awareness, Education, and Prevention Program and, most important, “make an appropriation.” You can’t fight bed bugs without money and this bill would make $335,000 available to the Ohio Department of Health in fiscal 2009 for education and prevention activities that, significantly, would include:
a toll-free telephone number for any person seeking to report an incidence of bed bug infestation or to request information.
Representative Mallory’s bill, introduced June 12, has 32 co-sponsors. (There are 99 representatives elected to the Ohio General Assembly.) This level of bi-partisan support does not sit well with The Lima News. In an editorial against the legislation, lamenting the fact that 10 of the co-sponsors are Republicans, a played-out misconception is deployed:
What’s driving all this? Aside from the apparent belief on the part of 33 state representatives that their constituents aren’t smart enough to change and wash their sheets is this: The number of bed bug complaints in Cincinnati could double this year from last year’s 737, according to Columbus legal publication The Daily Reporter. An extremely small number like that should not drive legislators to replace individual common sense with outpourings of tax dollars.
If only it were about washing your sheets! I think I’d rather believe that the writer knows that but is unable to resist a rhetorical convenience. And bed bug complaints as an accurate indicator of the totality of infestations? Not yet, not quite, not even in Cincinnati where there have been efforts to encourage people to call the Health Department upon discovering an infestation. (Cincinnati, especially, has a built in disincentive in its efforts to offer a bed bug hotline to its citizens: it has criminalized the harboring of bed bugs and either the landlord or the tenant could find themselves facing fines and jail time. I understand that an enforcement tool was necessary but trusting that it will be used judiciously is a bit risky, and not considering the dampening effect it may have on the adoption of any voluntary reporting procedure, if indeed they haven’t taken that possibility into account, may be something to regret.)
The only other reaction to the Mallory bill I can find, and much more encouraging certainly, is this reaction from a blog that covers politics in Ohio “from a free market and limited government perspective”:
He’s got a bipartisan list of co-sponsors, and why shouldn’t he? Bed bugs are nasty, and can really screw you up.
Indeed. But where’s the public conversation on this bill, on the issues, on the Joint Bed Bug Task Force draft Strategic Plan that we are all waiting to read?
Actually, when the draft plan was announced, Cincinnati Health Department supervising sanitarian William “Dale” Grigsby and registered sanitarian Tom Hooper were guests on Local 12 Newsmakers (April 13, 2008) and you can watch the interview here.
Grigsby and Hooper probably know a great deal about the challenges faced by public health departments in fighting bed bugs—I wish we’d been asking the questions! I think we all want to see another level of discourse on the issues, closer to the fine-grain details. Still, it’s good to see a basic start. But we’re really eager for more, Cincinnati. Show us how it’s done.
These pages may be of related interest:
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