Saturday questions: Usinger’s anemia

The Monograph of Cimicidae (Robert Usinger, 1966) is the landmark text on bed bugs. (It’s been recently reprinted.)

I’ve been reviewing the literature in preparing our materials and, of course, there are nothing but questions.

Riddle me this…

Robert Usinger fed his bed bug colony from 1958 to 1965.

He describes the effect on his hemoglobin levels thus:

Cases of iron deficiency caused by excessive feeding of bed bugs on infants were reported in India by Venkatachalam and Belavadi (1962). During my 7 years of feeding bugs, my haemoglobin decreased from a normal 14.5 g per 10 cc of blood in 1958 to 11.5 in 1963 and 1964. It remained low even with supplemental iron taken orally and by injection, but rose to 13.2 g in 1965 several months after I discontinued feeding the bugs.

Reinhardt and Siva-Jothy (Biology of the Bed Bugs, doi:10.1146/annurev.ento.52.040306.133913), however, have placed a question mark on what that experience suggests (as well as on the cited study) by this observation:

Naturally, recently fed bed bugs also contain more iron than do starved bugs [referring to the Venkatachalam and Belavady study]. Yet contrary to common claims, no evidence exists that bed bug bites lead to an anemic iron deficiency in the vertebrate host. In the only patient thus investigated (Usinger himself) anemia was caused by insufficient blood regeneration rather than iron deficiency, because the prevention of bites, rather than supplemental iron, led to recovery.

So, friends and strangers, anyone care to illuminate what this is about? Help me out please, thanks.

Also, should we be worried about Lou Sorkin and his colony (and all the other researchers with theirs)!? I am!

These pages may be of related interest:

1. New case report of severe anemia in a patient with an advanced infestation
2. New guidance for bed bugs in health care facilities
3. Caught in a situation trap
4. “A continuous and sustained effort”: Q&A with Dr. Stephen W. Hwang
5. Learning from the bed bug on the treadmill