Note: There has been the strongest objection to the title of this post on the grounds that it is extremely offensive. I am removing the title in deference to the complaint.
Rich Kozlovich weighs in on two bed bug items recently on our minds, the Rutgers IPM study and the astronomical bed bug bill at a NYC co-op. Of course, IPM is his real subject.
He says something startling, in discussing the long line of pesticide classes that are gone, Rich says that “pyrethroids are coming up for review with the goal of eliminating them” — can this be?
I thought EPA recently came out with a safety statement of some kind, but now that I look it up it was a finding that there is no clear relationship between pyrethrins/pyrethroids and asthma/allergy and therefore no new labels nor registrant data will be required. The asthma/allergy review (PDF) was in response to a report, ‘Safe’ Pesticides Now First in Poisonings, by the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit investigative journalism organization that found an alarming increase in reported adverse reactions in the EPA’s own pesticide incident database.
And, yes, actually, a registration review of pyrethroids is underway.
But an agenda?
I’m setting aside for the moment the fact that pyrethroids are such a sorry act when it comes to bed bugs. The point is whether what critics like Rich are saying is true.
This pesticide polemic does nothing for bed bugs. And yet, we can’t ignore it altogether. I feel like I have to keep up with this argument because I believe that EPA can’t just leave us to our own devices with all these bed bugs everywhere. Consider how many entities are actively disowning the bed bug problem (latest buck-passer, if you’re keeping score, the City of Bayonne Health Department).
As for us in New York City, today I was thinking about which New York State agency exactly would be responsible for requesting any theoretical Section 18 exemptions. It’s not clear to me and I’m just wondering, because if it’s the State Department of Health, forget about it, and if it’s DEC, then we’re well and truly lost because DEC doesn’t care about, much less understand, the bed bug problem.
Nothing but questions all the time.
Is the six-figure bed bug job a sign of the apocalypse? I want to read the unavailable source article; I’m still holding out hope that these expenses will appear somewhat more rational and that they will actually include useful things, like an on-site thermal treatment chamber, although it has not been mentioned. But yes, I take the $250,000 bed bug job as a sign that we’re getting smacked around by some bed bugs.
These pages may be of related interest:
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I had a look at Rich Kozlovich’s blog and it is subtitled as follows
“The public has been misled by an unholy alliance of environmental scaremongers, funds-seeking academics, sensation-seeking media, vote-seeking politicians and profit-seeking vested interests.” Viv Forbes
The blog is a rant against IPM.. simple as that. He uses the research paper from Rutgers published in the Journal of Medical Entomology as the basis for his argument. I have not read the full paper as yet, but in order to understand the outcomes, one has to see the total picture, and Kozolovich’s arguments against IPM are mostly demagogic and lack substance of even understanding of what IPM is about.
If one goes to the EPA link provided by the post here, and reads the rational behind a review – you see science and common sense, not the non-sense of Koslovich’s blog.
There are clearly interests that are in opposition – and there is solid science to back concerns about elevated rates of allergies and asthma caused by roach infestations, as well as research showing impact of chronic use of organophoshpate insecticides on children. No one would argue that protecting the health of low income children is not a very very high priority. It is the HIGHEST priotity ethically and practically speaking. Protecting the health of children is one of the measures of a successful and moral society and when this fails due to poverty wherever it is in the world, it is a failure of all mankind.
The key to IPM is not getting rid of pesticides, but controlling and elminating pest species intelligently and part of that is reducing, not eliminating use of pesticides whenever possible. If I can manage a pest without pesticides, all the better, but if not, then the goal should be use it, but focus on prevention so that the use is limited…
that is what IPM is about… not the rant of Kozlovich that labels and accuses without insight or perspective or respect for science.
Sam
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