I understand exactly what you are saying, and I have conceded the point that people do stupid things and it is true that they don’t follow label instruction well or at all.

I am a fellow Ohioan so I am aware of the Cincinnati incident. Additionally there was twenty thousand dollars plus in damages along with these poor people being seriously inconvenienced. However, this actually supports the point that I am trying to make; and that is people will use home remedies and techniques that are far more dangerous than applying a pesticide once or twice.

I hate to keep coming back to the risk versus benefit argument, but we have over sixty years of background to show that pesticides available to the public had an overall beneficial impact. True, people did stupid things and once again they don’t follow directions well, but the risk is miniscule compared to the benefits.

We keep talking about exposure as if any exposure to pesticides is terrible. I am sorry, but this just isn’t so. Exposure and toxicity are two different things and the Litulis Kilgore incident in Lorain County shows just how resilient the human body is.

As for the alcohol remedy…that was recommended by one of the County Health Departments in Ohio. Lighting the cigarette was his own idea. So then….which is dumber and more dangerous…using alcohol, smoking, or using pesticides? Just a thought!

Best wishes,
Rich Kozlovich

We recently had an incident here in Cincinnati where a family was using 90 % isopropal alcohol and sprayed a bed down and then a cigarette was lit. The apartment caught fire and 12 people were displaced. There needs to be responsibility placed on the purchaser of the product to read the label and apply it correctly, but this is not a perfect world. Lets leave the applying to the professionals.

Regarding the cycle of resistance….we will never find a way out of that because it is part of nature’s cycle. We will always be in that proverbial boat you refer to.

When DDT was first being used everyone thought that the magic bullet had been found. Later resistance developed in some insect populations because we fell into the pattern that already existed in nature without knowing it.

Most of the pesticides we will come in contact with are naturally occurring in the food we eat, and most of the carcinogens we consume are naturally occurring in our food, ninety five percent actually….and at a higher level of carcinogenicity than most manmade chemicals.

Plants don’t have claws, they don’t have thick hides and they can’t run away. The only way that they can protect themselves is through chemistry. They create their own pesticides and repellants. Pests then become resistant to those chemicals and as a result the plants will start manufacturing some other chemical to protect themselves. This is the pattern we fell into and we are prepared to deal with it by producing new chemistry. We absolutely know that resistance will eventually develop in the pests we are attacking in every product we use.

Resistance isn’t a mutation. “Resistance is a genetic phenomenon” where-in some insects are already resistant to the chemical introduced into their environment. As we develop chemistry to deal with pests we will find that these resistant ones are the only ones left breeding, since the non-resistant ones are killed off. Eventually almost the entire population will be resistant. We then must change materials just as plants do in nature. So the argument for not releasing these products based on a concern for resistance is not appropriate in my opinion. In fact, by not releasing this product we are hastening resistance in the products that are available because they are being applied at a much higher rate than would be necessary than using a product that works in one or two applications.

People will not tolerate this problem without doing something to protect their families. We still come back to the fact that people are using things that are homemade and many times are using techniques that are far more dangerous than having propoxur as an over the counter product.

As I have stated in the past. People will do foolish things, but people have always been just as foolish about this things in the past as they are today and will be tomorrow, so as we look back in time we have ask ourselves; how many people were killed by these products? None that weren’t attempting to kill themselves as far as I can tell. How many were impacted negatively in other ways by these products which did have over the counter labels? That number has always been very small, especially when you consider the hundreds of millions of applications that have been made over the last 60 years by professionals and non-professionals alike.

However, when we look at the results of all of those applications we find that we created a largely pest free environment that we grew accustomed to, and rightly so, including an environment free of bedbugs. As a result of all of those professional and non-professional applications our homes and businesses are mostly pest free and healthier as a result.

We, as a society, have created chemical fears that are unbalanced and irrational. In short; we are the healthiest chemophobes in the world. I believe that the reality is in the history. The solution in 1946 was effective and inexpensive chemistry that was available to the public; and it will have to be the answer in 2010.

Every product and technique out there today is failing. The numbers of bedbugs are growing in size and location. Worse yet, we are finding more and more resistant populations and some are so resistant that nothing available will kill them at all. We need effective, inexpensive chemistry that is available to the public if this plague is to be cured. Let’s make no mistake about it; if these pests carried the plague we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Good to see you. I think that the debate over restricted use is academic. General use labels will never happen. And I have similar concerns. I do respect Rich’s position and I understand where he’s coming from, because I think that we all need to put our brains together about how to solve the access to pest control services problem — this has to be a priority policy objective. Until it is, we will go nowhere.

Jeremy Hessel, R.S.
Hamilton County Public Health