I made this logic tree (PDF) a while back to try to figure out all possible solutions. (Because I read a book! A great book, actually, and thought I’d try its tools.)
But it’s only been 4 months and in looking at this today I find it almost painful to look at.
The only solutions that hold any promise, and they are on a scale from might never happen to don’t hold your breath, are the reintroduction of effective residual insecticides, real DIY protocols, and new technologies.
I missed the deadline to write a comment on the propoxur request because I read the NRDC (PDF) and Beyond Pesticides letters and then could not get the emotion out of my letter. Where do these people live, I wonder? (Also, I thought NRDC had NPMA on speed dial these days. Couldn’t they, I don’t know, pick up the phone and get a clue?)
Sometimes I get emails from people in other cities and I always tell them to look to the work of the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force, to the planning work of the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Joint Bed Bug Task Force and to all that has been achieved in Toronto.
The New York City Bed Bug Advisory Board is writing its report. It is due in little more than a month.
New York vs Bed Bugs will end its run after its release — and if it is not released, well.
I will do my best to write about all the things I wanted to write about before then.
Hang in there. None of this will come about over night. I understand that DuPont may have something in the pipeline and this is getting so much attention that someone will finally have to come to their senses at the regulatory or legislative level.
These poor people are suffering out there. A good friend of mine (he has the dogs and does heat treatments) told me that in one house he inspected that the children we so badly bitten that if he didn’t know what had been causing it he would have turned them in to Child Services. This is a nightmare for so many families, so the day will come when everyone…and I mean everyone….will have to come to their senses. That is except for the activists. You have to have some sense to come to it.
Rich
Thank you, Rich.