Posted on 05/11/2016 5:00:25 PM PDT by StCloudMoose
Members of the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA) gathered on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to request the help of Congress in combatting the Zika-carrying Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, particularly urging Congress to ease the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation of insecticides and products being developed to kill the mosquitoes.
Karl Malamud-Roam, Public Health Pesticides Program Manager at Rutgers University, said at the “Mosquito Control to Minimize Zika Virus Risk” event that the tools in place to confront the Aedes breed of Zika-carrying mosquitoes were “okay, we will do a good job with the tools we have, they’re good tools.”
But, he added, “They’re not good enough to do wide area, consistent low-cost patrol of the Aedes.”
“There are some challenges, these are hard mosquitoes to kill, chemical resistance is a big problem if any one class of pesticides is used too often,” he explained, adding that there “are regulatory challenges.”
“I think it’s important that you know the toolbox is safe, we know it’s safe, and that the customers know it’s safe, he said. “But if the expense of proving safety becomes so high that products get thrown out, that’s throwing out the baby with the bath water and we have lost products.”
“I’m very concerned that we may lose products without federal help supporting the vector control toolbox,” said Roam.
Vector control is a method to limit or eradicate organisms, in this case mosquitoes, called “vectors,” which transmit disease pathogens like Zika.
Roam asked Congress to “encourage EPA to retain vector control products as part of the public good. We see vector control products a lot like the pharmaceutical industry sees vaccines. It’s in the public interest that we have a vaccine supply, and companies 12 years ago were going out of business because there’s a liability and small market share, and federal action was taken to support the private sector.”
Another reason to vote for Trump.
Hillary will continue in the same vein.
I heard on news this morning that Government is requesting 2 billion dollars to fight zika virus.
2 BILLION!!!
Bring back DDT.
Bumping this nugget of truth to the top
How can they fight what isn’t here (yet)? All of the cases in the U.S. have been in people that have traveled to South America or Puerto Rico.
I am kinda suspicious of anyone who says vector control,
DDT makes me happy.
How many Americans are going to get sick, suffer horrible birth defects, and die before we use DDT to get mosquitos under control?
I always get a little concerned when people start shouting bring back DDT. DDT lost its label due to overuse and misuse (bad science also played a part). The overuse and misuse causes resistance and outbreaks of secondary pests.
While I think DDT should get a new label, I would have it as a RUP pesticide only for use in structures for interior residual spraying.
Nearly all outbreaks of Euynomous Scale and Crepe Myrtle Aphid I have seen are due to spraying of synthetic pyrethroids to control mosquitoes.
That’s the point ... Agenda 21 population reduction ... it has nothing to do with controlling or eradicating it.
I love the smell of DDT in the morning.
Rachael Carson has killed more people than any despot in the history of mankind.
“Silent Spring” is the reason we have no control over mosquito borne diseases, and the poor, brown, and black people have suffered the worst.
But, hey! who said liberalism doesn’t have good intentions
How many Americans are going to get sick, suffer horrible birth defects, and die before we use DDT to get mosquitos under control?”
Everyone unless they work for EPA or some other environment group.
Oh man I read Mosque control.
The attempt to gin up a popular panic like for swine flu or bird flu or SARS could remotely be beneficial if it were to succeed in bringing back DDT.
yes
When I lived in Africa, we had a lot of success by simply spraying palm oil on stagnant water. The oil forms a surface film, and this breaks the adhesion of the larva's breathing tube, so they drown. And palm oil is cheap, natural, and biodegradable.
Since the control mechanism is physical, not chemical, there is no way the critters can develop resistance, nor any bad effect on anything else in the biosphere.
Work with Nature, not against her.
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