Archive for the ‘DDT ban’ Category

Bad news for Bushwick…

Saturday, August 9th, 2008

Leave it to the Brooklyn Eagle to give readers in-depth coverage of the bed bug situation in Brooklyn. Unlike the Daily Snooze and other New York dailies, the Eagle doesn’t have their covers plastered with the Yankees or Paris Hilton.

That’s the only good news here. The bad news is that according to 311, Bushwick is the “bed bug capital of Brooklyn”, logging 550 complaints of bed bug infestations from that neighborhood only in the first six months of 2008. Stay away from those benches in Bushwick Park!

The runners-up for the title are Flatbush, Midwood and Prospect Park South. Other honorable mentions include Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, and Boerum Hill with Mill Basin and Flatlands coming in dead last in number of bed bug infestation complaints.

The article also contains a few personal testimonies and a few basic tips I’m sure we’re all familiar with by now. Pretty well-written and reported.

The article made me wonder how my own neighborhood ranked in regard to bed bug complaints so I Googled bed bug 311 complaints. As a result, I came across this interesting bed bug blog which featured 311 bed bug complaints for every neighborhood in New York. Actually, the areas are not categorized by our city’s vague neighborhood boundaries but rather by Community Districts, which may encompass more than one neighborhood (you have to scroll down a bit to find the chart).

According to the chart, which only tracks up to June 19, 2008, Bushwick, with 550 complaints logged, is not only the bed bug capital of Brooklyn but of all five boroughs as well. The runners-up citywide are Washington Heights/Inwood (477 complaints), Flatbush/Ocean Parkway/Midwood (364), West Harlem/Morningside Heights/Manhattanville/Hamilton Heights (332), and Central Harlem (330). Given these statistics it’s hard not to determine that the bed bug infestation in New York is concentrated in Brooklyn and upper Manhattan.

But I have to question the accuracy of 311 complaints as an indicator of which neighborhoods are have the highest rates of infestation because I don’t think that most New Yorkers think to call 311 about a bed bug infestation. I certainly didn’t call 311 about my problems, but that’s only because I don’t expect the government to do anything about it. But I’ve had a lot of people suggest I write my Congressman or my Councilman or my Senator. As if that will do anything.

Despite all of its most expensive efforts, the government can’t keep people from getting high, it can’t stop racism or sexism in the workplace, it can’t prevent gun violence, it can’t combat poverty, can’t bring democracy to Iraq, can’t keep illegal aliens out of this country, it can’t keep jobs from going overseas, it can’t teach children basic skills, it can’t provide health insurance for everyone who needs it, it can’t respond to emergencies in a timely fashion, it can’t rebuild Ground Zero even after seven years, it can’t provide adequate health care for its soldiers, it can’t help people who are losing their homes, it can’t balance the national deficit, it can’t prevent terrorist attacks, it can’t adequately equip its troops, it can’t find Osama bin Laden, it can’t rehabilitate criminals, it can’t keep politicians from accepting lobbyist “gifts”, it can’t control who or what passes through its borders, it can’t keep teenagers from having sex, it can’t guarantee its citizens guaranteed Constitutional civil rights, it can’t keep prostitutes off the streets, it can’t put out a bunch of forest fires at once, it can’t protect the public from trans fats or second-hand smoke, it can’t lower gas prices, it can’t figure out whether or not a foreign country has weapons of mass destruction, it can’t adequately protect its own nuclear energy facilities from terrorist attack, it can’t facilitate a remotely democratic electoral system, and it can’t protect the environment.

Given all the ongoing and historic failures of government, why the hell would I ever think my government could do a thing about a bed bug infestation?

If anything, government may actually be the problem. Two words: DDT ban.

Posted in DDT ban, NYC Government, epidemic, news articles | No Comments »

Bed Bug Haikus, Part One

Monday, September 10th, 2007
Some of you may not know that I am a writer. In addition to the blogging, I worked for a few years as a reporter and editor. I’ve done some unpublished fiction and am currently writing a book. I thought about how art develops through suffering and emotion and loss, three things I’ve encountered since I first saw bed bugs in my room.

Long story short, I sat down and began writing bed bug haikus. For those unfamiliar with the term, haiku is a Japanese form of nonrhyming poetry. The first line contains five syllables, the second line contains seven and the final line contains five. There are a few variations to this rule but 5, 7, and 5 are the standard. Without further ado, I give you ten haikus I wrote in the last hour.

******

My blood is their food

I itch yet they are not there

I miss my mattress

***

“Don’t let bed bugs bite”

Much easier said than done

Bring back DDT

***

Please, legalize it

DDT, I mean. Not weed

No, wait…yes to both

***

I live with bed bugs

If you can call it living

Ow, my arm itches

***

Are bed bugs a dream

For minimalist people?

Bare rooms confuse bugs

***

Die, Rachel Carson!

Say, now that she’s dead, can we

Bring back DDT?

***

I live with bed bugs

I sleep on an air mattress

You come here often?

***

It’s hard to get laid

With bug bites on your body

They look like herpes

***

Comment on Bugged Out

If you don’t do so tonight

More bed bugs will bite

***

My bedroom is bare

These bed bugs are everywhere

Do you even care?

***

After I wrote these I thought, why should I have all the fun? If these goofy haikus inspired you in any way to write your own bed bug-related haiku, please do so in lieu of a comment on this post. If you have writer’s block, just remember your little buddies waiting at home for you to come back to bed! Remember the pain and suffering! The itching! The humiliation! The stigma! Oh, the humanity!

I’ve actually written ten more, but you won’t see them until I see at least ten haikus from my dear, dear readers. They must be bed bug-related. If you need any more inspiration, peruse the many many posts here on Bugged Out.

Note: Non-haiku poetry also accepted.

Posted in DDT ban, Haiku, Rachel Carson, air mattresses, bug bites, personal, roaches | 12 Comments »

In Defense of Rachel Carson

Monday, January 15th, 2007

As you may have read about in other blogs, this blog and other bed bug-related sources, DDT has been credited to have killed off bed bugs in the 1950s, short of a few survivors of the species, apparently. It is widely believe that if DDT use was legalized in the United States, we would be able to eradicate the total bed bug population as we had done a half century ago.

I’ve come in suppport of the repeal of the ban on DDT before, and have read many articles defending DDT and damning Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring in which Carson claims that DDT causes cancer in humans and thins the shells of bird eggs. She also stressed this concept of environmental connectedness, which basically states that although a pesticide is designed to kill one organism, its effects are absorbed into the food chain, until it ultimately poisons humans. It appears that Silent Spring jumpstarted the Environmentalism Movement in the U.S., the federal government was pressured to to ban it completely by 1972. To date, I have not found any legitimate research backing up the claims in Carson’s book.

Here’s an article I found from Melbourne Indymedia in Melbourne, Austrailia defending the DDT ban and even going so far to claim that DDT would have no effect on today’s higher evolved species of bed bug. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“If you read the bed bug blogs you will find lots of angry villification of
Rachel Carson, who wrote the book ‘Silent Spring’, which then led to the banning
of DDT, for the theory is that because DDT was banned, now we have bed bugs, a
theory which makes no sense whatsoever since DDT was banned half a century ago,
and we are only experiencing a plague of bed bugs in the last couple of years.
People are also unaware that bed bugs became resistant to DDT back in the 1940s,
which is one of the reasons why the pest control industry turned away from DDT
and began using alternative chemicals in the last part of the century. DDT is
constantly being promoted as the bed bug panacea, but the truth of the matter is
that bed bugs are amazing creatures showing an ability to adapt to any form of
pesticide, and that includes DDT, which bed bugs long ago defeated in the 1940s,
and which they will defeat again should DDT be brought back onto the market
because now we have bed bugs.”

I couldn’t help but notice that there is no scientific research to back up the author’s claims in this article, which is why DDT should be legalized, if for nothing else, than to conduct legitimate, LEGAL research as to how dangerous DDT could be to humans, animals and plantlife and how effective it would actually be in eradicating bed bugs.

Later.

Posted in DDT ban, Rachel Carson | 5 Comments »

DDT Debate

Friday, September 29th, 2006

I’m pleased to see that a small debate has erupted (is there such a thing as a small eruption?) over the legalization of DDT. Already one reader have agreed with my previous DDT post while another has criticized me. The heart of the debate seems to be a 1960s book by Rachel Carson called Silent Spring. In the book, Carson claims that DDT causes cancer in humans and thins the shells of bird eggs. She also stressed this concept of environmental connectedness, which basically states that although a pesticide is designed to kill one organism, its effects are absorbed into the food chain, until it ultimately poisons humans.

Unfortunately for the late Rachel Carson, there has never been any substantial evidence of DDT and other pesticides killing or even hurting humans, and even the impact on widlife is not directly fatal.

Personally, I believe that DDT should be legalized, for two purposes:
1) To use in eradicating bed bugs
2) To do legitimate research on this chemical to verify just how harmful DDT may or may not be

I am a libertarian, which means I don’t trust the government to make decisions about what I can do on my property, what I can do with or put in my body, and other personal decisions I make about my life. I believe the government, especially on the federal level, is highly unaccountable and does whatever it wants, including criminalizing things for political reasons rather than concern for the safety and well-being of Americans. I am an advocate for the legalization of marijuana, and not because I’m some huge pothead (I’m not) but because I feel the punishments associated with marijuana possession, trafficking and sales are far more harmful than the narcotic itself. Still, more and more people (especially Baby Boomers) claim that marijuana possesses certain medicinal benefits. Republicans say we must continue our War on Drugs and keep increasing the prison population by cracking down on marijuana. Democrats complain that they can’t advocate for the decriminalization of marijuana because there isn’t enough legitimate research.

Well, how can you conduct legitimate research on an illegal substance? The current research being done in the U.S. on marijuana is really very little compared to research conducted on the same substance in European universities and laboratories. This is because the U.S. has a War on Drugs and a slew of authoritarian rules and penalties for marijuana possession, trafficking and sales. There are many restrictions on how much research an American laboratory can do on marijuana, plus research can often take years and years for concrete results to emerge.

This is the same problem with DDT. How can research be done on an illegal pesticide? From what I’ve read so far on the DDT ban, it seems that Silent Spring jumpstarted the Environmentalism Movement in the U.S., some tree huggers formed special interest groups and forced the federal government to ban it completely by 1972. There is no mention of any attempt to research DDT in the 1960s or 70s to determine how true Carson’s claims are. All I hear is Silent Spring + angry environmentalists = DDT ban.

Where do you stand on this issue?

Posted in DDT ban | 4 Comments »