ACE Prep Class offered next week

Students taking their exams after the 2012
ACE Prep class at Texas A&M. 

I often get asked how best to study for the ACE exam, and if a class is ever offered. One of the places to get ACE training each year is the Texas A&M University Urban Pest Management Conference. If you're not familiar, this is the biggest CEU opportunity offered by the A&M entomology department, and (we think) one of the best training opportunities for PMPs in the state.

As of this morning enough students have signed up for this class to make it a go, and there is room for more.  If you are interested in participating, just go to the A&M Conference website and sign up.  You will be registering for the whole conference that runs from January 10-12.

ACE training runs all day on Wednesday, Jan 10, beginning at 10:15 am.  We will cover as much of the ACE exam material as we can in one day.  On Wednesday, we will offer an opportunity to take the ACE exam for anyone who is ready to take it.

Not enough notice?  I plan to offer the prep class as an IPM Experience House event at our Texas A&M AgriLife Center in Dallas twice in 2018 (dates to be determined). If you are interested, drop me an email--or even better, join our mailing list at the IPM Experience House website. This will get you notified of all IPM House activities coming up in 2018 if you join the list.

Austin Event Reminder

Austin is this year's site of the largest gathering of
insect geeks in the world. 

Got the pesticide applicator CEU blahs?  Are you looking for training that keeps you awake, and introduces you to new people and perspectives?  An upcoming A&M AgriLife Extension-sponsored event, "Under the Lens" may be just the thing. The day-long program runs from 7 am to 5 pm at the Austin Convention Center on November 13.  Cost is $100 and includes a continental breakfast, and lunch.  More importantly, it features national speakers talking about some diverse topics including delusory parasitosis, bed bugs, pest control in public housing, rodent control, mosquitoes and changes in pyrethroid label requirements.  Each of the speakers are experts in their field and sure to provide new and useful information.

For full information and links to the conference, see the AgriLife Today Press Release.  
Under the Lens will also features the annual business meeting of the Texas Integrated Pest Management Association for Public Schools (TIPMAPS) during the lunch break.  This event is the association’s annual meeting, but anyone with an interest in schools will have the chance to share ideas and issues and catch up on the latest developments within our field of school-related pest control.

The entire program is being held in association with the Entomological Society of America's 2013 Annual Meeting.  It's the largest gathering of entomologists in the world, if that excites you.  To learn more, check out my May blog post.

ACE program considers certification for turf and ornamental professionals

Since 2004 the Entomological Society of America has offered a certification program for professionals in the pest control industry.  The Associate Certified Entomologist (ACE) - Pest Control program currently has 623 ACEs-Pest Control and is offering new services and growing every month.

Insects that feed on trees, like this cottonwood borer, are among
 the pests that an ACE-Turf & Ornamentals would be expert in.

Now ESA is announcing its interest in starting a new certification for turf and ornamental professionals. The effort is just getting underway, according to a letter from the current Certification Board Director-Elect, Pat Copps, with Orkin. According to Copps, the "ESA is in the process of gathering market information to possibly expand the ACE-Pest Control program."

If the Board determines that there is sufficient interest, "a similar certification and set of requirements would be developed for Turf and Ornamental professionals. The program would build on the foundation of the existing ACE certification and when complete would be managed by the ESA Director of Certification with the assistance of the ACE oversight committee."

Insects are important pests of turfgrass and ornamental plants, and insect control is an essential component of landscape maintenance.  Having certified professionals, well trained and knowledgeable about these pests and about safe management practices, could go a long way toward making outdoor pest management safer for people and the environment.

If you think this sounds like a good idea, ESA would like to hear from you. Interested persons should contact Chris Stelzig, ESA Director of Certification, cstelzig@entsoc.org.  Ideas and comments are welcome at this time.

This is a busy summer for the Certification Program under Stelzig's guidance. Canadian readers may be interested to know that ESA is developing an ACE pest control certification for Canadian entomologists.  And the ACE-Pest Control exam is undergoing review and updating this summer.  A new exam, with many new questions, should be ready in a couple of months.

A critique of the IPM gospel

The three largest U.S. scientific associations with strong professional connections to integrated pest management (IPM) recently posted a news release that should be of great interest to anyone in the business of pest control. The Entomological Society of America, Weed Science Society of America, and American Phytopathological Society published a position paper last November that, while it has not received a lot of attention in the press or the industry (let's face it, IPM is not the sexyist topic), takes careful aim at some favorite concepts embraced by the  IPM community.  While the statement may read like heresy to some IPM supporters, I believe their arguments are well-thought out, and worthy of consideration by everyone with a stake in pest control.

First, a little historical background.  The IPM concept was first embraced by agricultural scientists, and later by those involved in urban pest control. The earliest versions of IPM emphasized the use of both chemical and biological methods of pest control. As IPM matured, it accepted that the judicious use of pesticides was desirable, as long as every effort was made to minimize the environmental and safety impacts of pesticide use--an approach still followed by most of those in production agriculture.  

As IPM evolved it was embraced by the environmental community and by regulators, and eventually by urban pest management professionals. Along the way IPM jargon, and the way it was implemented, also evolved.  One of the most influential modern attempts to articulate the IPM concept for human-occupied structures was the 1993 EPA publication, Pest Control in the School Environment: Adopting Integrated Pest Management. In this publication (painstakingly crafted by environmentalists, the EPA and the National Pest Management Association), the judicious use of pesticides was endorsed as long as the "least toxic and most effective and efficient technique[s] and material[s]" were used. This seemed to be a compromise that all parties could live with, and everyone seemed happy.

Over these past twenty years the idea that "least toxic methods" should be part of the definition of IPM has reached the status of gospel. The term "least toxic pesticides" and "least toxic methods" is ubiquitous in IPM policy statements and even governmental rules and regulations. Its authority is rarely challenged by industry, academia or politicians--after all who wants to argue that schools or government agencies or your local PMP should use anything but the least toxic products?

Most of us have been taught to avoid "rushing in where angels fear to tread", but that's just what these three societies did by taking a stance against the "least toxic pesticide" concept.  It's not that my scientific colleagues are against the use of low toxicity pesticides, their argument is with the increasingly common insistence that "only 'least toxic pesticides'"' be used in IPM programs.

I encourage all to read the statement, but their objections boil down to the following:

• The term "least toxic" is too imprecise, and subject to misinterpretation by the public and by professionals alike. I can personally attest that many people wrongly equate "least toxic" with "organic" and "natural" (neither of which have any necessary connection to the least toxic concept--many natural chemicals are highly toxic). 
• Toxicity is not the same as "risk". An active ingredient can be highly toxic, but when diluted or made into a formulation that is highly unlikely to result in a human exposure, its use can be low risk. What consumers and regulators and parents should be most concerned about, when it comes to pesticides, is risk. 
• Least toxic to what? If an insecticide is low in toxicity to bees is it necessarily low in toxicity to dogs or humans or song birds? The least toxic concept presumes that pesticides fall neatly into a gradient of products range from those low in toxicity to everything to those that are high in toxicity to everything. They don't. 
• If only the least toxic products are used, this limits what can be done to manage pesticide resistance. A policy that rejects the possible use of 90%, say, of the available pesticide products leaves a much depleted tool belt, increasing the risk of pests developing resistance to the one or few remaining products. 
• The least toxic products are not always the most effective products. Indeed, if toxicity is the main selection criterion, then effectiveness is by necessity relegated to a secondary role. In many cases this means more applications of the least toxic product will be needed. Fuel, labor, pesticide exposure times and materials costs (none of which are environmentally desirable) will always increase with the need for more frequent pesticide interventions.

In case you think this is much ado about nothing, consider the wording of the Texas Occupations Code where it lays out the requirements for school IPM in my state.  The language of this code has been used as a model for other states' IPM regulations.  It directs the state to "include in standards adopted under this section: (1) a requirement to use the least toxic methods available to control pests, rodents, insects, and weeds..." The potential negative impacts of this language were blunted when Texas state regulators adopted a liberal set of regulations that allowed use of any pesticide in schools, but required schools to justify in writing the use of products identified as higher risk pesticides. In practice, this soft-handed approach has resulted in schools using lower risk insecticide approaches, without restricting choices. Other states and communities have seen regulatory language not so friendly to pesticide choice.

I have great sympathy with policy makers trying to encourage homeowners and pest management professionals to use the lowest risk, effective pesticides.  On the other hand, I agree with the ESA/WSSA/APA critique of the "least toxic" concept. The hard part is coming up with better approach that encourages pesticide applicators to use good judgement when selecting pesticides and pesticide formulations to supplement biological and other non-chemical controls.

For their part the societies point readers to the National IPM Roadmap as a source of guidance. The Roadmap was developed ten years ago and used as a guidance document by the USDA in developing a national plan to improve and encourage the adoption of IPM. Significantly, this roadmap does not use the term "least toxic" or "use of pesticides as a last resort", but emphasizes IPM as a process that identifies and reduces risks from both pests and pest management related strategies (including pesticides).

The second target of the society position paper is that idea that pesticides should be used only as "tools of last resort". But that will be the topic of another post.

Entomology in Knoxville: Bed bugs, Ants and Others

Bed bugs remained one of the most frequent subjects of
new research reports at the annual ESA meetings.

Continuing my earlier report on goings on at the Entomological Society of America's annual conference...

Total release foggers

In addition to health-related papers, urban entomology sessions covered many practical aspects of pest control. North Carolina State's Coby Schal, one of the top guns in urban entomology, reported on the first field study of total release foggers (bug bombs) for cockroach control. You may have heard of a parallel study done this year by Susan Jones at Ohio State University. She conducted a set of laboratory experiments with total release foggers (TRFs) against bed bugs, the results of which she recently spoke about on PCT's multimedia website.  She found that field collected strains of bed bugs were essentially immune to three common over-the-counter pyrethroid TRFs, and that even highly pesticide susceptible lab strains were largely able to survive when give basic cover as simple as a piece of paper.

Schal pointed out that TRFs are frequently misused by the public, causing four to eight home explosions per year in New York City alone. His lab looked at the impact of two TRFs on both naturally occurring cockroach populations and on "sentinel" cockroaches (lab reared cockroaches contained in open, escape-proof containers) placed in multiple locations in the treated apartments.  While the foggers did kill the pesticide-susceptible, lab-reared cockroaches, they provided little to no control of wild cockroaches (with 200-fold resistance to pyrethroids). In some treated apartments wild cockroach populations actually increased during the test. It will be interesting to see if the U.S. reevaluates registrations for TRFs in the next few years given the safety issues and dismal data coming out of university labs around the country concerning their use.

Bed bug repellents?

Conventional wisdom suggests that there are no repellents that can be sprayed on the skin to prevent bed bugs from taking a blood meal. However Changlu Wang, of Rutgers University, says "not so fast". He looked at the problem from a different angle, pointing out that there are two possible uses for repellents. Besides the traditional use of repellents applied to the skin to keep insects from biting, repellents may also be used off-host to keep bed bugs from climbing onto beds, suitcases, or other inanimate objects.  

Wang and colleagues looked at this second use. They chose several repellents including DEET, permethrin, picaridin, isolongifolenone, and other potential repellents. Although several products showed repellency, DEET was the overall winner. At 10% and 25% concentration, bed bugs were repelled from Climbup Interceptors (guarding a table with a CO2 lure) for 9 hours and 2 weeks, respectively.  While the practical use of repellents in the real world needs more experimentation, this is useful information.  DEET could conceivably be used as a repellent on some shoes (it does dissolve some plastics, so user beware) or booties to reduce the risk of hitchhiking bed bugs being picked up by technicians (or researchers!).  I expect that eventually bed bug control will be supplemented by the use of repellents as a quarantine tool or for "push-pull" tactics to get bed bugs to go where we want them to go (say, to treated harborages).  Wang cautioned that bed bug behavior may be different around a host where attraction to a live host may overcome the repellent effects he saw.

Standardized bed bug testing

One of the biggest applied bed bug research challenges today is how to standardize insecticide testing. It is common knowledge that results for nearly any insecticide can be fairly easily manipulated by selecting the right strains and using protocols that show more or less bed bug mortality. The challenge is to find protocols that are more or less predictive of a product's performance in the field. Mark Feldlaufer, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture/ARS, reported on progress being made to verify fair, standardized testing methods. This research will support the EPA in its efforts to develop standardized test protocols.

He noted that there are currently 318 insecticide formulations registered for bed bug control, 90% of which include pyrethroid insecticides. He noted that not all pyrethroids are equal, and cited as an example transfluthrin (currently unregistered in the U.S.). Transfluthrin has a high vapor pressure, which most PMP realize is likely to provide better control in difficult to reach areas like voids and crevices.  He also noted that a new combination product (metofluthrin plus clothianidin) is in the insecticide pipeline for bed bugs.

Among the USDA findings were that male and female bed bugs are approximately equal in insecticide susceptibility. This finding could allow researchers to use only one sex in tests (avoiding mortality problems with  traumatic insemination by males on females) rather than the 50/50 ratio currently recommended. Also, test results did not significantly change after seven days, suggesting that tests could be terminated after this time.

How to classify and handle insecticide exposed bed bugs is an issue for anyone who has conducted bed bug trials. USDA classified insecticide-exposed bed bugs as alive (A), dead (D), or morbid/moribund (M/M).  The latter group consisted of bed bugs that were not completely dead, but did not behave normally or respond normally to probing. They found that if placed on untreated surfaces after exposure, between 7 and 77% of the moribund bed bugs recovered compared to 100% mortality of M/M bed bugs left on treated surfaces. This information should be useful in helping EPA decide how to require M/M to be handled. It is fascinating, and alarming, how slight differences in the way test subjects are handled and classified can dramatically influence test results.

Other interesting reports

• Susan Jones (Ohio State) reported positive results controlling bed bugs with a new neem formulation (CIRKIL), which, PCT magazine reports, will be available in the U.S. this fall.
• Joe DeMark (Dow AgroScience) reported on field testing of a new Recruit AG above ground bait station for termites. This product will carry 254 grams (one pound) of bait matrix per station. Of nine sites on which it was tested, all termite colonies were determined to be eliminated within four months.
• Mike Rust (University of California, Riverside) reported on studies with the Turkestan cockroach, a species spreading throughout the southwestern states (CA to TX). They found that the Turkestan cockroach is better adapted to dry situations than the oriental cockroach, especially at higher temperatures, and may be expected to displace Oriental cockroaches in hot, dry situations.
• Karen Vail (University of Tennessee) tested insecticides on odorous house ant.  She found fipronil provided slightly superior control to Talstar, and she observed 2-4 weeks control with the new Arilon insecticide (indoxacarb).  She also found that sprays applied with backpack sprayers targeting ant trails and structural guidelines (gutters, ledges, etc.) were as effective in controlling ants as high-volume power sprays.
• Dini Miller (Virginia Tech) reported that a 2011 National Apartment Association survey found bed bugs as the number one concern among apartment owners (beating out concerns over property taxes). Besides control expenses, additional costs due to bed bugs include carpet wraps (to contain bed bugs on infested carpets during removal), need for heavier duty paint (to better cover fecal spots on walls), delays in rental payments, increased evictions, more abuse from residents, and loss of reputation in the community. Twenty states now have laws addressing responsibility for treatment costs for bed bugs.
• In a study reported in the May 2012 issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, researchers from Nebraska tested the effectiveness of chlorine dioxide gas as a fumigant for bed bugs. You may remember chlorine dioxide as the gas used in US governmental facilities after the 2001 anthrax attacks. It proved to penetrate cracks and crevices well and kill bed bugs effectively. Chlorine dioxide is used in hospitals for germ control and might find a niche use for battling bed bug infestations in medical settings.
• Margie Lehnert, Clemson University, described a simple but (I thought) ingenious technique for studying bed bug population dynamics. She used nylon stockings inside a HEPA vacuum hose attachment to collect small bed bug aggregations in infested apartments. Once an aggregation is sucked up, the stocking can be removed and tied off and returned to the lab for counting. In this way Lehnert has developed a powerful tool to study population patterns and, perhaps, better infer reasons for bed bug dispersal away from beds. 
• Chris Keefer, Texas A&M University, presented some of the first data I've seen on the invasive, and difficult to control, dark rover ant. This ant is thought to have entered the U.S. from Argentina in Louisiana in 1978. It is now common through most of the southern states.  Keefer, after some difficulty,  has figured out how to colonize these ants in the lab. Using his lab ants he was able to compare the effectiveness of three baits: Terro PCO gel (98% control), Advance Ant Gel (88% control) and Advance Granular Bait (large granules) (58.81% control). The best residual insecticide treatments he found during an outdoor field trial were Demand CS and Temprid, which gave 84% and 82% control, respectively. This confirms what I've heard some PMPs say about effective treatments for these ants.

Of course much more went on in Knoxville than I can report (curse those concurrent sessions!). If I've done no more than convey how exhausting it is to sit for 50 paper sessions (my count), I've given you a taste of what it's like to be there.  Next year's meetings are scheduled to be in Austin, TX, so I encourage some of my Texas colleagues to consider attending. This year the ESA planned a special event for PMPs, including an ACE prep class. Stay tuned for PMP programs for 2013.

Entomology in Knoxville: Human health

3000 entomologists swarmed to the 2012 ESA annual conference
in scenic Knoxville, TN.  Over 1800 papers and 600 posters reported
on all aspects of  the science, including urban entomology.

Every year I try to attend the Entomological Society of America's annual conference. It's one of the largest gatherings of entomologists you'll find anywhere in the world, and there's always a lot to learn.  I also try each year to give you my readers a little taste of what the meetings are like, and what's new in the structural pest control field. In this post I wanted to cover some of the human health-related papers.

Delusions of Parasitosis 

One of the many meeting symposia at ESA was dedicated to the subject of delusions of parasitosis, a condition where people delude themselves into believing that non-existent insects are on them, or in their bodies, or infesting their home. This is a relatively common problem across the country. Cynthia Lord and Roxanne Connelly with the University of Florida reported handling 338 probable cases of delusions of parasitosis (where no insects were ever found) over 13 years of Extension work--approximately two per month (this frequency of contact is very similar to what I  encounter at my office in Dallas, TX). Dr. Nancy Hinkle at the University of Georgia sees even more cases, up to 3-4 people per week, to the point where she has hired a patient psychiatrist to assist her with handling such visitors. All speakers at the symposium agreed that such calls are extremely time-consuming, and rarely result in a satisfactory outcome without the intervention of family or skilled medical professionals.

Recent authors have criticized a published article claiming
to have seen springtails in human skin scrapings. 

Earnest Barnard, entomologist with the University of Tennesse, debunked the idea (prevalent on the Internet) that Collembola (springtails) might be responsible for some mystery bug cases.  Dr. Barnard, who is an expert on the Collembola, noted that springtail mouthparts are retracted into the head and are incapable of burrowing into skin as some have suggested. He addressed a scientific paper purporting to have found Collembola in skin scrapings from patients diagnosed with delusions of parasitosis. His study of the paper showed that the authors manipulated electron micrographs to create images that look like a Collembola. He noted that the purported parasites were far too small to be real Collembola, based on the paper's own size measurements. A website at the University of California - Davis does a good job of showing all known human skin parasites and critically evaluating the misinformation so common on the Internet.

Lynn Kimsey, with the University of California - Davis, noted the lack of cross-communication among disciplines concerning delusions of parasitosis. She looked at some of the underlying causes of unexplained itching and broke them into four categories: peripheral (e.g, resulting from solar elastosis and other skin disorders, autoimmune disease, bites, contact dermatitis), neurogenic (e.g., the result of drug side effects), psychogenic (e.g., hallucinations, delusions, OCD), or pathogenic (symptoms resulting from an organic disease, such as diabetes). She suggested that entomologists should advise clients to avoid telling their doctor that they believe they have skin parasites when describing their symptoms. In this way the doctor is less likely to dismiss the complaint as psychological and more likely to consider a wider spectrum of possible causes for creeping, itching and biting sensations on the skin. She suggested referring mystery bug clientele to internal medicine specialists, especially those with an emphasis on neuromedicine, as these doctors tend to take a more wholistic view of the patient than the average dermatologist or GP. All speakers agreed that entomologists should avoid referring to "bites" when discussing mysterious skin lesions with a client, avoiding reinforcement of what is frequently a false perception.

Urban Highlights of 2012

Sometimes these meetings are a good opportunity to catch up on "older" research--research that may have been conducted a year or two earlier, but is just now getting published. Roberto Pereira, of the University of Florida, devoted a session to reviewing the highlights of urban entomology in 2012. According to two studies published this year from North Carolina State University, bed bug populations around the U.S. are very diverse genetically, but often very similar genetically within communities and especially within apartment complexes. These data suggest that bed bugs have been introduced many times into the U.S. from different foreign sources. They concluded that nearly all the studied infestations in isolated apartment complexes were started by a small starter infestation, possibly consisting of a singly mated female and/or her progeny. What's cool about these studies is how the ability to peer into the DNA of bed bugs is giving us new insight into how these insects spread--something we could only speculate about a few years ago. One of the two studies authors, Ed Vargo, elaborated on these findings later in the meeting. After looking at 61 populations in 21 states they believe there is a strong international connection between bed bug populations in the U.S. and Canada and Europe.

In other bed bug literature, a couple of papers explored the mental health impact of bed bugs.  Goddard and deShazo report in the American Journal of Medicine that many people experience symptoms similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following bouts with bed bugs.  Susser and colleagues from Canada reported in the online journal BMJ Open a variety of anxiety, sleep disturbance and even depression associated with bed bug infestations.

Finally, at least one lawyer this year suggested that OSHA should be more interested in bed bugs. He argued in the Toxics Law Reporter that the ability of bed bugs to harbor certain blood borne parasites puts workers in the pest control, hospitality and housing industries at increased risk of infection. This idea should be of interest all of us who have ever smashed bed bugs with ungloved (or gloved) hands. What this would likely mean to our industry, should OSHA get involved, would be increased training requirements for employees and need to provide technicians with additional safety gear--some of which is probably not a bad idea.

ACE program gets a review

The Entomological Society of America announced today the first major review of the ACE program since it was first introduced in 2004.

The ACE program continues to grow as the primary certification option for individuals working in urban pest management.  Even as ACE candidates must take an exam to be qualified to wear the ACE patch, occasionally even certifying agencies also need a test.

According to Chris Stelzig, Director of Certification for the Entomological Society of America, the ACE program has grown since its beginning at an average annual rate of 38%. "It was time to examine the program and make sure the program itself and the content of the exam are up-to-date and meets standards for all certification programs."

To learn more about the ACE program, click here.

The Bed Bug Chronicles: Part I

Lake Tahoe is only a short drive from the casinos of Reno.

One of the meetings I try to make every year is the Entomological Society of America annual conference.  It's the only place in the world where you can see more entomologists than bugs in a given day--over 2400 of them this year.  This year's meeting took place in Reno, the prettier of the two big gambling destinations in Nevada.

The ESA conference is lots of great information packed into a grueling marathon of paper sessions that seem to go on forever.  So today you're the lucky ones because you get to experience ESA without the gluteus maximus crampus (sore patootie).

For a week there were more entomologists than insects
in Reno.

This year's bed bug theme is a continuation of last year, though I think the papers and the research are getting better scientifically every year.  Of course no one person can take in the whole conference, so my highlights are admittedly selective.  There were many good talks on urban entomology that I did not attend.

• The lab of Changlu Wang (Rutgers University) continues to be a great source of practical research relating to bed bugs (BB) and other urban pests. This meeting Changlu reported on practical uses of carbon dioxide to control bed bugs. He found that putting 3 lbs of dry ice in a 42 gallon (3 mil-thick) garbage/yard waste plastic bag was sufficient to suffocate all stages of bed bugs in up to 22 lbs of clothes, when held for 24 hours. This amounts to a cost of approximately $4 to disinfest 22 lbs of clothes or other items that would fit in the bag. This adds another practical method for do-it-yourselfers looking for an inexpensive way to ensure disinfestation of personal items.
• In a related study, Dini Miller from Virginia Tech, found that Nuvan Prostrips (dichlorvos) achieved incomplete BB adult (4%), nymph (6%) and egg (45%) mortality when used at the label rate on clothing in 42 gal. yard waste bags. On hard items (e.g., books, computers, shoes and other personal items) Nuvan strips at the label rate achieved 48% mortality for adult BBs, 84% mortality for nymphs and 100% mortality for eggs. [According to Miller, to follow the label rate for a 42 gal. bag, one must cut a single Nuvan strip into 22 pieces (1/22 strip/bag)] If a whole strip is used in the bag (22X label rate), and the strip is held for 14 days, all nymphs and adults were killed, but only 63% of eggs were killed. Nuvan is commonly used as a fumigant by our industry, and does kill BBs; however this study suggests that it will not guarantee a kill of all BB life stages, even at higher than label rates (which we would, of course, never suggest).
  
• Susan Jones from Ohio State University tested bed bugs from six populations (five pyrethroid resistant populations, and one susceptible population) and found that three commonly sold “bug bombs” (total release aerosols) were ineffective in killing resistant bed bugs (0-30% mortality) held in open containers only 2-7 feet away from the aerosol emitter. The susceptible strain (unlikely to be found today in the field) was killed (100% mortality) under the same conditions.
       When provided with harborage to hide in during application, even the susceptible strain had very low (10-15%) mortality. These results confirm current recommendations by most Extension publications that “bug bombs” do not provide effective control for bed bugs for consumers.
  
• Joell Olson, of Ecolab in MN, reported on the effectiveness of cold temperatures for killing BBs. She found the egg stage to be the most resistant to cold. Her research suggested that items to be disinfested be held in a chest freezer (<= -13 degrees C) for a minimum of four days. This is longer than previously reported freezing times for BBs. 
• Many conference participants came away from the meeting with a greater appreciation for bed bug resistance to commonly used insecticides. Pyrethroid-resistant BBs are now predominant throughout the United States, with few susceptible populations remaining. Although I was unable to attend many of the resistance papers, I did catch one by Reina Koganemaru, a PhD student Dini Miller’s lab (Virginia Tech). With the aid of scanning electron microscopy she documented increased cuticle thickness in pyrethroid resistant bed bugs. Steven Kells (University of Minnesota) collected a different kind of data that supports Koganemaru's findings. Using both BBs and German cockroaches, Kells exposed both pests to Phantom insecticide (chlorfenapyr). He then washed and cut up his subjects and found 9X more insecticide on the outside of bed bugs compared to cockroaches. Similarly 9X more insecticide was found internally in the cockroaches compared to BBs. So, in addition to known target site (kdr) and enzyme-based detoxification resistance mechanisms, resistant bed bugs are thick-skinned as well. This suggests to me that surfactants/penetrants added to current bed bug insecticides might be one way to increase the effectiveness of existing products.
• I unexpectedly came away from this meeting with a much greater appreciation for the role of bacteria in entomology. Bacteria got my attention during the Founder’s Memorial Award lecture by Angela Douglas, from Cornell University. In talking about the role of bacteria in the bodies of insects, Dr. Douglas stunned me with the fact that 90% of the cells in an insect are bacteria (the same ratio is reported for humans). This is possible because of the tiny size of bacteria compared to the cells in our bodies. The relationship between insects and bacteria is far more complex and important to the ecology of pest control than I’d previously appreciated. Wolbachia, an intracellular parasite (lives in the cells of its hosts) is a type of rickettsial bacteria that has now been found in bed bugs. This same genus plays an important role in mosquito biology and reproduction. In some cases, Wolbachia has evolved to play important symbiotic roles (beneficial to both host and parasite) in insects. For example, some mosquitoes are unable to reproduce successfully without this bacterium in their bodies, while males of some mosquitoes are rendered sterile by Wolbachia infections. We don’t know exactly what roles Wolbachia plays in the ecology of bed bugs, but its presence opens up some doors for possible biological control options for bed bugs. Indeed Wolbachia is thought to play a role in the bed bug immune system. Remove Wolbachia and the survivorship of bed bugs goes way down after traumatic insemination (the bed bug equivalent of rough sex).

My next post I will cover some of the papers related to monitoring for bed bugs.

What's the connection between IPM and mental health?

I returned last week from the annual conference of the Entomological Society of America--or, as I heard it referred to by a (non-entomologist) hotel visitor, "that Bug's Life group". With over 3100 attendees this year the ESA meeting is probably the largest gathering of professional entomologists in the world, with papers ranging from highly technical reports on new molecular biology techniques to an artist's perspective on the aesthetic beauty of insects.  Regardless of your interest or background, there's always something of interest at ESA.

While a number of sessions and talks were devoted to bed bugs this year, one of the most interesting perspectives I heard was from Dr. Christiana Bratiotis of the Boston University School of Social Work.  She addressed a symposium on how to engage people from diverse backgrounds in urban IPM. Bratiotis's expertise is on hoarding behavior, but she addressed the wider question of how to recognize and deal with people who, for a variety of physical or mental reasons, pose a special challenge to the PMP. 

Making IPM work, Bratiotis said, is especially difficult when pest control customers suffer from a variety of mental and emotional disorders, cognitive limitations, and limitations due to age. Some of the primary mental illnesses likely to be encountered by anyone in the service industry include depression, anxiety, hoarding (of both belongings and animals), schizophrenia and psychoses.  Personality disorders include obsessive-compulsive disorder, histrionics, borderline personalities, and narcissistic personality disorder. In addition, cognitive limitations in the mentally challenged and older adults, as well as visual and hearing deficits in many people can lead to difficulties with communication and getting clients to recognize and report pest control problems.

Mental health disorders, especially, can lead to unexpected encounters with a pest control technician, such as the violently angry customer, or the customer hallucinating about unseen pests in walls or crawling on skin at night (delusory parasitosis).   Add to this that the PMP may be one of the few visitors that a depressed or reclusive person may have in his or her home for months (even years), and the stage is set for some interesting interactions.

Mental health problems are far more common that most of us realize.  According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, approximately 6% of the U.S. adult population suffers from severe mental illness.  Over 26% of American adults experience some form of mental disorder in any given 12 month period.  The chance of any of us experiencing a mental disorder of some form over our lifetime is approximately 46%. Clearly, this is not a minor issue.

The relevance of Bratiotis's paper to pest management is obvious, yet I'd wager that most of us in the pest control industry rarely give much thought to how many of our clientele are struggling with mental and emotional health issues.  I know I tend to approach most people with the attitude that they will be just like me--that they will have the same needs and desires, that they will approach problems rationally, and they will be looking for solutions in their own and others' best interests. Sadly, this is not a valid assumption for many people.

If your company's PMPs interact with dozens to hundreds of people daily, having tools and skills to recognize and deal with mental health issues is essential.  If you're an employer with one or more employees, you need skills to recognize and deal with mental illness within your staff as well.  This point came home tragically to the Dallas pest control community last August, when an employee of one of our local companies shot and killed a co-worker in an incident almost certainly due to mental illness.

According to Bratiotis, learning a few simple phrases or techniques can, in many cases, help a PMP better deal with customers who are not acting or thinking rationally.  For the person with obsessive-compulsive disorder, who is fearful that they must perform in a specific manner to get rid of pests, affirmation is important.  Assure them that things don't have to be done perfectly to make a big improvement.  For the emotionally unstable or angry customer the best response may be, "I can see you're not doing well today.  I'll come back when you're feeling better." A self-centered (narcissistic) person should be affirmed and empowered to be part of the pest control solution.

Recognize that some problem clients may simply be visually- or auditory-impaired.  Such limitations do not necessarily imply cognitive (thinking) disorder or mental illness, but they can present similar challenges for the PMP.  Visually-impaired clients may not be able to read notices or see the bed bugs or cockroaches in their home.  Auditory-impaired clients may not hear instructions or reports, even though they nod or imply that they do.  Technicians should be aware and on the lookout that some clients will fall in these categories, and will need extra help.

In many cases outside help may be called for.  Letting the apartment manager know what's going on with a problem tenant is important for multi-family housing accounts.  Elderly or mentally challenged customers may need a personal care attendant or access to support services that can help with residence clean-up.  Extreme cases of hoarding will likely also require the help of a professional. 

Additional suggestions include:

• Help identify resource people or agencies that can help a physically or mentally challenged person (this means educating yourself about the social and mental health resources in your community).
• Schedule ongoing follow-up and monitoring. Knowing that someone cares and plans to return can make a significant difference in rate of compliance with challenged customers.
• When making sanitation recommendations to challenged customers, break suggestions down into manageable tasks.  Breaking a recommendation into small steps can make all the difference between progress and paralysis.
• Realize that many of your customers may be struggling with mental and physical challenges that may not be immediately apparent.  Liberal praise and encouragement  is especially important for these customers when they make an effort to participate in the IPM effort.

Finally, get to know some of the mental health professionals in your community.  These folks may be willing to conduct awareness training and provide resources for your staff.  Conversely, your knowledge and expertise may be of value to the health care community.  It was obvious to me after last week's paper that we in the IPM business need to communicate more with social workers and mental health physicians.