Pyrethroid label changes hit the streets soon

You can recognize a pyrethroid insecticide by
reading the active ingredient list.  Pyrethroid
common names end with  the suffixes "-thrin"
(such as bifenthrin) or -ate (such as esfenvalerate).

The past few years has seen a major shift in the insecticides the pest control industry uses to provide long-term, residual control of general insect pests.  In the 1990s and early 2000s, chlorpyrifos, diazinon and assorted other organophosphate (OP) and carbamate insecticides dominated much of the pest management professional and consumer pesticide markets. Passage of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, and a conscious effort by U.S. EPA regulators to wean the country from OPs, created a regulatory environment that favored pesticides with lower toxicity potential for human and wildlife. Indeed, a recent study by Alison Clune and colleagues from Emory University provides experimental evidence that levels of OP metabolites in human urine decreased significantly between 1999 and 2004.

This decline in OP and carbamate use in pest control opened the door for increased use of pyrethroid insecticides. For the most part, pyrethroids have proven to be good substitutes for the older insecticides; however in recent years there have been growing concerns that pyrethroids might not be as environmentally safe as originally thought. Specifically, pyrethroid residues are increasingly being found in sediment at the bottom of urban streams and rivers, where they are toxic to some aquatic insects and other invertebrates.

What this means for the average pest control technician is that there will be changes over the next few months in wording on all pyrethroid labels to minimize the risk of stormwater contamination from structural pest control.  PestWeb just published a nice summary of the new rules and timelines for implementation, and the Pyrethroid Working Group (a pesticide industry coalition) also summarized the upcoming changes and offers the opportunity to sign up for email alerts on changes to regulatory alerts on pyrethroid insecticides.

It's always important to read pesticide labels, but this change means that all PMPs should be especially alert to changes in the labels of these commonly used products.  The biggest changes will be in how pyrethroids are applied to outdoor impervious surfaces. All applications made to sidewalks, driveways, patios, porches and structural surfaces (such as windows, doors, and eaves) will be limited to spot and crack-and-crevice applications only (around windows and doorways this is defined as a spray band no more than a one-inch wide). In addition, if you are in the habit of using pyrethroid insecticides to treat sewer lids or walls for cockroaches, this type of application will be specifically prohibited.

Like a search for an honest man

When I started working as an extension entomologist I began a collection of books and files containing all the pesticide labels that I might have to reference in the course of answering questions from the public. Today I've pretty much trashed all the hard copies of labels in my office, because nearly everything is available online.

This doesn't mean, however, that finding things is easy.

What got me thinking about this was an email announcing EPA's latest update of their search engine called the Pesticide Product Labeling System (PPLS). According to the email, PPLS is a collection of over 170,000 current and historical pesticide product labels that have been approved by EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs under FIFRA.

The newest version of PPLS contains enhanced features to help you locate labels and label information you might need. For example, you can:

• Search by product name
• Search by company name
• Search by EPA Registration Number
• View labels in PDF format
• Search label content
• View the history of products that have been transferred from one company to another

It seems to me that the ability to quickly trace an EPA Registration number is a useful feature here, especially when trying to decode a service ticket where the number was given, but not the actual label name or formulation. The history function of this website is also interesting. For example, if I want to see how a Termidor 80WG label read from 2001, I could look that up. You can also read the cover letter from the manufacturer explaining what amendments were made to each label revision. 

I guess this is something that would be useful to lawyers, so it's good to know that it's out there; but the EPA site still doesn't quite do it for me.  If I know what I want to kill, or where I want to treat, and want to see my product options, it doesn't provide any help.  It's not a full featured database.

When PCT online announced it's search tool I thought I had found the holy grail of label search engines for structural pest control. You have the option of searching by manufacturer, formulation, site, pest, state or product name.  The problem is that it doesn't work very well.  When I searched for cockroach baits, for example, it only retrieved two products--a JT Eaton boric acid insecticide dust (not a bait?) and a Nisus Triple Shot Bait Station.  What happened to Avert and MaxForce and Advion and the dozens of other cockroach baits out there?

Univar's Pest Web also provides a product catalog and manufacturer links on their website.  Both of these are useful, especially the product catalog which allows you to search for all products by a manufacturer, or all products in a certain category like "insect growth regulators".  But that's about as far as it goes.

Agricultural pesticides have their good databases such as Greenbook, CDMS and CropLife Foundation; but no such (up-to-date) service seems to exist for structural pest control.  

While searching for a specific label has gotten easier with the Internet age, looking for a list of available products to solve a problem has not.  The search for a good search engine is a lot like a search for an honest man. We're all still looking.