BED BUGS WITH IMMUNITY INFEST WITH IMPUNITY

I know the above title sounds silly: I have already been told that more than once, but I hope it stimulates some interest in reading further and permitting me the opportunity to explain. The not so silly part of this is it is true and highlights what has become the 800 pound gorilla in the room, for the manufacturers of poisonous pyrethroid based pesticides. An article appearing in the Wall Street Journal on January 11, 2011 and written by Robert Hortz discussed a recent study conducted by entomologists at Ohio State University and finding that” bed bugs are evolving to withstand the pesticides used to combat them”. In an amazing story of genetic survival it was discovered that somehow bed bugs have evolved the specific ability to boost their natural defenses, by generating higher levels of certain enzymes that then cleanse them of poisons. Now I have often heard it be said that one day if an apocalyptic event would occur, destroying all life on earth, there would still be cockroaches left alive crawling out of the ashes. Well it seems a slight revision is in order to this theory, as it would appear that bed bugs would also survive and my guess is they would begin evolving the ability to feed on cockroaches. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have now found that New York City bed bugs are 250 times more resistant to standard pesticides than bed bugs in Florida and that bed bugs around the world have developed a resistance to the chemicals used to control them. Furthermore other studies have determined that bed bugs have evolved three improved biochemical defenses against common pesticides, nerve cells better able to withstand the chemical effects, higher levels of detoxification enzymes, and a thicker shell that better blocks insecticides. The bottom line and terrible irony to all of this is bed bugs have been using the very chemicals employed to kill them, to actually make themselves stronger. Laboratory tests in the U.S, Europe and Africa have found that bed bugs are surviving pesticide levels a thousand times greater than the lethal dose of a decade ago. Manufacturers and hence the consumer end users of those products can no longer be certain that the product will even work to kill the bed bugs and manufacturers are forced to come up with new versions of their poisons, to replace the ones that no longer are effective against the bed bugs. I can think of few worse things a person can do than to have to spray a pyrethroid based poison in their home (read previous blogs on this subject), to combat a bed bug infestation, but there is an even more devastating end to this; how about after spraying that poison you discovered it did not even work against the bed bug infestation and you sprayed a second poison hoping that was effective. It is a pretty fair guess that no matter poison #1 or poison #2, each still maintained the ability to be harmful to humans and pets. The good news is Dr Greengood is the safe100% non-toxic to humans and pets alternative to poisonous pyrethroid based pesticides. Bed bugs are not immune, or susceptible to developing immunity to Dr Greengood’s, as our formula causes the onset of mortality, in the same manner that a “mechanical killing agent “might function. So let’s call a hammer a “mechanical killing agent” and suggest you have just lowered the boom on an unsuspecting bed bug, with your good old Sear’s Craftsman model. A subsequent autopsy of your bed bug victim would of course show that mortality was caused by injuries consistent with the use of a blunt force weapon. If you spray a bed bug with Lights Out and have that same autopsy performed, those results would show that the outer waxy layer of the insect’s exo-skeleton has been removed, thus causing a fatal rupture of said exo-skeleton. Remarkably Dr Greengood functions almost precisely in the same manner as a “mechanical killing agent” and is not subject to the same immune response that bed bugs are developing for neurological agents. The American Academy of Entomological Science has tested our Dr Greengood product and has certified that it begins the onset of bed bug mortality, within minutes, and is effective in eliminating bed bug infestations. The unique residual compounds in our formula adhere to treated surfaces for thirty days and continue to kill all bed bugs that emerge from their hiding places or the nymphs that emerge from newly laid eggs, for that period, thus eliminating the infestation.