4 ms·
DDT hasn't been effective against bedbugs since the '40s - long before the ban. Use any pesticide long enough and the target will tend to develop a resistance.
by gamble 16y ago
DDT hasn't been effective against bedbugs since the '40s - long before the ban. Use any pesticide long enough and the target will tend to develop a resistance. Now it just agitates bedbugs and makes them more active.
- hga 16y agoHas this been tested on the current bed bug population? Such resistance tend to come at a cost that makes the organism otherwise less fit and removal of the selection pressure can change the population. Also, how much of the current population started from ... imports, as it were? Anyway, as I understand it, the EPA has outlawed the use of all pesticides that really work on bed bugs, so the problem's a lot wider than DDT. It's just that our insane fixation on the eeeevils of DDT make it the iconic pesticide we've managed to ban (at the mere cost of 10s of millions of lives).