3 ms·

It’s a good question. I treated my own apartment building for roaches many years ago, five years later had a completely healthy kid, she’s 8 now. For the sake o

by wincy 3y ago

It’s a good question. I treated my own apartment building for roaches many years ago, five years later had a completely healthy kid, she’s 8 now. For the sake of full disclosure, my second kid has a pretty major birth defect (spina bifida) but this was after the first healthy kid and before we developed a roach problem at our current house (one of the home care nurses actually brought them in) and treated for that, and many many years after I’d stopped being an exterminator, so the timelines of exposure -> birth defect don’t really line up. The spray isn’t an aerosol, you apply it under corners and in places kids shouldn’t be able to reach. I’m not a chemist, but I know you’d have a real bad time if you drank it straight.

bee_rider 3y ago
I always worry about the poisons for creatures that want our food because, well, they seem likely to track it into the place we keep our food! But I guess the plan is mostly not to eat food from containers that the roaches have gotten into in the first place.
- wincy 3y ago
  Indeed, chemicals are scary, we trashed our entire pantry. It’s just not worth the risk. When you spray the focus for roaches is generally on cracks and crevices though, places roaches like to hang out and places humans shouldn’t be very often. It took about three months after spraying the growth regulator to have them fully disappear from the house.
- tzs 3y ago
  From what I've found online about IGRs they mimic hormones that control parts of the insect's life cycle. They might, say, cause something to happen earlier or later than it naturally should have occurred. There are many things in an insect's life cycle that have to occur at the right time for the insect to reach adulthood and reproduce. Screwing up the timing doesn't kill the young insect, but if it makes it so it will never reproduce. Keep doing that to the insects in a place for a few generations and they die out. Most of us probably do not want to do this, but cockroaches are in fact edible by humans. If IGRs mimic cockroach hormones, then eating a small amount of cockroach IGRs should not be any worse than eating some cockroaches.
  - voakbasda 3y ago
    Hormones are incredibly potent. It is not safe to conclude that a “small amount” of residue would be safe, as that could still be orders of magnitude more than occurs naturally in a roach.
hackernewds 3y ago
Hm your anecdata is pretty concerning..
- wincy 3y ago
  I don’t disagree with you, but I wasn’t going to exclude it from the discussion. I’m not trying to convince people to use IGRs or other potentially dangerous chemicals. We all have our risk tolerances and while I don’t think it’s related, it’s also worth stating. If I thought there was a correlation, I’d for sure sue. But the birth defect my daughter has is often caused by a lack of vitamin B at a vital part of the gestation process. I hadn’t been an exterminator or sprayed my house for bugs for that matter for over a decade when she was born, and my wife and I had a perfectly healthy kid three years before. The roach treatment in my house occurred years after my daughter with a birth defect was born. The correlation is extremely weak at best. Furthermore, while I’m not saying it’s impossible, but in my mind it feels very unlikely, especially as my wife was never exposed to any of those chemicals. Also, it’s not a genetic defect, which would come from the father, but more a mechanical one in gestation (failure to fully develop and build the spinal cord).
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Anecdata is not a thing. I think this kind of data must be collected systemically, and if it isn’t, it is a failure to ask lawmakers about, not ex-pest-control professionals.
  - mathgeek 3y ago
    Anecdata is recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary [1] and has been around since the 1940s. That being said, the usage here probably doesn't mean what the downvoted commenter was implying. [1] https://www.oed.com/dictionary/anecdata_n https://www.oed.com/dictionary/anecdata_n

by wincy 3y ago

bee_rider 3y ago

I always worry about the poisons for creatures that want our food because, well, they seem likely to track it into the place we keep our food! But I guess the plan is mostly not to eat food from containers that the roaches have gotten into in the first place.

wincy 3y ago
Indeed, chemicals are scary, we trashed our entire pantry. It’s just not worth the risk. When you spray the focus for roaches is generally on cracks and crevices though, places roaches like to hang out and places humans shouldn’t be very often. It took about three months after spraying the growth regulator to have them fully disappear from the house.
tzs 3y ago
From what I've found online about IGRs they mimic hormones that control parts of the insect's life cycle. They might, say, cause something to happen earlier or later than it naturally should have occurred. There are many things in an insect's life cycle that have to occur at the right time for the insect to reach adulthood and reproduce. Screwing up the timing doesn't kill the young insect, but if it makes it so it will never reproduce. Keep doing that to the insects in a place for a few generations and they die out. Most of us probably do not want to do this, but cockroaches are in fact edible by humans. If IGRs mimic cockroach hormones, then eating a small amount of cockroach IGRs should not be any worse than eating some cockroaches.
- voakbasda 3y ago
  Hormones are incredibly potent. It is not safe to conclude that a “small amount” of residue would be safe, as that could still be orders of magnitude more than occurs naturally in a roach.

hackernewds 3y ago

Hm your anecdata is pretty concerning..

wincy 3y ago
I don’t disagree with you, but I wasn’t going to exclude it from the discussion. I’m not trying to convince people to use IGRs or other potentially dangerous chemicals. We all have our risk tolerances and while I don’t think it’s related, it’s also worth stating. If I thought there was a correlation, I’d for sure sue. But the birth defect my daughter has is often caused by a lack of vitamin B at a vital part of the gestation process. I hadn’t been an exterminator or sprayed my house for bugs for that matter for over a decade when she was born, and my wife and I had a perfectly healthy kid three years before. The roach treatment in my house occurred years after my daughter with a birth defect was born. The correlation is extremely weak at best. Furthermore, while I’m not saying it’s impossible, but in my mind it feels very unlikely, especially as my wife was never exposed to any of those chemicals. Also, it’s not a genetic defect, which would come from the father, but more a mechanical one in gestation (failure to fully develop and build the spinal cord).
bee_rider 3y ago
Anecdata is not a thing. I think this kind of data must be collected systemically, and if it isn’t, it is a failure to ask lawmakers about, not ex-pest-control professionals.
- mathgeek 3y ago
  Anecdata is recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary [1] and has been around since the 1940s. That being said, the usage here probably doesn't mean what the downvoted commenter was implying. [1] https://www.oed.com/dictionary/anecdata_n https://www.oed.com/dictionary/anecdata_n