>Every time I see the advice to wear insect-repellent every time going outdoors, I wonder whether that's actually good advice, and what the health pros&cons are

>Every time I see the advice to wear insect-repellent every time going outdoors, I wonder whether that's actually good advice, and what the health pros&cons are. The insect repellent isn't just for mosquitos. DEET is fairly effective against ticks and black flies as well, neither of which is particularly fun to deal with. Whether you need to apply it or not depends a lot on the environment and climate but I always keep a bottle of DEET based repellent and Afterbite in the car just in case. >Also suspicious is that protocol is missing. For example, how do you use bug spray, where on body, do you really need it every time you go outside, when do you wash it off and how, what about clothing, why do only sometimes they say not to use such-and-such spray on children and pregnant/nursing women (but other times they don't), does advice differ for urban vs. rural, what are the side effects or adverse interactions to know, etc. There's more then one kind of repellent, and their delivery is going to change the formula as well; lotion isn't going to be be same formulation is an aerosol or manual spray, even if the repellent itself is the same. Is it any real surprise that there isn't going to be some universal direction for application with so much variety?