What Do DDT, Bedbugs, and Immigration Have to Do With Each Other?

Plenty.

I have this habit of seeing a link, putting it into an empy post, and saving it as a draft, “just in case” another story comes along to build on it. This is one of those “build on” situations (there are “only” about 50 others left).

Back in November, the estimable Neo-Neocon noted the resurgence of bedbugs in the US in an article originally in The New York Times, whose report included these paragraphs (bolds are mine):

They’re the scourge of hobo encampments and hot-sheet motels. To impressionable children everywhere, they’re a snippet of nursery rhyme, an abstract foe lurking beneath the covers that emerges when mommy shuts the door at night.

But bedbugs on Park Avenue? Ask the horrified matron who recently found her duplex teeming with the blood-sucking beasts. Or the tenants of a co-op on Riverside Drive who spent $200,000 earlier this month to purge their building of the pesky little thugs. The Helmsley Park Lane was sued two years ago by a welt-covered guest who blamed the hotel for harboring the critters. The suit was quietly settled last year.

And bedbugs, stealthy and fast-moving nocturnal creatures that were all but eradicated by DDT after World War II, have recently been found in hospital maternity wards, private schools and even a plastic surgeon’s waiting room.

Bedbugs are back and spreading through New York City like a swarm of locusts on a lush field of wheat.

Infestations have been reported sporadically across the United States over the past few years. But in New York, bedbugs have gained a foothold all across the city.

….. Last year the city logged 377 bedbug violations, up from just 2 in 2002 and 16 in 2003. Since July, there have been 449. “It’s definitely a fast-emerging problem,” said Carol Abrams, spokeswoman for the city housing agency.

In the bedbug resurgence, entomologists and exterminators blame increased immigration from the developing world, the advent of cheap international travel and the recent banning of powerful pesticides. Other culprits include the recycled mattress industry and those thrifty New Yorkers who revel in the discovery of a free sofa on the sidewalk.

The bolded sentence is the big “Aha!” Bedbugs are back because of immigration (more than likely of the illegal variety) and the banning of DDT (and to a lesser extent, I would think, tourism). Neo-Neocon notes:

That banned pesticide is primarily DDT. And therein lies a very serious subject–the myriad ways in which the banning of DDT has caused problems throughout the world, problems far greater than New York City’s bedbug colonization.

Well, before I get to the “greater problems,” here’s another bedbug story that is much more recent (HT Drudge):

Woman Sues Hotel After Suffering 500 Bed Bug Bites

Leslie Fox, a 54-year-old bookings agent, says that after four nights at the 700-room Nevele Hotel in Ellenville, New York (a rural area roughly 90 miles north of New York City–Ed.) last July, she awoke to find red, itchy welts all over her body.

“I had no idea what was happening to me. We noticed the blood on the bed. I became very upset and alarmed,” she said.

She and her husband – who was also bitten, but not so badly – tore the bed apart and found a swarm of bugs under the linens.

“The bugs were sent to the University of Illinois in Chicago and verified to be bed bugs,” said attorney Alan Schnurman.

When the couple reported to hotel officials that their room was infested, the officials offered two free nights but Fox and Cohen declined, Schnurman said, because they were just itching to leave.

Yeah, that’s what I would want, more free nights at a bug-infested hotel.

Back to the point: The misguided decision to ban DDT, criticized in previous BizzyBlog posts citing John Stossel and a doctor at the Center for Science Based Policy, has led to a failure to achieve something that is eminently doable: rid the rest of the world of these and other pests without causing undue harm. Some claim this failure to act has cost millions of premature deaths from malaria and other diseases in Third World countries. Then, our poor to non-existent control of our borders has more likely than not allowed immigrants (and perhaps tourists in some cases) to bring these pests with them.

All of this has occurred because of two very basic failures to apply common sense to life’s problems. What will it take to get lawmakers, bureaucrats, and others involved in protecting public health and safety to do their jobs and get a grip on reality?