Bedbugs Evolving to Beat Pesticides

by Jordan Yerman | January 20, 2011 at 09:17 am

92 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Bedbugs Becoming Pesticide-Resistant

Bedbugs, which have enjoyed a big resurgence and an even bigger media presence in recent years, are becoming more resistant to pesticides. New York City Bedbugs are toughening up, and are now able to purge themselves of poisons that we puny humans think will kill them. Their shells are thicker. Their nerves are more resistant to toxin.

Today's bedbugs can withstand toxin levels a thousand times greater than the bedbugs of ten years ago. Scratch that imaginary itch on your ankle and keep reading.

Just when you thought bedbugs couldn't get any more terrifying, something like this hits the news. Actually, it's been a long time coming: evidence suggests that commonly-used pesticides have been ineffectual for a long time, which is how bedbugs have managed to spread so far and wide. What was once New York's dirty little secret is now out in the open, and the bedbugs refuse to be evicted.

In New York City, bedbugs now are 250 times more resistant to the standard pesticide than bedbugs in Florida, due to changes in a gene controlling the resilience of the nerve cells targeted by the insecticide, researchers at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst recently reported.