December 12th, 2017
The U.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency (EPA) is responsible for protecting people from exposure to pesticides.To do this, they have very strict toxicity testing methods that chemical manufacturers must use to determine how harmful exposure to these pesticides may be to mammals (people, dogs and cats) or the environment. The test results are carefully reviewed by the EPA before a pesticide product is allowed to be sold in the United States. If a pesticide is found to be either too toxic or it lasts too long in the environment it will never be registered for use. However, those pesticides that are not long-term environmental contaminates and that have very low mammalian toxicity will be allowed to be used, under strict conditions. For instance, those pesticides that do not produce harmful effects (either acute or long-term effects) at a particular dose, will still be required to have a 100-1000-fold margin of safety before they can be used in the human environment. In other words, a product dose may be reduced 100-1000 times before it can be registered (See the Food Quality protectionAct for more information).As you can imagine, some pesticides may no longer kill pests at such a low dose, and never come to market. Why is all of this important? It is important because bed bugs live indoors and there are relatively few pesticides that are labeled for indoor use (fewer are labeled for bed bug control).