1/20/11 Will Bedbugs Ever Die? Awful Pests Are Able To Withstand Pesticides New Study Finds

The first comprehensive genetic study of bedbugs, the irritating pests that have enjoyed a world-wide resurgence in recent years, indicates they are quickly evolving to withstand the pesticides used to combat them.

The new findings from entomologists at Ohio State University, reported Wednesday online in PLoS One, show that bedbugs may have boosted their natural defenses by generating higher levels of enzymes that can cleanse them of poisons.

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.

The findings add to a growing body of evidence from molecular-biology studies that bedbugs have recently evolved at leastthree improved biochemical defenses against common pesticides. Bedbugs today appear to have nerve cells better able to withstand the chemical effects, higher levels of enzymes that detoxify the lethal substances, and thicker shells that can block insecticides.

“These bugs have several back doors open to escape,” said evolutionary entomologist Klaus Reinhardt at the University of Tuebingen in Germany, who was familiar with the new research butn’t involved in the projects. “Simple spraying around of some pesticides may not [be enough] now or in the future.”

In an era of antibiotic-resistant infections and herbicide-resistant weeds, the ability of bedbugs to survive once-lethal doses of insecticides is the newest evidence that efforts to eradicate pests that plague humankind may make some of them stronger. It is a key reason for the spread of bedbugs in the past decade, several researchers who study them said.

Well-adapted to homes, hotels and dormitories, these tiny blood-sucking parasites usually hide in mattresses, bed frames and furniture upholstery. Bedbugs feed every five to 10 days, leaving painful welts on the skin and sometimes triggering allergic reactions.

Laboratory tests in the U.S., Europe and Africa show today’s bedbugs can survive pesticide levels a thousand times greater than the lethal dose of a decade or so ago. “There is a phenomenal level of resistance,” said bedbug entomologist Michael Siva-Jothy at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. “It has evolved very recently.”

Since the pesticide DDT was banned starting about 40 years ago, people usually have treated bedbug infestations with pesticides based on a family of compounds called pyrethroids, usually deltamethrin or lambda-cyhalothrin, synthetic versions of chemicals found in chrysanthemum blossoms.

There are few chemical alternatives, because the residential market for insecticides is relatively small, and the cost of development, safety tests and regulatory approval is relatively high, several researchers said. Since the bugs don’t transmit any serious infectious diseases, there also is little medical funding to research new control measures.

Repeated applications of the same insecticides act as a form of natural selection for bedbugs. Any surviving insects pass on traits to their offspring and to succeeding generations.

“Insect resistance is nothing more than sped-up evolution,” said insect toxicologist John Clark at the University of Massachusetts, who led the research team there.

By analyzing thousands of RNA sequences—the biochemical record of the parasite’s genetic activity—entomologist Omprakash Mittapalli and his Ohio State colleagues found that bedbugs exposed to pesticides showed unusually high levels of activity among those genes controlling enzymes able to turn the toxic chemicals into water-soluble compounds that can be safely excreted.

“When we mined our database for these specific genes, we found that the bedbug has quite a few of these enzyme systems,” Dr. Mittapalli said.

They all belong to a major family of enzymes called cytochrome P450 that act as a catalyst for a broad range of chemical reactions and are implicated in pesticide resistance in other insect species.

In addition, an independent analysis of bedbugs by researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Va., suggests that other genetic changes may be giving the insects sturdier hides that can keep these chemicals from penetrating their exoskeletons.

Moreover, resistance to chemicals designed to kill the bugs can become a permanent part of their genetic inheritance. Researchers at the University of Kentucky showed that bedbugs, sampled at a half-dozen U.S. locations, remain relatively immune to DDT generations after the chemical was banned for general household use.

“We have changed the genetic make-up of the bedbugs we have in the United States,” said urban pest-management specialist Dini Miller at Virginia Tech. “That’s what I call unnatural selection.”

The researchers hope that a fundamental understanding of the insect’s biochemistry will lead one day to more lasting control measures.

“This is an important first step,” said Barry Pittendrigh, an expert in insect genomics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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1/14/11 New BedBug Study: One in Five Americans Have Been Infested Or Know Someone Who Has With Bedbugs

NEW YORK — One in five Americans has either had an experience with bedbugs themselves or knows someone who has and a majority say the tiny blood-suckers are a source of worry for them, according to a new survey.

Seventy eight percent of respondents were most concerned about infested hotels, while others said they were wary of picking them up at work, at the doctor’s, at the movie theater or on public transportation.

“I was surprised just how pervasive the problem is,” said Missy Henriksen, a vice president at the National Pest Management Association, which commissioned the online survey of 504 adults.

Bedbugs, which are about the size of a grain of rice and flat-shaped, like to nestle in furniture and bedding upholstery and are notoriously difficult to get rid of.

Exterminators use powerful chemicals to rid apartments of bugs, an invasive process that forces tenants to temporarily move out.

Young renters who live in cities are most vulnerable to bedbugs, the survey showed.

Some respondents said they changed their routines to minimize the likelihood of encountering the bug.

A quarter of respondents have checked a hotel room for bedbugs and 12 percent have changed or canceled travel plans for fear of the pest. Others said they checked second-hand furniture and store dressing rooms.

Having a bedbug infested home can also hurt people’s social lives. A third of respondents said they would not invite friends who had the infestation into their homes, as people can carry bedbugs around on their clothing.

But the poll also found wide-spread misinformation about bedbugs. Nearly half believed, incorrectly, that bedbugs transmit disease to humans and more than a quarter thought they are more common in lower income households and dirty homes.

“The truth is that bedbugs do not discriminate in regard to cleanliness, nor do they prefer one socio-economic class to another,” Henriksen said.

“Bedbugs are found in penthouses and five-star hotels as well as in low-income housing and budget motels.”

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1/11/11 NYC BedBug Complaints Up 7% In 2010: City’s Problems With BedBugs Getting Worse

It’s official: New Yorkers had the bedbug blues in 2010.

Residential bedbug complaints in New York City rose nearly 7% during 2010, according to data from the city’s Department of Housing, Preservation and Development. Nationally, one out of five Americans has had a bedbug infestation in their home or knows someone who has encountered the pests at home or in a hotel, according to the National Pest Management Association, an industry group.

In New York, there are many more infestations than complaints and violations, said Louis Sorkin, an entomologist with the American Museum of Natural History.

“Tons of people that have infestations don’t say anything and, if they are in apartments, the people next door are the ones with a complaint finally. They may not file a complaint, but they may go through the proper channels and tell the landlord or co-op board or condo owner,” said Mr. Sorkin.

In 2010, there were 4,846 violations and 13,472 complaints, up slightly from 4,811 and 12,594 in 2009.

In New York, bedbug complaints are registered with the city’s 311 nonemergency hotline. The landlord is notified of the complaint and the department contacts the tenant to confirm the complaint before making a site visit where a city inspector will visually inspect the home. If bedbugs are found, a violation is issued.

In a national survey, respondents said they were most concerned about encountering bedbugs at hotels, in public transportation, at movie theaters, in retail stores and at medical facilities, according to the National Pest Management Association. The association reports that bedbugs are in every state and that there is no regional hot spot for infestation: One out of five survey respondents in the Midwest and the South had encountered bedbugs, as had 19% of respondents in the West and 17% in the Northeast.

“Fairly evenly across the country, people are having experiences with bedbugs. I think so often people think Manhattan is the only city that has bedbugs,” said Missy Henriksen, vice president of public affairs for the National Pest Management Association.

What’s ahead for 2011? “Each year it’s always a little worse than the year before, because not everyone is on the bedbug bandwagon,” said Mr. Sorkin, adding, “There’s not enough education for people, not a silver bullet and there’s not a cheap insecticide. There’s not an easy way to get rid of bedbugs.”

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1/7/2011 Waldorf Astoria Sued For 3rd Time Over BedBugs: Maryland Woman Suing For $10MM

A Maryland woman is suing the Waldorf Astoria for $10 million because, she says, she awoke at the fancy hotel and found bedbugs all over her body.

Svetlana Tendler is the third tourist since last year to sue the famed Park Ave. hotel over a nasty encounter with the tiny bloodsuckers.

“I felt like I was eaten alive by bedbugs, which have attacked my body,” she said.

Tendler, her husband, Jacob, and their two kids stayed at the hotel in August 2007, the suit says.

One morning, she awoke to a nasty bedbug attack.

Photographs released by her lawyer, Anna Carley, show bites on Tendler’s arms and legs.

“The defendants did nothing to assist plaintiff, Svetlana Tendler, in treatment of … bed bites or fumigation of [her] luggage,” says the suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Tendler, of Owings Mill, Md., initially filed a summons against the hotel in August.

She filed a new, detailed complaint this week.

A Michigan woman who says bedbugs attacked her during a family vacation sued the hotel in November.

The hotel also was sued in October by a woman whose 6-year-old daughter said she was victimized by bedbugs during a visit last February.

Hilton Worldwide, which owns the Waldorf Astoria, declined to comment.

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