A WORLD AFRAID OF BUGS

Let's face it, the human race is afraid of bugs. My son and half my staff run screaming from the room when they see a spider. Stink bugs are everywhere in New Jersey in the spring, dive bombing us when we least expect it. For whatever reason, things that fly, hop, and bite give us the creepy crawlies. We don't want to be assaulted by fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, wasps, and gnats and we don't want our pets to be subjected to these pests either. In our planned assault against these creatures, we have resorted to living in a chemical world, constantly bombarding ourselves and our pets with toxins that could just as easily kill us, instead of the bugs we are trying to eliminate.

Not only do we risk toxicity by direct application of the chemicals; we are also exposed through the environment. All drugs that enter the body, whether through oral ingestion or topical application, enter the bloodstream, filter through the body, and are excreted through the stool or urine. These waste products then enter the soil and waterways. Crops take up the chemicals from the soil and water through their root system and we end up ingesting the chemicals and their potentially harmful metabolites through the foods we eat. Animals grazing on the tainted plants are also exposed. Many of these pesticide chemicals are neurotoxins for the insects and arachnids (fleas and ticks) they are meant to kill, but that means they will have the same effect on beneficial insects in our world. If we kill the bees we don't have pollination. Not a pretty picture. Earthworms are also extremely sensitive to these pesticide chemicals. Not only are we killing many beneficial life species, but we are also creating super-species of drug resistant bacteria and pests.

Little work has been done to determine the uptake of these chemicals into organisms and through the food chain. No long term studies have been performed. New drugs like alfoxalaner and fluralaner (Nexgard and Bravecto) had no long term environmental studies performed, yet their toxic potential is monumental. Drug companies keep making bigger, better, stronger chemicals to keep the bugs at bay, but at what cost to the health of our bodies and our world?

I know I promised to give you more natural alternatives and that is coming. Stay tuned.