In Mosquito War, Weapons Include Spray, Garlic and Bananas

[Guest guest]

Hi y'all,

 

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effectively than DEET .. and here's some talk on a couple of other EO.

 

Y'all keep smiling, Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

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September 1, 2002, New York Times

 

In Mosquito War, Weapons Include Spray, Garlic and Bananas

 

By PETER T. KILBORN

 

BATON ROUGE, La., Aug. 27 — " I worry about the birds, " Otis Sullivan

said. On a hot, spongy day, Mr. Sullivan had stopped for a snack at the

River Road Store in Woodville, Miss., just north of the Louisiana line.

 

" The bird is not biting you, though, " said Betty Turner, who joined Mr.

Sullivan with another man, William Ward.

 

" Long sleeves, that's what I do, " Mr. Ward said. To ward off mosquitoes

and the West Nile virus, he wore a white dress shirt with collar and

cuffs firmly buttoned.

 

" Certain people say if you eat a banana, the mosquito is not going to

bite you as bad, " Ms. Turner said.

 

" I've heard they say garlic, " Mr. Sullivan said.

 

Something akin to war is being waged this summer along the lower

Mississippi River, the epicenter of this year's West Nile outbreak.

Residents are deploying home remedies and common-sense defenses. Mayors

are spraying their towns every day at dusk. Merchants are seizing on

fear to sell magical new weapons, and public health agents are papering

subdivisions with fliers.

 

With its bayous and backwaters, rice paddies, puddles and stagnant

drainage ditches, the lower Mississippi is the nation's most fertile

terrain for an insect that once left no more than a bump and an itch.

Now it spreads a potentially deadly virus among blue jays and crows and

occasionally horses and people.

 

This year's outbreak of West Nile is the deadliest, surpassing the one

three years ago, which hit New York State the hardest. [The Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention reported on Aug. 31 that 28 people had

died from the virus, including 8 in Louisiana and 3 in Mississippi. Of

556 people infected to date, 396, or 71 percent, live in these states,

most of them within 20 miles of the Mississippi River.] In some areas,

the increase in cases has slowed, but no one makes much of that yet.

Mosquitoes around here breed until the first chill, usually in October.

 

To kill the eggs, highway crews in Vicksburg, Miss., lace ponds and

ditches with larvacide pellets.

 

" Everybody's complaining because everyone's afraid, " said Walter Bliss,

assistant public works director for Vicksburg.

 

In the Vicksburg City Hall, Gwen Hogan, a receptionist, said her

15-year-old daughter must be home by 6 p.m. " At dusk, she's inside, " Ms.

Hogan said. " All doors are closed. "

 

The governors of Louisiana and Mississippi have appealed in vain for aid

from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which normally helps

communities after hurricanes and floods. But with tight budgets, the

governors are marshaling their resources. A state-sponsored billboard in

Baker, La., north of Baton Rouge, shows a black silhouetted female

mosquito drilling into flesh. " Mosquitoes Can Kill, " black letters say.

" Fight the Bite! "

 

Public health officials in the two states go from town to town, handing

out fliers and conducting classes in fighting mosquitoes. On Aug. 17,

officials of Ferriday, La., had a cleanup day to pick up old cars, tires

and other waste that could contain stagnant, mosquito-breeding water.

 

Louisiana's tourist information office in Vidalia gives away bug spray.

At the Monmouth Plantation, an inn in Natchez, Miss., rooms come with

bottles of spray.

 

Years ago, people in these towns made an art of fighting mosquitoes that

has been largely surpassed by air-conditioning and chemicals. Nets were

hung over children's beds. Cow manure was burned around rural houses to

ward off mosquitoes.

 

In today's climate of fear, hucksters, like the mosquitoes, have begun

to swarm. A radio commercial offers the Mosquito Magnet, " the greatest

technological breakthrough in mosquito control. " An advertisement in The

Concordia Sentinel, the newspaper serving Vidalia and Ferriday, says:

" Protect your family from West Nile virus with the Mosquito Trap.

Coverage up to 3/4 acre. Only $379.95. "

 

There are few signs of a panic-driven rush for mosquito-fighting notions

and gear, perhaps because the stores are stocked and ready. Along with

mole traps, mousetraps, rat traps and fire-ant killer, a hardware store

in Vidalia sells citronella sticks, OFF! and Cutter spray repellents,

yard and patio foggers and mosquito repellent coils. Homeowners light

the coils at one end and spread them around their patios, where they

burn for hours.

 

In Natchez, across the Mississippi River from Vidalia, the Wal-Mart

carries the Bug Button, an insecticide-soaked disk that " lasts up to 60

hours " pinned to a shirt. Besides repellents containing varying

concentrations of the chemical DEET, the store stocks a mosquito head

net and a 13-by-9-foot screen house for children to play in safely

outside.

 

The growing use of the lotions and sprays troubles Frank Smith, a

pharmacist who owns Concordia Drug in Ferriday. " DEET is not real good

to have all over your system, " Mr. Smith said. He said he recommended

sprays with 20 percent to 30 percent DEET for adults and 10 percent for

children.

 

Because of such concerns, some old remedies persist. In Baker,

homeowners grow citronella bushes, the source of the repellent used in

outdoor candles. In St. Francisville, La., Melissa Turner, a massage

therapist, swears by patchouli.

 

" It's an essential oil, " Ms. Turner said. " You put a few drops in a

lotion that doesn't have other scents. I don't know if there's proof

that it works, but it works for me. "

 

No such potions can stop the mosquitoes in the tattered Delta town of

Rosedale, Miss. They breed in the rice paddies and the puddles left by

the receding Mississippi.

 

" We spray, and we try to cut all the tall grasses and get rid of

stagnant water, " the mayor, Eddie Andrew Williams III, said. " But we're

next to the river. You got water. "

 

Towns with small and tight budgets fret over the cost of the fight.

 

" We talked to an agriculture service that said it would charge $7,000 to

$8,000 to spray the town, " said Mayor Billy Edwards of Jonesville, La.,

30 miles west of Natchez. That is about 10 percent of the city's tax

revenues. " It would last 10 days, " Mr. Edwards said, " and we can have

mosquitoes until late October. " He said he was seeking state aid and a

spray truck.

 

Spraying machines, mounted on pickup trucks, were already scarce in late

July, when the outbreak began. But Mayor Amelda J. Arnold of Port

Gibson, Miss., just south of Vicksburg, found one in Jackson for $5,500.

She has been spraying since Aug. 7 and hanging informational fliers on

doorknobs.

 

" Best we can do is spray and educate, " Ms. Arnold said.