US Goes to War on ... Bedbugs?

Feds convene summit to scratch evidently pressing itch: Milbank

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 15, 2009 11:14 AM CDT

(Newser) – Wondering a bit about federal priorities “in an age of bin Laden and Ahmadinejad,” Dana Milbank headed yesterday to an Environmental Protection Agency summit on the blood-sucking menace of bedbugs, he writes in the Washington Post. With reps from agencies including the Pentagon on hand, an entomologist opined that the government must “allow the pest-control industry to go to war.”

This, Milbank reminds, is “an insect the size of an apple seed that has a painless bite and is not known to spread disease,” and one could think “the threat posed by the tiny insect might be rather manageable.” Not so, says the entomologist. “I’d like to take anybody who thinks bedbugs is not a big deal, and we’ll sprinkle a few in their house and see what they think.”

[Images (1)]

[Quotes (1)]

In this undated photo, a common bedbug is engorged with blood after feeding on a human. (University of Florida)

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A year ago I thought bedbugs were a thing from a couple of centuries ago and maybe in a children's bedtime rhyme. I had no idea they were a modern scourge. - Joan Quigley, a New Jersey state representative

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US Goes to War on ... Bedbugs?