Pest control

[cowboydoc]

Hoss,

Thanks for the info. I called the company that sprayed our house last year and asked what they used. It's the same stuff that the company you gave me was. It cost $150 for a two time application. I bought enough to do 40 gallons for $65. They said the average house can be done with a one gallon sprayer and it should last three to four weeks. They are also sending me information on trees to look for them on.

Thanks again

 

[EdDekker]

Richard,

Dursban is also known as Chlorpyrifos.

It was effectively banned last year by the EPA in an interesting bureaucratic maneuver.

Chlorpyrifos has been heavily used since the mid sixties. Because it was one of the most common household pesticides, it was a target of the no-pesticide wing of the green movement. There was one problem restricting it; a large body of test data showing Chlorpyrifos is safe. The safety data was the results of extensive human testing.

The Clinton EPA decided that it was unethical to test pesticides on people, and therefore the EPA would no longer accept human test data. The next step was to reclassify pesticides already approved based on human testing, rejecting the human test data and using only the animal test results.

When Chlorpyrifos was developed its safety was tested on people. Under the new EPA rules the data showing that Chlorpyrifos is safe could not be considered. Human test data used for pesticide regulation was used with a safety factor of 10. The maximum human exposure was set to 1/10 the level which produced detectable effects in the test subjects. The animal test results, which are not as good an indicator as the human test results, are typically used with the exposure level set at 1/100 the animal exposure which produced detectable results in the animal tests. This change results in an allowable exposure level of Chlorpyrifos 1/1000 the level which produced detectable effects in people. .At this level Chlorpyrifos is not an effective pesticide.

EPA 'negotiated' with the manufacturers of Chlorpyrifos and the result was to remove it from most products (including all household products).

It will be replaced with far more dangerous (and more expensive) pesticides.

I will miss Dursban. For example the Dursban flea bombs worked well to eliminate fleas and lice brought in by my dogs.

(I will use the substitutes rather than have bugs in my house. The substitutes are safe, just not as safe as Dursban.)


see http:// [url]www.junkscience.com/jun00/dursban.htm [/url] for an article written by Steven Milloy of Fox News and http:// [url]www.junkscience.com/july00/sierra.htm [/url] for a Wall Street Journal Editorial which mentioned the Dursban ban.


Ed

 

[cowboydoc]

dekker,
You're right on all accounts. I have about 20 gallons of it that I bought before it was banned. It really is great stuff.