Looong post...skip it if you aren't interested in the topic. You'll be bored to tears.

Laura and I are arguing about DEET. lol. I love Laura for the fact that we can be completely bi-polar in our opinions of something, be quite loudly vocal and firm in our opinions to each other, and then share a cup of coffee. There's not a lot of people like that.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
~Voltaire

But this isn't just for Laura, I also read a Colorado blog today that said (speaking of her 6 year old daughter) "..Her mosquito bite is getting uglier and now she has a fever..Rob is furious with me for not using the bug spray, but I've heard it's not safe! What are we supposed to do?!"

We should all be informed on both sides of the argument.

Colorado reported 39 new cases of West Nile yesterday. That's twice as many cases than any other state has had ALL year. We have 111 total reported cases. The next highest count is Texas with 19 cases. Three people in Colorado have died from it in the past few days.

So, my DEET diatribe. It works, and you should use it. All of you. Run right out and buy it right now before anyone else gets sick. We have been using it all year, and no one in this house has had one single bite. We don't even spray it on, we use a cotton ball, and dab it very lightly.

The EPA has deemed DEET safe to use, when you follow the directions. Since being developed in 1946, an average of 200 million people per year use DEET products.

There have only been 21 cases of it doing harm, and some claim that that figure is probably exaggerated.

Also, the fear that a higher concentration of DEET is more "toxic", is not true. Michael Shannon, MD, chair-elect of the American Academy of Pediatrician's Committee on Environmental Health, recommends using products that have concentrations of 10% to 30% DEET. "We know that the only difference between 10% and 30% is how long insects are repelled," he said, "It's not a safety issue." Article..

Some people like the home remedy approach. The Washington State Olympian newspaper says: "Essential oils" have some topical use, although it is short term -- but must be reapplied every 30 to 40 minutes. These include citronella, cedar, verbena, pennyroyal, geranium, lavender, pine, cajeput, cinnamon, rosemary, basil, thyme, allspice, garlic, peppermint, lemon grass, palmarosa, and less so, mustard and coconut oils. (Laura will be glad to hear tho, that I read that catnip was highly effective, though the effects on human skin is yet untested)

The newspaper goes on to say: "DEET has a remarkable safety profile during more than 40 years of use by millions of people worldwide. It has been thoroughly tested and recently received a reaffirmation of confidence from the Environmental Protection Agency's newer, more stringent guidelines. "

Avon Skin-So-Soft is a favorite among some folks. But..for it to have any effectiveness at all, it has to be reapplied every 9 minutes.

And from the Environmental Protection Agency website: "EPA recently issued a Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) for the chemical DEET. After completing a comprehensive re- assessment of DEET, EPA concluded that, as long as consumers follow label directions and take proper precautions, insect repellents containing DEET do not present a health concern. "

A very interesting article here says in part...
"Dr. Gideon Koren, director of the Motherisk program at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children authored a mid-July 2003 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal regarding DEET. Koren said that while some members of the public remain reluctant to use DEET-based products, especially on children, the chemical's safety record is almost unparalleled."

And on July 10, 2003 News2Houston asked a pediatrician at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston if parents should be concerned about putting DEET on their children daily. "I think parents need to be more concerned about mosquito exposure," Dr. Lynnette Mazur said. Mazur uses DEET on her own children since she has seen firsthand what a simple bug bite can
do. "There are kids who die from West Nile (virus)," Mazur said.

That's really it in a nutshell, isn't it?

Risk vs. reward.

DEET:
21 hazy cases of problems due to DEET in the past 50 years.
EPA deems it safe.
Experts recommend it.

West Nile: (from today's Rocky Mountain News)
Yesterday, Colorado reported 39 new human cases of the illness. That's the highest one-day total yet and pushes the season's total to 111, by far the most in the nation.

States with the next-highest number of human cases are Texas with 19 and Louisiana with 15, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Colorado has more than half the nation's human cases of the virus.

That's w-a-y scarier to me than the risk of DEET.

Just my .02. I know, it's more like a nickel's worth. It's my blog.

Gotta run, Port Charles is on.