<span style="font-weight: 400;">In </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">BITE Back!</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Vol. 21, we reported on the effectiveness of essential oils for bed bug control. “Green” pest management has become a trend in recent years, with more consumers looking to natural products for insect control to reduce health risks. But because these “</span><a href="https://www.epa.gov/minimum-risk-pesticides/minimum-risk-pesticide-definition-and-product-confirmation"><span style="font-weight: 400;">minimum risk” (a.k.a. EPA 25B list) pesticides</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> pose little to no threat to human health, they are exempt from more rigorous EPA testing requirements under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The public is often drawn to buying these products by grand claims of effectiveness coupled with the promise of being safe for children and pets. With little regulation and low development costs, manufacturers can quickly roll out these products with bold claims that are not always supported by scientific data. With this in mind, researchers at Rutgers University </span><a href="https://entomology.rutgers.edu/personnel/changlu-wang/pdfs/Singh2013NaturalProductsPCT.pdf"><span style="font-weight: 400;">tested</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 11 commonly available minimum risk insecticides (9 biopesticides and 2 detergents) on bed bugs collected from infested apartments.</span>

<img class="alignleft wp-image-4723 size-full" src="http://midwestpesticideaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Rutgers-insecticide-chart.png" alt="" width="1006" height="451" />

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