I believe I can safely say that no one in the entire world actually likes bed bugs. They’re like microscopic vampires and not like the ones from Twilight that try to seduce you and glitter in the sunlight. They sneak into bed, clothes, and furniture and start feeding on your flesh. Starting in 2009, bed bugs have made a startling resurgence spanning across the country from California to our nation’s capital. Because of their ability to spread rapidly, beg bugs are able to engulf entire communities affecting physical and mental health. Christopher Eddy and Susan Jones from the Advancement of Science wrote the journal “Bed Bugs, Public Health, and Social Justice” in order to educate the public on how the bed bugs affect our health, to give an idea where these outbreaks tend to occur, and make the claim that action has to be taken to deal with this crisis.
It is quite obvious if your home is infected with bed bugs. One more you’ll start waking up with tiny red bumps all over your body. This is caused by the “anticoagulant” that the bed bug injects when feeding. This prevents your blood from clotting making dinner time much more enjoyable for the bug. The bumps are actually an allergic reaction that, “the majority of humans (70%)”(pg.2) are allergic too. If left alone these bites will go away on their own, however the problems occur when people begin to scratch them. This exposes the wound, which can “become infected due to secondary bacterial agents” (pg.2) and can lead to even more serious skin infections. And these are only the physical problems they can cause. Bed bugs infestation can also create “anxiety, stress, insomnia, and depression” (pg.2) in their roommates. Although bed bugs can cause many discomforts, they are not able to transfer any diseases to the human body, however this should not dismiss them as a public health issue.
After laying out the health issues, Eddy and Jones move on to give an idea where the bed bugs thrive. It was thought that beg bugs were extinct after the creation of chemicals, like DDT, in the early 1950s that ravaged the bed bug population. However they survived and in that time our society changed quite a bit. Massive urbanization began creating giant cities like New York, which is a prime hunting ground for the bed bugs. This territory is perfect for them because of the “high percentage of residential rental units that allow for mobility of the city’s population” (pg.3). This allows them to spread quickly to new sources of food and with relative ease. Another area where bed bugs thrive is the low-income areas because people there may be unable “to pay for proper treatment” (pg.3). Eddy and Jones provide a starling example of how bad these urban infestations can truly become. “In Dayton, Ohio, where a downtown high-rise apartment building was so heavily infested that all residents had to be vacated so the premises could be fumigated” (pg.4). Now this is a drastic example, but it is still good to remember that any small infestation can lead to a major outbreak.
At the end of the journal Eddy and Jones suggest that in order to deal with the situation local health jurisdiction need to become more active in the battle against bed bugs by responds to all complaints that are made about bed bugs and there needs to be a “reporting system for bed bug infestations” (pg.5). Luckily, as of right now, there have been no reports of bed bugs on the UNC campus, however we must stay vigilant if we are to keep them away.
Works Cited:
Eddy, Christopher, and Susan C. Jones "Bed Bugs, Public Health, and Social Justice: Part 1 a Call to Action." Advancement of the Science 73.8 (2011): 1-14. Print.
Housing and Residential Information. 2010. 6 Feb. 2012 <http://housing.unc.edu/residence-life/your-room/bed-bug-awareness.html>.
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