A new study confirms our greatest fears once again: bedbugs have rapidly evolved to survive the insecticides most commonly used to combat them. And you've got to hand it to these buggers—their deft adaptation to our pitiful retaliation has been simply masterful. Researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute believe that genetic changes may be also be "giving the insects sturdier hides that can keep these chemicals from penetrating their exoskeletons," the Wall Street Journal reports. And other studies suggest that resistance to insecticides can "become a permanent part of their genetic inheritance"—some bedbugs are still relatively immune to DDT even though it hasn't been used in decades (much to Howard Stern's chagrin). Is all hope lost?
Pretty much. Contemporary bedbugs can survive pesticide levels "a thousand times greater than the lethal dose of a decade ago." Here in NYC, bedbugs are now 250 times more resistant to the standard pesticide. There are few alternatives to the commonly used pesticides, and scant funding for research into new insecticides because bedbugs don't transmit any serious diseases. "These bugs have several back doors open to escape," evolutionary entomologist Klaus Reinhardt tells the Journal. "Simple spraying around of some pesticides may not [be enough] now or in the future."
The solution's obvious: we're the ones who need to evolve and make ourselves genetically impervious to bedbugs, by engineering thick, coarse, bedbug-resistant skin and foul-tasting, rancid blood. Until then, it's probably about time for a domesticated aardvark fad to sweep NYC.
