Your Favorite Bed Bug Spray May No Longer Work

• comments
• 
• 

A new study revealed that bed bugs in some American cities have developed resistance to common insecticides used to control them. The new study published Thursday in the Journal of Medical Entomology finds that bed bugs seem to have developed immunity towards your favorite bed bug spray.

Researchers found that bed bugs in Cincinnati and Michigan developed dramatic levels of immunity to regular doses of the chemicals, BBC reports. Neonicotinoids, or neonics as commonly known, are the most widely used class of insecticides to control the pests. This is the first research to document the bed bugs resistance. It required 1,000 more concentrations than it would normally take to eliminate the resistant blood sucking insects.

For the study, the researchers at New Mexico State University and Virginia Technology collected populations of bed bugs in Cincinnati and Michigan back in 2012. The bed bugs were then exposed to four different types of neonics: acetamiprid, dinotefuran, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam.

After which, these bugs were compared to two other bed bug colonies cultivated in laboratories. One was kept for 30 years without exposure to insecticides while the other is a pyrethroid-resistant group found in New Jersey in 2008 that was not exposed to neonics since they were collected.

The researchers tried to see at what dose the different groups of bed bugs will be killed. They just needed to kill half of the bed bugs' population in each group.

The laboratory bed bugs, which were not exposed for 30 years, initially died in incredibly small dose of chemicals. It took 0.3 nanograms of neonics to kill more than half of the colony. However, it took 10,000 nanograms of neonics to kill half of the recently collected bed bugs.

Although the New Jersey bed bugs were collected before neonics was introduced to the market, they already exhibited slight resistance to chemicals. Scientists believe that the insects were able to produce large quantities of an enzyme known as "detoxifying enzymes" when they are exposed to certain chemicals, reports Newsweek. These enzymes help the bugs break down the chemicals, minimizing its effects.

Overall, the bed bugs from Michigan were 462 to 33,333 more resilient to neonics while the Cincinnati bedbugs were 162 to 33,333 more resilient, according to Newsweek. The researchers observed similar trends in other types of chemicals they tested.

However, researchers clarified that the study doesn't conclude that bed bugs all over the country and the rest of the world are now immune to chemicals.

Scientists may need to explore other forms of nonchemical methods of control to address this discovery. More so, they need to collect more bed bugs from other states to check the extent of the problem.

Check out the video to see if you're bed is infested with the bugs: