Bug Bombs Don’t Just Kills Pests: People, Pets Also Sickened by Foggers

SEATTLE — After his girlfriend’s black Lab mix got fleas from a visiting pooch, Jim Avent set off eight bug bombs in various rooms of her sprawling house in Woodinville.

Dashing for the open sliding-glass door, Avent was partway across the kitchen when he was overcome by the fumes.

He fell to the ground and strained to drag himself to the threshold.

“I was hanging halfway in the house, halfway out of the house, gagging,” Avent said. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t sit up. I couldn’t talk.”

He yanked a cord to make the phone fall to the floor and managed to press 911.

“911. What’s the emergency?” he heard.

Avent could make only incoherent sounds.

“What’s the address?” the 911 operator asked.

“That’s the last thing I remember,” Avent recalled recently. “I don’t remember the ambulance ride, but I do remember them cutting my clothes off and scrubbing me down.”

After a night in intensive care, Avent went home. Later, with a broken toe, he went to the same hospital, where emergency room workers said they were surprised to see him back – alive.

Avent’s story is an example of a number of cases in which Americans have been sickened by bug bombs – the foggers that permeate a room, or an entire building, with pesticides.

Last year, the number of such incidents reported in Washington doubled. Washington was also the site of the death of a baby classified as suspicious – a 10-month-old girl in Spokane County died after sleeping on the floor of an apartment where three times as many foggers as needed had been used.

Last month, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study the agency says is the first look at pesticide poisoning incidents related to bug bombs. Using the records of eight states where such incidents are tracked most carefully, including Washington, they documented 466 cases of injuries or illness from 2001 to 2006.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency responded this month by launching an effort to re-examine bug bombs’ labels and packaging.

The agency is also trying to figure out how to make consumers more aware of the need to read directions carefully.

New York officials reacted by announcing the state would take bug bombs out of consumers’ hands, allowing only licensed pesticide applicators to use them. Industry objected.

This week, after agency officials met with industry representatives, an agency spokeswoman said officials are trying to “assess what we need to do” and “there’s been no final” decision.

Washington officials are recommending changes in packaging, labeling and safety features of the foggers.

Industry representatives say the relatively small number of incidents documented doesn’t merit pulling foggers off store shelves. On balance, foggers’ defenders say, they protect public health by fighting cockroaches, fleas and other pests.

But researchers are sure the 466 cases documented in the national study are an underestimate because even in states on the lookout for fogger incidents, not all cases are recorded.

Add in states that don’t carefully track exposures, and it’s likely that cases run into the thousands.

Incidents in Washington in 2005 and 2006 totaled 22, while last year they shot up to 25. Some examples: a man trapped inside when a door jammed; a developmentally disabled teenager who found a bug bomb on a counter and activated it; parents of an apartment dweller who went inside, unaware the place had just been fogged.

In another case, a Washington man followed the instructions and took his cats with him when he vacated the apartment. When he returned, he got sick. The cats died.

Foggers have also exploded, usually when people forget to turn out a pilot light in their stove and ingredients in the mist explode. One explosion in New York sent six people to the hospital. A Texas home’s roof was blown off and just last week, a fogger-related detonation caused apparent structural damage in a New Jersey apartment house. In Portland, one exploded in a car and became lodged in the windshield.

The national study on how foggers sickened people showed that the most common mistake was not planning a way to escape the building quickly enough after foggers were set off. That was followed by, in order:

-Coming back into the building too soon.

-Not leaving the building at all. Since many foggers say “leave the area,” some consumers figured it was OK to close the door and go to the next room.

-Setting off foggers by accident. Once activated, many cannot be shut off.

-Using too many foggers for the space to be treated.

-Failing to tell others, such as those in the apartment downstairs, to leave the premises.

The No. 1 problem documented in Washington – which has the most rigorous system for discovering fogger problems – is people using too many foggers, said Barbara Morrissey, a toxicologist with the state Health Department who was a co-author of the national study.

Labels written before superconcentrated foggers came out still advise people to use one per room, she said. The concentrated versions cover multiple rooms.

Even a good label won’t prevent all the poisonings.

“This is just sort of common knowledge: Not everybody reads the label. In fact, most people don’t read the whole label,” Morrissey said.

Officials haven’t pinpointed risk factors for getting sick.

“There seems to be a sensitive subpopulation, but we don’t know who they are,” Morrissey said.

People with breathing problems appear to be particularly at risk. Most pesticides in foggers are pyrethrins or pyrethroids. The former are individual chemicals drawn naturally from chrysanthemum flowers. The latter are synthesized versions. Foggers also commonly contain such chemicals as ethanol, butane and propane.

Ann Wick, a pesticide-policy expert at the Washington Agriculture Department, said: “Any case is serious. We don’t think any one of them is trivial. … We’d like to make the packaging as foolproof as possible.”

Washington is asking the EPA to compel fogger manufacturers to take steps to improve consumer safety, by reducing the size of bug bombs so each one treats a single room – about 1,000 square feet. Some cover more than 5,000 square feet – yet consumers often use multiple foggers, Morrissey said.

Other safety measures recommended by the state include requiring shut-off switches on foggers, childproofing the activation button and rewriting the label to state “leave the premises,” instead of just “the area.”

Representatives of bug-bomb manufacturers said putting the products off-limits to consumers would allow roaches, fleas and other bugs to run loose in an ill-considered effort to protect consumers. Cockroaches, for example, are a big factor in causing asthma in children.

And while a treatment with foggers could cost perhaps $5 to $15, an exterminator can easily charge $100, the foggers’ defenders point out.

Allen James, president of Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment, a pesticide industry group, said manufacturers are re-examining labeling, packaging and other aspects of their products in response to the national study and Washington regulators’ concerns.

But, James said, “The low incidence this represents compared to the millions of uses every year would indicate, contrary to these small examples, that people do follow the labels.”

CONTROLLING COMMON PESTS

Attempts to control fleas and cockroaches are tied to the largest number of pesticide exposures reported in Washington. To avoid pesticides, authorities recommend:

-Cockroaches: Eliminate food, water, hiding places. Store food in sealed containers. Keep pet food covered. Clean stove tops, cabinets and counters. Caulk cracks. Use sticky traps to figure out where roaches are most common, then put down low-toxicity baits or boric acid in those spots. Professionals can use special vacuums and gel baits.

-Fleas: Use a spot treatment or anti-flea pill; both are usually administered monthly. Place washable towels or rugs where pets sleep and wash them in hot water weekly. Use a flea comb on pets. Vacuum spots where pets usually hang out.

Source: Washington Health Department

P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 orrobertmcclure@seattlepi.comRead his blog on the environment at datelineearth.com.

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