Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let the Massive Encroaching Public Health State Bite?

Katherine Mangu-Ward | April 22, 2009

Adam Summers of Reason Foundation, the non-profit that publishes this magazine, is on the bedbug beat:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently hosted its first-ever National Bed Bug Summit.  And, as the AP article reports, Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) is planning to reintroduce legislation to "expand grant programs to help public housing authorities cope with infestations."  The bill will be called the—I kid you not—"Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite Act."

Summers and The Atlantic's Megan McArdle are going back-and-forth about whether bedbug eradication is the proper function of the government. McArdle asks if a jihad on bedbugs might be part of the proper public health function performed even by a minimal state.

I know I'm a squish, but isn't this the sort of thing that governments should do?  Pest infestations are genuine public health problems--the kind where your tolerating a bedbug infestation means that I might end up with critters. 

Summers notes  “bedbugs are not known to transmit any diseases,” and asks whether involving the government, especially the federal government to get rid of what is essentially an annoyance might ultimately cause more harm than good.

Then there is the fairness argument: why should people in non-infested places have to subsidize people in infested places through their tax dollars devoted to government eradication programs (or Environmental Protection Agency conferences)?  In short, bedbugs may be a pest, but government is an even bigger pest.

I tend to side with Summers—if there's no possibility of disease transmission, then bedbug committees in the name of the public health are not the way to go. The parallel is not to befouled drinking water or measles quarantines, but to a neighbor's annoying barking dog or encroaching tree. Not public health statues, but non-glamorous, weirdly vital tree law applies here.

For more, read Jacob Sullum on an "An Epidemic of Meddling."

Comments

High Every Body|4.22.09 @ 2:15PM|#

Didn't I recently read, on the Reason intertube no less, just a few days ago, that bedbugs were torture?

How does this change the discussion?

|4.22.09 @ 2:19PM|#

Federal government involvement is essential.

Civilians are a simple-minded race, and must be shepherded through life by their betters.

|4.22.09 @ 2:20PM|#

So, I could hire an independent pest eradicator with frickin lazers and shit for probably 100 bucks as needed and never have to see a govt worker near my home save for the postal service OR I could have bureaucrats burning my sheets in the yard, hauling me off to jail for not notifying them soon enough, and costing me an enormous sum of money even if I'm not the one with the problem but some guy 5 states away is.

Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

High Every Body|4.22.09 @ 2:20PM|#

The tally:

P Brooks votes Nay! to torture.

JP|4.22.09 @ 2:20PM|#

The bill will be called the - I kid you not - "Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite Act."

What the hell is going on? Did somebody forget to advance the calendar at midnight on April 1?

Pop|4.22.09 @ 2:21PM|#

This is EXACTLY why we are seeing an uptick in infestations:

From DDT to Dursban [Henry Payne]

Detroit, Mich. - Greens can take a bow: Bedbugs are back with a vengeance.

Responding to the biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II, the Environmental Protection Agency hosted its first-ever "bedbug summit" Tuesday outside Washington to address a widening public outcry. Some of the most vulnerable communities are inner cities like Detroit, and the major culprit, as it turns out, was the summit host.

Nine years ago, the zealots at Bill Clinton's EPA banned the pesticide chlorpyrifos (to widespread media and environmentalist hosannas), the most commonly available household product in the world to address bedbugs, cockroaches, and other nuisances. Better known by its trade name, Dursban, chlorpyrifos had been available for 30 years in some 800 products in 88 countries around the world.

But despite widespread protest in the scientific community, EPA Chief Carol Browner erased Dursban from the shelves. "EPA has gone to great lengths to present a highly conservative, worst case, hypothetical risk based in large part on dubious extrapolations . . . and exaggerated risk estimates," said Michigan State University toxicologist J. I. Goodman in a typical response.

Even Dr. Alan Hoberman, the principal researcher whose data Browner cited, told the Detroit News he disputed the agency's interpretation of his findings.

more at:
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDYyNjY4NDZhNDgxMGI0ZGVmMGU3MjgxZjA4OTNhZWM=

Anonymous|4.22.09 @ 2:29PM|#

If government weren't banning the act of murdering the creatures, there would be fewer of them.

If government weren't taking responsibility for its subjects' health, the creatures' negligible effect on health as a reason for it to act would be neutralized.

Somebody wants the government to protect nature and coddle humans by way of using each of those things to lbludgeon the other. I have that much figured out. All I want to know now is who and why.

|4.22.09 @ 2:31PM|#

I would think that having accepted the existence of "public housing authorities" one might think that one of said authority's responsibilities might be to provide, you know, decent (ie, bug-free) housing.

Me, I kind of always get stuck on that first step so I never really think much about that second one.

High Every Body|4.22.09 @ 2:33PM|#

The tally:

P Brooks votes Nay! to torture.

Isaac Bartram votes Aye! to torture.

SpongePaul|4.22.09 @ 2:33PM|#

i cant wait till they come out with the mandatory goverment agent croch lice inspection act.

|4.22.09 @ 2:35PM|#

Up next, the FBI will investigate whether little girls are in fact made of sugar, spice, and everything nice. Their cameras are taking data as we speak.

High Every Body|4.22.09 @ 2:35PM|#

SP,

The FBI is way ahead of you.

|4.22.09 @ 2:49PM|#

OR I could have bureaucrats burning my sheets in the yard, hauling me off to jail for not notifying them soon enough, and costing me an enormous sum of money even if I'm not the one with the problem but some guy 5 states away is.

Remember, they'll have to inspect your home just to make sure there are no bedbugs, because, according to twits like McArdle, the bugs are a public health menace. When they get inside the house, they notice something that looks like MJ seeds, or that the kid's bedroom is really messy, and so on.

And since this is for "public health", and therefore administrative, they won't need a warrant. Just like the Virginia raids on bars where the cops went in with the inspectors and didn't need a warrant. And then they busted people for drugs.

Anyone who things this wouldn't be that on a massive scale is crazy.

Abdul|4.22.09 @ 2:52PM|#

Bed-bugs are a macroscopic, non-fatal disease. There's more justification for a government-sponsored war on them then on drugs, or obscenity, or the other things we have wars against.

Warty|4.22.09 @ 3:00PM|#

Why does anyone listen to Megan McArdle? She doesn't even show her tits.

T|4.22.09 @ 3:06PM|#

And since this is for "public health", and therefore administrative, they won't need a warrant.

You can force them to get one by the simple expedient of not opening the door and ignoring them. Administrative inspections don't cover forced entry.

Tim Cavanaugh|4.22.09 @ 3:16PM|#

The Bedbug act, according to the article, is designed for public housing authorities. Giving new money for the purpose of fighting bedbugs is probably (ok, definitely) a waste, but it doesn't raise any public health issues. The government is in loco domini anyway. If this has implications for private property owners, they're not mentioned in the article.

And the EPA summit sounds like it was a chance for interested parties to lobby for stronger pesticides from the authority that has some leeway to loosen up restrictions. Maybe the taxpayers paid too much for the hotel in Arlington, but this sounds like a case of the government providing a forum for citizens to petition for redress of grievances.

The public health issue sounds like a concoction so McArdle and Summers can debate. With such interesting debaters, I'm sure it makes a good debate, but there doesn't appear to be a principle at stake here.

|4.22.09 @ 3:19PM|#

I wonder if bedbugs create any additional carbon emmissions? If so, they are certainly at least a part of enemy #1. Anyone know?

Oh well...... Who is John Galt?!

|4.22.09 @ 3:28PM|#

How's DC's War on Rats coming?

T|4.22.09 @ 3:31PM|#

How's DC's War on Rats coming?

As long as we keep electing them, DC will have problems with them.

High Every Body|4.22.09 @ 3:36PM|#

How's DC's War on Rats coming?

Still can't shoot them.

Tacos mmm...|4.22.09 @ 3:49PM|#

Then there is the fairness argument: why should people in non-infested places have to subsidize people in infested places through their tax dollars devoted to government eradication programs (or Environmental Protection Agency conferences)? In short, bedbugs may be a pest, but government is an even bigger pest.

You subsidize infestation control in order to prevent infestation of your own property. You DO reap a benefit from it, and IMHO a pretty substantial one, since its cheaper to control these infestations when they're tiny. Did Summers even read McArdle? For a magazine called Reason...

jtuf|4.22.09 @ 4:38PM|#

I tend to side with Summers-if there's no possibility of disease transmission, then bedbug committees in the name of the public health are not the way to go. The parallel is not to befouled drinking water or measles quarantines, but to a neighbor's annoying barking dog or encroaching tree. Not public health statues, but non-glamorous, weirdly vital tree law applies here.

Sounds reasonable.

lunchstealer|4.22.09 @ 4:58PM|#

Sounds like a job for indoor DDT application.

What about boll weevil eradication? Boll weevils are no threat to public health, yet the USDA is trying to kill them off. Fair or foul?

daveednyc|4.22.09 @ 8:14PM|#

The problem with the tree law analogy is that it is difficult to identify the source of a bedbug infestation. It's not always a neighbor, either. Here in NYC, you can unwittingly bring the critters home after sitting on infested subway benches. Or even spending a night in a luxury hotel.

|4.22.09 @ 10:11PM|#

What's DDT cost these days? Can it be obtained from neighborhood suppliers who usually provide recreational chemicals?

-jcr