Integrated Mosquito Management--Reply to Dr. Rupp.

To the Editor: My article (1) was not intended to delve into the history of mosquito control nor cast aspersions on the great work that was done to fight malaria and yellow fever a century ago. Rather, the article is a short review of contemporary integrated methods of mosquito management and a discussion of how public health pesticides may be affected by the Food Quality Protection Act's amendments to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

Mr. Rupp contends that the article misinterprets the history of mosquito control and does a disservice to those who fought in the mosquito wars in the early 20th century. Mr. Rupp valiantly defends this early history in his letter, with reference to programs a hundred years ago, when contemporary pesticides and biological and cultural controls did not exist and the tools of mosquito control were limited to such measures as deep-ditch draining of wetlands in New Jersey, clear-cutting, and use of arsenic compounds and crude petroleum for larval control. Deep-ditch draining was also practiced long ago in other states, such as Florida.

It was but half a century ago, after World War II, that chlorinated hydrocarbons such as DDT came into widespread use for mosquito control until they were banned, and organophosphates such as malathion and naled took their place. For cost and performance reasons, DDT continues to be used in several developing countries for mosquito control. Mr. Rupp refers to old reports of water management as a means of making land formerly considered useless into productive land capable of generating tax revenues. Today, this practice would be considered wetlands conversion and wildlife habitat destruction.

Robert Ward's article in the latest Florida Mosquito Control Association's Wing Beats reminisces about the venerable thermal fog machine, "those hot smelly `smokers' belching up to eighty gallons of fog material per hour ... fireballs, greasy streets and cars, or blinded drivers" (2). Back in those days, many children chased them on bicycles, ignorant of pesticide risks that are now known. Even in recent history, broad-spectrum organophosphates such as parathion and chlorpyrifos, which have potent nontarget effects, were used in aquatic habitats to control mosquito larvae.

Mr. Rupp's comments focus mainly on the mosquito control of a century ago, when the stakes were high because of malaria and yellow fever. The pioneers in mosquito control did marvelous work with the limited tools available to them and their limited knowledge of environmental consequences, but the history of mosquito control has had its time of pesticide reliance and has truly evolved to today's fully integrated mosquito management as briefly described in the article.

Robert I. Rose
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Riverdale, Maryland, USA

References

(1.) Rose RI. Pesticides and public health: integrated methods of mosquito management. Emerg Infect Dis 2001;7:17-23.

(2.) Ward R. Are we just power mad? Wing Beats 2000;11:25-6.