August 18, 2003
Was it only last summer that radical environmentalists were hitting the roof when mothers were spraying DEET-based products on their children?
DEET, screamed the environmentalists, was killing off the butterflies in the fields, and the fish in nearby streams.
As medical experts reveal, not only is N-diethyl-meta-tolu-amide (DEET) the best human defense against mosquitoes and black flies, it also poses no significant danger to the environment. This comes as good news in the middle of the West Nile virus-wary summer of 2003.
Those signs on display in drugstores and department stores are right on the mark. Repellents containing DEET consistently rank number one in effectiveness in a slew of consumer studies.
Indeed, the New England Journal of Medicine ranks the chemical radical environmentalists love to hate to be about four times as effective as the best non-DEET alternatives.
It wasn’t long after that when Canadian physicians took the initiative to declare DEET-based repellents safe for human use--even for infants and pregnant women, providing they were applied according to directions.
Dr. Gideon Koren, of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, was specific in his assessment of DEET.
"People have to use common sense," Dr. Koren told reporters. But for children--even young children--in danger of being bitten by mosquitoes in West Nile-plagued regions, Dr. Koren concluded: "I would be compelled to suggest that you should strongly consider using it."
Environmentalists the world over have advocated that DEET was bad, on the theory that the chemical presents a greater risk than the infected mosquitoes it repels.
The environmentalists were wrong--again.
As long as the threat of West Nile virus is there, DEET is the best protection.