Pesticide-laden pants protect against ticks
Excerpted from the Cape Cod Times ( Posted: 11/17/2011)
BARNSTABLE — Can a pair of pants change your life? Could be, if they keep blood-hungry ticks from infecting you with Lyme disease.
That’s the sartorial advice from county bug guru Larry Dapsis. Your wardrobe can be a weapon against ticks, if it’s treated with Permethrin, a pesticide ticks can’t handle.
Adult deer ticks are “out in force right now” the dapper Dapsis said this week, while fashionably wrapped in a pair of Permethrin-treated trousers.
“I actually wore these pants, walked into thickets, watched ticks attach to me and within minutes it’s like a tick waterslide,” said Dapsis, deer tick project coordinator for the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension.
Dapsis then showed off the paralyzing power of his pants at his office in Barnstable Village. Using tweezers, he placed a female deer tick on the trousers. The tick was immobilized within 60 seconds.
“She’s toast,” Dapsis said, adding that the tick would die within 10 minutes.
For the complete article: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111117/NEWS/111170317/-1/OPINION
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