Updated at 11:23 a.m. on December 4, 2024.
The second time I was shocked about bed bugs. The landlord suggested that I might be overreacting. Just a little bit My husband and I battled an outbreak five months ago. Now, after finding one bed bug on my pillow—we’re satisfied. Because I thought it was going to bite me—I called on the building to respond. “You know they don’t cause disease,” the homeowner told me.
general wisdom It is considered that bed bugs do not spread disease to humans. As the homeowner says—or at least bed bugs are widespread and bite humans very often. To the extent that if they have a dangerous disease, we will know. Other blood-sucking insects Most of those that regularly bite humans, such as mosquitoes and ticks, are vectors of horrifying human diseases. But recent research This suggests that bed bugs could spread disease to humans if they don’t do so quietly.
Proving that bed bugs are vectors for human disease means demonstrating three important things: First, that the microorganisms can survive and thrive in the bed bug’s body. And recent studies have shown that bed bugs are naturally abundant. of viruses– genetic material of Many human pathogens—among them MRSA Bartonella Quintana– and Hepatitis C–was discovered as well. in bedbugs outside the laboratory
The second criterion is that bed bugs can spread germs. laboratory studies Jose Pietri, associate professor of entomology at Purdue University, published in January and his colleagues showed that bed bugs can contract and spread MRSA while feeding. (They used a membrane contaminated with MRSA to stand up to human skin.) Research in 2014 showed that bed bugs can spread the germ that causes Chagas disease to rats.
And third — the missing piece — the spread must occur in the wild. Not just in the lab “There may be some variable that we don’t understand” that prevents us from detecting bed bug infestations, Pietri told me, “or it could just be that it’s not common.”
Pietri, like many of the scientists I spoke with, Interested in studying the potential for spread of bed bugs? Because the available research doesn’t seem conclusive to him. Scientists first confirmed that insects could act as disease vectors in the late 19th century and for decades thereafter. Researchers are trying to discern whether bed bugs are also dangerous. They try to infect bed bugs with microorganisms. They crushed the bedbugs and injected them under the monkey’s skin. They looked at whether sexually transmitted infections might spread in insects sampled from brothels in West Africa. No experiments have directly linked bed bugs to human illness.
This is because there is no real-world evidence of the disease’s spread in humans and enough failure to establish a link in the laboratory. Many researchers eventually concluded that bed bugs are not dangerous. At least in this way. As a 2012 report noted, “Given that more than 200 million bed bug bites have occurred (and many have been bitten) and there is no evidence of any resulting disease, indications are that the risk of contracting infectious diseases through Bed bug bites There are hardly any.”
For Pietri, who studies urban pests and insect-borne diseases, All this evidence is not only inconclusive; But it’s also outdated. Many close relatives of bed bugs are disease carriers. Why is this so? no Bed bugs? –I don’t think it’s a strong scientific argument to say that we haven’t seen this. So it doesn’t happen,” he told me. “It’s an incomplete picture.”
About 15 years ago there were bed bugs. Transforming cities around the world, including New York.After decades of disappearance due to DDT and other pesticides Amid the growing bed bug panic, Pietri isn’t the only scientist who’s starting to wonder if bed bugs’ potential to carry disease has been studied. The lab’s demonstration of bed bugs’ potential as carriers of Chagas disease got its idea from a paragraph-long description of a 1912 study, said Michael Levy, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania who led the 2014 study. said the team confirmed the century-old results. And it was found that insect feces can spread the disease through the skin of rats that are bitten by needles or bitten. Technologies that make it easier for researchers to identify microorganisms in insects, such as genetic sequencing It’s made it much easier to explore this question, Pietri says, over the past five years. Researchers have been able to conduct a comprehensive survey of viruses and bacteria that bed bugs may carry.
No researcher I spoke to thought bed bugs could be as dangerous a vector as mosquitoes. First, bed bugs don’t fly. It is a walking animal that carries fleas. and having to sit in a car to travel important distances “The bed bug’s ecology makes it an unlikely transmitter of disease,” Coby Chaal, an entomologist at North Carolina State University, told me. But can it do that? It probably will be.” However, in some places, such as hospitals and assisted living facilities, where infection rates are high and beds are being turned over quickly, More important transmission may occur. Pietri thinks researchers may not be looking for the right places for bed bugs to spread disease in humans. BartonellaThis is a bacteria spread by fleas and bed bug lice, but also by bed bugs. This is especially common among people experiencing homelessness. But there is very little research on bed bugs in the transient homeless population. Levi told me he’s also concerned that bed bugs could spread diseases like Chagas among people who share the same bed in a home.
The bed bug research community is small. And some in the community cling to old wisdom: Bed bugs are unlikely to spread disease, if you Google it. bed bugsOr go to the CDC website or talk to a friendly local exterminator. You will find that there is a general consensus. And if bed bugs don’t spread disease That, too, might provide important insights. One hypothesis is that bed bugs’ immune systems may have evolved to be extraordinarily strong. This is due to their brutal sexual rituals which expose them to regular microbial invasion. Understanding the mechanisms that prevent transmission can help combat transmission by other vectors such as mosquitoes, Pietri said.
If researchers prove a link between bed bugs and human illness, It would add a new dimension to the already significant suffering that bed bugs inflict on their hosts. at the same time The discovery may help mobilize more funds to understand pests that are viewed as less of a public health threat than pests that clearly spread disease, Levy told me (from his experience He said the sleep center is the only part of the National Institutes of Health interested in funding bed bug research.) Better knowledge about bed bugs may be especially important. As their number and ability to evade treatment continues to increase. These things come into my own life. This has led to insomnia, paranoia, and some of the most itchy, longest-lasting bites I’ve ever experienced. Whether or not bed bugs spread disease is certainly not dangerous.
This story originally mischaracterized Levi’s experience with government funding for bed bug research.
