Future problems due to mosquito spraying?

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If you grew up in the South and if you're an "older guy" like me, do you remember the trucks that used to go down each street spraying a white fog to kill mosquitos? All of the boys used to get on their bikes and following the truck so we could ride in this very fun white fog. What was in this mosquito spray and have you ever heard of anyone getting sick from it? Do you think I/we will have problems down the road from doing this as a kid? I'm not paranoid, just curious.
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Do your nuetz itch, do you have any strange growths?
Look at it from the bright side, you don't have any nasty insect bites, like moribundman.

Seriously - was it DDT? How old are you?
 
I remember doing that a few times where I grew up outside of New Orleans. Probably DDT or malathion. Thanks for revving up my hypochondria.
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LOL...no symptoms of anything being awry. I am 48 and in good health and yet.........you have to wonder.
 
They were doing this within the last 10 years or so at Va Beach. I remember visiting my brother and hearing the truck go by. I have no idea what it was and I was inside.
 
I rode my bike through rain containing nuclear fallout a few days after Chernobyl had a meltdown and when a radioactive cloud drifted over large parts of Europe. All that cesium and strontium didn't seem to bother me much either.
 
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I rode my bike through rain containing nuclear fallout a few days after Chernobyl had a meltdown and when a radioactive cloud drifted over large parts of Europe. All that cesium and strontium didn't seem to bother me much either.




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I remember the DDT trucks in the base neighborhoods in Japan in the early 60s. I also recall fallout warnings, from above ground nuclear tests still being done back then. Back then the good cleaning stuff was commonly available, like benzene, ether, methylene chloride, trichlororethane, etc., and good leaded paint was also common. Leaded gasoline made for more care needed when picking berries, as one close to the road had measureable lead in them. Now we just worry about fire retardent, PCBs and other weenie stuff being found in arctic animals and people living there. We're depriving our kids of their chemical exposure heritage :^)
 
I remember in Iowa as a kid watching those trucks go by - spraying for mosquitos. Mom and Dad always brought me inside when they did. That would have been in the late 80s.

Here in California they used to spray for a fruit fly with airplanes in the 90s - remember staying inside for that too.

Don't know about older guys - I'm only 21... lol
 
i grew up in the florida keys and they had converted military aircraft of a twin piston engined variety spary the mosquito cloud up and down the keys using a criss cross pattern.

i can remember one time i was riding a moped (it was the keys afterall!) and the plane flew over dropping its cloud. the mist hit me and burned my eyes so badly i shut them and was unable to open them. i had to come to a stop from 30mph blinded. also the stuff burned the lungs when you inhaled it.
i dont know what they sprayed but that was some nasty stuff. it sure got rid of the mosquitos though.

thats the thing in the keys the mosquitos are SO bad that the trade off of the noxous cloud is worth it. if they didnt spray then you couldnt go outside.

i also remember the mosquito trucks comming around and spraying with that loud buzzer sound. my dad use to bribe the truck drivers be offering them a 12 pack of beer if they would pack their trucks up into the yard and fog our yard out for a few minutes WHILe they drank a few beers.

ahh seems like things were simpler back then.
 
when you consider all the diseases and parasites carried by mosquitoes, spraying doesn't seem too bad a trade off. No one should naysay spraying unless they've lived in southern bottomland around rice fields and swamps at least a couple of summers. 'skeeters are one of the main reasons I prefer the hill country of Arkansas, That and them flatlanders family trees don't seem to have many branches.
 
"when you consider all the diseases and parasites carried by mosquitoes, spraying doesn't seem too bad a trade off." I agree alreadygone.
 
"..when you consider all the diseases and parasites carried by mosquitoes, spraying doesn't seem too bad a trade off."

I disagree if you're talking about reinstating the widespread use of DDT. An analogy would be carpet bombing DC, Houston, etc., because of the large numbers of crimes committed in those cities. DEET works fine, used as directed it doesn't seem to end up in large concentrations in the environment, and it's benefits are based upon personal responsibilty.
 
At NCSU they have developed a tomato-derived pesticide that seems to be less toxic but more effective than DEET against a variety of bugs, including mosquitos. The chemical is called IBI-246.
 
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