Suckers! The media want us to think there's a bedbug invasion

[Newsjock]

Source: SF Weekly

... Bedbugs don't carry disease or poison, or produce any human reaction more serious than welts that resemble mosquito bites. Nonetheless, this kind of horrified reaction should be taken seriously. According to medical literature, some people's bedbug fantasies spiral into delusional parasitosis, where they imagine being devoured by insects. And the San Francisco news media seem to have succumbed. Like a parasitosis sufferer, local TV and radio stations and newspapers have recently delivered a rash of bogus trend stories alerting the public to an imminent bedbug plague, despite a lack of reliable information.

In September, KTVU announced, "Bay Area Officials Seeing Surge in Bedbug Reports." This was followed in October by stories on KCBS and in the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner, which claimed that infestations are on the rise and that the board of supervisors was creating a new anti-bedbug law to block the scourge.

The stories were overblown. Local reporters had latched onto one of the most pervasive, durable, bogus trend stories in America, which essentially says, "Bedbugs Spread Across America in Search of Delicious Fresh Humans," to cite a tongue-in-cheek August headline on Consumerist.com.

The facts are more mundane.

Read more: http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-11-03/news/suckers-the-media-want-us-to-think-there-s-a-bedbug-invasion/

[louis-t]

1. Waiting for the 'miracle product' that gets rid of them

for only $149.95 to be endorsed by Beck.

[RandySF]

2. Just like...

1. Shark attacks
2. Killer bees
3. Deadly snakes in Michigan

[stray cat]

3. Parents don't like their kids waking up every morning covered with bloody welts

[stray cat]

4. Pinworms are not fatal either but we treat them

[LostInAnomie]

5. Bullshit!

They are incredibly easy to spread, almost impossible to eradicate, and you try waking up to a dozen bloody welts every morning.

[DainBramaged]

6. Duct tape and plactic sheeting

[Kalyke]

7. OK - so which Republican has ties to Orkin?

OH SNAP!!!

Tom Delay's on trial! He needs extra money to pay the attorneys. Don't know how much he has invested in extermination companies and/or pesticides, but, if he does, then this is just what he needs to make his pesticide stock quadruple!