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April 15th, 2009
EPA holding conference on bed bugs as infestations rise
Posted: 10:51 AM ET
(CNN) — No matter the old adage, not letting the bed bugs bite is a more serious undertaking now that the parasites appear to be making a comeback.

“They’re an old scourge” and they’ve been around for years, said Dale Kemery, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency. “We thought we had eradicated them.”

A growing number of complaints about the reddish-brown insects prompted the EPA to hold its first bed bug conference on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“The conference was convened to look at what the problem is,” Kemery said. He said about 230 people, including academics, EPA employees and exterminators were attending the conference in Arlington, Virginia.

The big problem of the tiny bed bug — a nocturnal, oval-shaped bloodsucker measuring about 5 millimeters long (.19 inches) — has recently become more prevalent in the United States, according to Kemery and an April article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.