New Natural Tick Spray Coming in 2014

There was a lot of interest when I was interviewed last week by Gillian Neff on Ch 12’s Health on 12, in a new all-natural tick spray that was recently tested successfully in Connecticut. The product, Tick-Ex slated for introduction in 2014, is derived from a strain of fungus that is deadly to deer ticks. Field trials were conducted at the Connecticut Agricultural Experimental Station, whose director Kirby Stafford said “A lot of people do have their back yards sprayed with pesticides and they are quite effective, perhaps because synthetic materials will give you 85% to 100% success rate. But there are a special number of people who don’t want to use them. The organic product may be slightly less effective, but it’s giving people options”. In field tests in northwestern CT up to 74% fewer ticks were found following treatment.  BTW the other newly validated tick solution at the household level is the "bait box" that coat rodents with a tick-killing insecticide – see this article on successful field trials of “Tick Boxes” at: http://bit.ly/HsvCWD