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BALTIMORE — Dr. Jerome Goddard wrapped up on Aug. 23 the last of his day-long seminars on pests of public health importance, treating a crowd of East Coast PCOs, service technicians, entomologists and others to his trademark stories and Southern sensibilities.
Goddard, state medical entomologist for the Mississippi Department of Health, told the crowd that the role of the pest management professional is changing. With the increasing risks of diseases and allergies transmitted and caused by pests, pest professionals can no longer be content to just spray a house every three months; they now must act as detectives, sanitarians and guardians of public health, he said. “You’re role is changing,” he said. “There's always going to be a role for somebody who understands the biology (of pests). There’s always going to be a role for pest control. It’s all about being a detective and using your head.”
The day-long seminar was presented by the The PCT Media Group and sponsored by DuPont Professional Products.
Goddard told the story of being called to an old state-owned building that housed a day care with a working kitchen, social services and other offices. The day care was complaining of a gnat problem, and had used five different pest control companies that failed to get the pests under control.
So Goddard brought one of his colleagues out to the building, and they walked into a black cloud of gnats. Through the haze, they asked the day-care manager where the insects were coming from. She looked at them with a blank stare.
No one, Goddard said, had ever asked her that before.
The two men eventually found the culprit — a grease trap outside — where the flies were “breeding like gangbusters,” then flying in through dry floor drains.
“Sadly, five pest controllers came to that place and said, ‘Get back, I’m here to spray,’” Goddard said.
That mentality — that pest management professionals only come around to spray and don’t look at the big picture — is one of the past, Goddard said. These days, pest professionals are likely to encounter more and more questions from customers about their own health, and they have to know how to handle them.
And while most North American customers aren’t going to have many encounters with dengue fever, malaria or the flesh-eating leshimaniasis, they likely will have questions about possible infections from bed bugs, spiders, ticks and mosquitoes.
Goddard said pest management professionals must understand the biology and possible impact of such public health pests, and be able to explain them to clients. But, he cautioned, even a pest professional with a doctorate in entomology is not a medical doctor. Any questions about infections or strange rashes should be referred to a health care provider; never examine anyone.
“These are medical issues,” he said. “It’s just not your world. Refer the people to a 'doctor doctor.'”
Pest management professionals, however, should work closely with the medical community because many medical doctors don’t have extensive entomological training. Goddard, who teaches at Mississippi’s medical school, said many doctors often will misdiagnose tick paralysis as any number of things.
“You have to tell them they don’t know,” he said. “You’ve got to say, ‘Tick, man. Tick.’”
One of the most important issues in public health pest control, Goddard said, is myiasis. Pest professionals often encounter the condition — when maggots develop in open wounds and sores — in hospitals or nursing home accounts. He said keeping the flies out in these situations is even more important from both a health and liability standpoint.
Goddard showed conference attendees a photo of an ankle wound crawling with white maggots.
“If this is your Aunt Sally, and you see this…you’ll sue the nursing home, the pest controller, the bread truck driver, the landscaper, everybody,” he said. “As a pest controller, this can blindside you.”
He said fly traps and scatter baits, as well as Integrated Pest Management approaches such as tight-fitting screens and keeping trash cans away from open doors can greatly reduce the chances for myiasis.
The author is assistant editor of PCT magazine.
For more on Goddard and his work, watch this video he put together about inspecting a bakery.