Does your insect repellant work?

wintersun wrote:
DEET disolves plastics for starters and it is not safe for continuous use against the skin. The EPA has been run by industry since the days of Ronald Reagan and Rumsfelds backroom deal for Searle and aspartame.

What the US military uses overseas is permethrin which is used in a water solution and then used to saturate clothing. One treatment lasts for 50 washings. This takes care of ticks, fleas, chigger, sand fleas, and mosquitos.

For the areas not covered with clothing the use of picardin in a 20% solution works very well. Unfortunately it is often sold in 5% concentrations and doe not work nearly as well as should be expected. The lower concentration solutions do not sell for less than the higher concentration solutions. Same applies to permethrin which I buy in 1 quart bottles with a 37% solution and dilute and apply with a hand sprayer. Cost about 5 cents per clothing item treated.

Why anyone would repeat information that is old and provides no value to readers is hard to understand. With access to the internet pertinent information is not all that difficult to find - including the US military's own guidelines and field instruction manuals for insect repellents. US soldiers have been at risk for sand fleas and an eye disease that they carry - better than the exposure they are getting to radioactive ammunition debris our bombs and rockets have left behind for current and future generations, but still a problem and permethrin is being used to mitigate the insect risk.