DEET = DON'T!

A recent weekend ago I went to visit my brother, who lives just a few minutes from Lyme, Ct, a.k.a. Ground Zero for Lyme disease. Because of the warm winter (thanks, Global Warming!), which normally kills deer tick nymphs, they've had ticks all year, with my bro getting a telltale bull's eye rash February, and each time my mom visited, she complained how at least one person had a tick.

Fertilitybitch, with her chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome (CFIDS), is not happy at the prospect of Lyme disease. But at the same time,before slathering on DEET, she has to stop and ask, does she want to apply an organophosphate to her tender skin, one that the nice chemistry PhD over about About.com calls, "toxic and potentially fatal if swallowed"?

This stuff is meant to KILL things, not exactly a big fertility promoter at the very least. For years, Gulf War vets have made their way to the chronic fatigue boards convinced it's the DEET sprayed on them that's given them Gulf War Syndrome. And a leaked report (isn't that the only way they get out, these days?) seems to agree, as DEET inactivates an enzyme that interacts wtih an all-important neural signaler, acetylcholine: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6609 so the Gulf War vets get all the interesting neural aches and pains and fatigue that is debilitating but that the Disability types like to call psychosomatic.

Anyway, I still wanted to visit my brother, so I tried out BEAT IT, a natural mixture of essential oils (it's in a wheat germ oil base, for those of you sensitive to wheat) plus aloe and actually smells nice, but ticks supposedly don't like this nice smell. You can just spray it on your clothes, or your skin.

GUESS WHAT? Someone did get a tick that weekend, but it was none of us who used BEAT IT. I say TRY IT. Get it at www.jadeandpearl.com. It's also a cruelty free product.