U.S. researcher allays health fears as pests spread to `weird places'

Andrew Stern, REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

CHICAGO – Bedbugs may be a growing nuisance, lurking in mattresses and other hiding places until emerging to seek blood for their meal, but their bites do not appear to transmit disease, researchers said yesterday.

Resistant to many pest control efforts, the hardy pest is spreading to hotels, homes, subways and movie theatres.

"Five-star hotels are just as susceptible as little cheap ones. People bring them in with their stuff. The real problem is people taking them home ... because they're so difficult to get rid of," said Jerome Goddard, a Mississippi State University entomologist who wrote a report with a colleague on the topic in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Goddard said there has been an "explosion" of bedbug infestations.

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