The Fine Science Of Fighting Mosquitoes

Before there were air conditioners or even window screens, people spent a lot of time slapping at mosquitoes. There was no safe haven in the summer. You either sweltered in a closed house or scratched itchy bites.
To discourage mosquitoes and biting flies humans have resorted to some pretty drastic measures, from bear grease to camphor, turpentine or rosemary. Since 1957 the gold standard has been DEET, but some people prefer natural repellents.
People get very emotional about their favorites. Marines, golfers, hunters and campers extol the virtues of Avon Skin-So-Soft bath oil. One reader wrote: “I use it and have not been bitten while gardening. I can hear the mosquitoes singing around me, but they never land. Before, I would have bites all over.”
A retired physician added this: “On Sandy Hook, New Jersey, there is a clothes-optional beach exposing a LOT of epidermis. A west wind blows biting flies out of the dunes and they build up at the water’s edge. Most of the regulars spray on Skin-So-Soft diluted with water, and it definitely discourages the flies where applied.”
Skin-So-Soft is probably the most popular home remedy against bug bites, but some readers turn to a dietary supplement. Both garlic and thiamine have devotees: “I have been taking garlic supplements for months to fight sinus infections and I never seem to get any bug bites now. Maybe they don’t like the way I smell or taste!”
An impressive story about thiamine comes from a camping trip in the high Sierras. A husband and wife, anticipating trouble, started taking a supplement two weeks before the hike: “Never in my life had I seen so many mosquitoes. They hovered in thick black blankets over every square inch of our bodies. They tried to enter every available orifice, making it unpleasant to eat, drink water, or go to the bathroom.
My husband I had only seven mosquito bites between us after two nightmarish days. Our three friends were literally covered with bites. One woman had more than 50 bites on a small section of her shoulder and a row of bites along the part of her hair.” The couple attributed their protection to the oral vitamin B1.
But new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine (July 4, 2002) casts doubt on all these home remedies. Dermatologist Mark Fradin, MD, reports, “Most alternatives to topically applied repellents have proved to be ineffective. No ingested compound, including garlic and thiamine (vitamin B1), has been found to be capable of repelling biting arthropods. Small, wearable devices that emit sounds that are purported to be abhorrent to biting mosquitoes have also been proved to be ineffective.”
Fradin and his co-author John Day, PhD, tested mosquito repellents on volunteers who stuck their arms into cages of hungry mosquitoes. The best protection (five hours) came from the highest concentration of DEET (23.8 percent in this test). Avon Skin-So-Soft bath oil protected for less than 10 minutes.
People who want an alternative to DEET might consider Bite Blocker, with a soybean oil base (about an hour and a half) or a eucalyptus oil product (Fite Bite or Repel Lemon Eucalyptus Insect Repellent), which protected for around two hours.