[Back Talk]

HATS OFF TO THE HAMMELS!

I read with great interest — and fellow feeling — about Victor and Bobby Hammel’s decision to sell the business that’s been in their family for 75-plus years.
Why do it?  In the midst of continued growth, why not play the same winning hand for another three generations — or even more?
The Hammels answered these questions with great clarity of insight, and yet — as I know from my own personal experience — even with your hands still at the wheel, it’s hard to let go.  Working within the hug of a family business brings its own challenges, its own rewards, and its own keen sense of how much PEOPLE bring to its success.
In this fast-paced, I-need-it-yesterday world — humming and ringing with scanners and modems, PDAs and cell phones — the brothers know as well as I do that it’s the circle of staffers and even customers, as well as the family, who are keeping alive the traditions, the company culture built up over generations.
Some might say Victor and Bobby had 141 million reasons to sell their company.  If only it were that simple.  It’s not. Hats off to both of you. May the years ahead bring you still more of the same measure of fulfillment you’ve earned until now.
 
Michael Weisburger
President, Weisburger Insurance Brokerage
White Plains, N.Y.

NO CAUSE FOR PANIC?

Editor’s note: Plague recently made headlines nationally with reports that a Los Angeles woman was hospitalized with the disease in April. An Associated Press article titled, “LA Woman Hospitalized with Bubonic Plague” stated, “Health officials said there was no cause for panic because the disease is not easily transmissible.” This statement raised concerns among some in the entomology and pest management community, including Dr. Harold Harlan, senior scientific associate, Kadix Systems, Silver Spring, Md.

The statement at the end of that article misses the essence of the real threat. Those fleas (at least one) which had to have infected that woman can live for at least a considerable number of days after they became capable of transmitting the plague organisms to her. 
Further, (the fleas) had to have picked up the organisms from some mammal (very likely a small rodent or a feral cat), probably within the same general setting vaguely mentioned in the article since there was no mention of her recently traveling to any other known plague-endemic sites. I am a bit concerned that there was no mention of any attempt to undertake any flea control (not even any surveillance) or to consider where (i.e., from what nearby mammal) those fleas might have gotten their infection. 
The report sounds as if the whole problem is strictly a clinical medical one, and that narrow focus could lead to other cases, and possibly deaths, if cases are diagnosed late or if that happened to be the strain of plague organism which has been reported to be very resistant to the usual “antibiotics of choice” used to treat human plague cases. All in all, it sounds as if someone does not quite know how to address a plague outbreak of any size or they simply did not report the real concurrent corrective and preventive actions which were, or should have been, done (i.e., immediate and aggressive local flea control first, followed by surveillance for probable additional local populations of effective plague-vector fleas and for potential local plague reservoir hosts). Local pest management professionals could be (could have been) very helpful in targeted flea control efforts, and may be in small mammal reservoir host surveillance as well.
 Incidentally, cats (including the common domestic species) can readily become infected with bubonic plague via an infective flea bite, and, within only a few days, they can (and often do) go on to develop the extremely dangerous “pneumonic” form of those same plague organisms; which they can spread easily and rapidly (including to people) just by “sneezing.” Currently available plague (preventive) vaccinations are not very effective, and they do not protect people from the pneumonic form. By the way, the common cat flea and several rat flea species are very competent vectors of plague organisms.
 I suggest that interested parties ask the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about proper strategies to address such dangerous diseases, or maybe at least visit their Web site. The site:  www.cdc.gov  (followed by a search for “plague”) has lots of good information and advice available.

Harold Harlan
Senior Scientific Associate
Kadix Systems, LLC
Silver Spring, Md.  

A GREAT HISTORICAL RESOURCE FOR PCOs

Your publication, The Ratcatcher’s Child, is amazing! Every exterminator ought to have one. It’s the most comprehensive history of our industry that’s ever been compiled.

Bob Bradshaw
Bob’s Rid-X
Pest Control
Morehouse, Mo.

Editor’s note: The book, The Ratcatcher’s Child, by Dr. Robert Snetsinger, can be purchased from the PCT Online Store at www.pctonline.com/store or by calling 800/456-0707.