USDA Reports Pine Oil Derivative Controls Mosquitoes

Two million persons die from malaria-related illness every year while perhaps billions are threatened by clouds of disease-carrying mosquitoes and Lyme Disease, while rarely fatal, is transmitted to humans by infected ticks every year in increasing numbers. So, not surprisingly much research time and money has been poured into controlling the vectors responsible.

Those concentrated efforts seem to have paid-off as USDA researchers have applied for a patent for commercial production of a pine oil compound, isolongifolenone. They say this sustainable, natural derivative has been shown under laboratory conditions to be more effective than DEET at repelling wild mosquitoes and dog ticks.

Past efforts at commercial production of plant-based repellants have failed partly due to manufacturing inefficiencies caused by insufficient raw material inventory, or cost-prohibitive processes yet Aijun Zhang and his USDA team anticipate efficient, cheap large-scale production of their pine oil "wonder" repellant.