Hi Tweets,

Michael Price writes:

>> And be *very* careful not to apply DEET in high concentrations: it's been
>> implicated in neurological damage. Not sure what the recommended upper
limit
>> is, somewhere around 30% concentration, I *think*.

Jack Bowling replies:

>HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!! Believe me, when being consumed by a cloud of
mosquitoes
>and black flies, the last bloody thing you care about is nerve damage! Basic
>survival comes first...

That's for sure, and that's what I thought, but after a summer doing bird
surveys in those clouds of biters and before I knew about this, I used an
85% to 100% solution. The manufacturer put nothing on its packaging to
indicate that it was either necessary or recommended to dilute it.

It wasn't until I saw a CBC program on it a couple years later and a couple
of people interviewed who described the effects that I realised why I had
suddenly that summer developed an inability to control how I formed certain
sounds. My 'r's and 'l's in particular became very difficult. *Extremely*
frustrating when a word like 'parallel' I'd been pronouncing clearly all my
life suddenly turned into a real battle to utter because the muscles of my
tongue refused to work properly. The problem has moderated some over the
last year or so, and I've got most of those sounds back.

Ain't *no* laughs left for me there. DEET's nothing to take for granted or
minimise.

Michael Price The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters
Vancouver BC Canada -Goya
mprice at mindlink.net