To the editor:

The front page of April 25 Journal-World quotes a pest-control company that can rescue us from being driven “buggy,” especially by ants. Before Lawrencians race to the phone to call an exterminator, they would do well to consider what the article omitted. While insecticides are not all alike, studies link many of these chemicals to cancer. By contrast, ants are extraordinarily clean insects. What they carry on their feet is what they picked up within a few inches of where they are, and bacterial loads on ants aren’t much different from those in your home’s air. So if we store our food next to biohazards such as insecticides, we might have reason to worry about the ants tracking poison onto our cookies. Surely it would be simpler to remove the biohazard or, better and healthier, not to buy it in the first place.

Jane Gibson,
Lawrence