Over the weekend I got to answer mosquito questions at the annual Native Plant Sale sponsored by the Rose Valley Environmental Advisory Council. I brought props: two types of gravid autocidal traps (Biogents, Catchmaster) for luring and killing pregnant mosquitoes, a mint plant (for reminding folks that plants do not repel mosquitoes), Mosquito Dunks (for killing larvae in bird baths, e.g.), Mosquito Bits (to kill larvae even faster), permethrin clothing spray, DEET repellent, picaridin repellent, oil of lemon eucalyptus (para-menthane-3,8-diol) repellent, and, finally, boxes of Spartan Mosquito tubes as examples of scams to avoid. I also displayed several pages of mosquito tips from my blog, each with scannable QR codes.
If you want more information, here are my mosquito posts:
Please feel free to share any of the above on Facebook. It would be great to get more people aware of the need to eliminate stagnant water. And please get the word out to your neighbors that fumigating yards with chemicals will kill more than just mosquitoes.
And just in case anyone is wondering, I am not getting any kickbacks from the manufacturers I recommend. And, yes, I am wearing a Purrington’s Cat Lounge t-shirt.
I never intended to publish more than my original 2019 review, but AC2T’s retaliatory lawsuit against me (#2 on the above list) prevented me from visiting my mom while she was dying and has cost me $90,000 in legal fees (update: I countersued the company, successfully). I will continue to expose this company until it goes out of business.
Background
This television clip is a good introduction to the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator and to the company’s frontman, Jeremy Hirsch:
Are you a journalist?
There’s likely a fun story here. Owner of sandwich franchise becomes head of award-winning, $100 million company that sells tubes of sugar water to kill mosquitoes. Inventor says, “We’ve come up with the most economical, easiest, most effective mosquito-control measure pretty much in the world”.
When I pointed out that device is totally unlikely to work, company lashed out with a SLAPP to bankrupt and silence me. A lawyer in New York read my post and used it as the basis for a $5 million class action suit (but I won’t get a penny). Soon after, separate teams of scientists confirmed that, indeed, Spartan Mosquito Eradicators cannot and do not work. Shockingly, the FTC and EPA have done absolutely nothing, and even the American Mosquito Control Association cowered in silence, fearful of itself being sued. Only a handful of states have banned sales of the tubes.
And in 2020, Spartan Mosquito even managed to get a version of its tube approved by the EPA, a feat engineered by the lobbying firm behind Brexit. Scientists are horrified. You can now buy the tubes on Amazon, where they’re marketed as a beneficial pest-control insects. Only California sees the scam and bans sales.
Will the FTC ever get involved? Does the EPA know that it’s been snookered?
And how on earth did the tube get registered for sale in the first place, in Mississippi? Answer, political pressure (the Branch Director of the Pesticide Program wrote, “I was told from above to approve“).
If that’s not enough drama for a good read, there’s pornography and NASCAR in the mix (racy, eh?). And I’m guessing that Spartan Mosquito hired a private investigator to pry into my personal life (they posted online comments about my wife). I suspect there is also a lot of delicious information on the company’s failed effort to get a foothold in Africa (all that’s left is an archive of the shell company’s website). There’s even talk of a military discharge file with highly pertinent information. And talk of governors in multiple states intervening on behalf of the company, pressuring pesticide regulators.
There’s also plenty of footage of Spartan Mosquito on YouTube. There used to be more but the company has been deleting it. I can’t say I blame them.
Please consider contacting your counterparts in states that have denied registrations to Spartan Mosquito (CA, CT, ID, IN, KS, ME, MT, NE, NM, NY, OK, PA, UT, VA, WA, and DC) and ask for a copy of the letter sent to the company detailing the reason. You can also ask the Region 4 EPA office for the “Letter of Warning” sent to Spartan Mosquito in 2018 that details why the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator does not satisfy the conditions for exemption from registration under Section 25(b) of FIFRA (i.e., the company has falsely claimed it is exempt).
Are you an EPA or FTC enforcement officer?
I would recommend taking a close look at the efficacy data (field trials, case studies, cage experiments, etc.) that the company has been sending to state lead agencies for the Eradicator. Spartan Mosquito is apparently sending data that show a 95% reduction in mosquito populations (to support the claim of 95% efficacy that appears on the box). It would be very interesting, therefore, to know how they managed to get such results. I.e., because salt is not lethal to mosquitoes, the purported 95% reduction must be due to bad experimental design, selective data reporting, or simple fabrication. If it’s the latter (involving lying to the EPA and to state regulators), prison time for some or all AC2T employees is not out of the question.
I’d also recommend scrutinizing the claim on the box (and on instructional brochure inside, and on company’s Facebook page, and on video ads) that mosquitoes will be “drawn” to the tubes. Here’s the issue: Spartan Mosquito admitted to a state regulator (in 2019) that the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator does not emit enough carbon dioxide to attract mosquitoes. Yet the company has continued to make the “draws mosquitoes” claim for years, assuring state regulators that all the claims on the label are true. This seems to be an example of the company, and perhaps its attorneys as well, of knowingly misleading state and federal pesticide authorities. The EPA should also ask the company to provide the CO2 production data for the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech to see whether the same issue is at play (the company claims the tube attracts mosquitoes).
This company’s products would make for a fantastic deep-dive into the proliferation of ineffective mosquito control products in the United States and how some states allow these products on shelves even when it’s pretty darn clear they don’t do a thing. Pills, creams, bracelets, zappers, tubes of sugar water. Spartan Mosquito has taken it to the next level and deserves to be exposed for the hive of charlatans it is.
Here’s one of the company’s commercials for the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech that you can show and say, “coooool.” True fact: the lobbying firm behind Brexit helped to get that tube approved by EPA. Here’s another heartwarming commercial (for its original tube) that involves a guy slapping his kids. For footage of the frontman I recommend this. Or this. Here’s my YouTube playlist with more options.
Most importantly, Spartan Mosquito owns a rather nice mascot suit and I bet the guy who built it will make one for you. It goes well with attractive models dressed as Spartans, and maybe you could get the whole gang to picket the beautiful Spartan Mosquito production facility in Laurel, Mississippi, for a photo op. For added fun, please give them signs that say, “Release the efficacy data!”, “Please hire a biologist”, and “It’s spelled ENTOMOLOGY no ETYMOLOGY”. I would be entertained.
Consider donating to my GoFundme campaign
My legal battle with Spartan Mosquito is over but I’m still $36,000 in the hole. Donations and/or shares would be hugely appreciated: https://gofund.me/fe59f642.
This post evaluates the claim on the label, “mosquitoes will gather near them”. Per the company, it is the first step in how the device kills mosquitoes. I.e., the device needs to attract mosquitoes if it is going to work.
Evaluating the claim
I used a security camera to record activity around the cap area. Here’s a photograph of how I arranged everything:
Below is a 15-second time-lapse to show that small insects such as ants were easily visible, even at night. I think they are Prenolepis imparis, which are 3-4 mm long —mosquitoes are larger and thus would be detectable even in flight.
On the day that began filming (September 2nd, 2020) I counted over a dozen mosquitoes (all Aedes albopictus) landing on my arms and legs within 30 seconds. According to the instruction sheet, the device begins to work instantly, as soon as water is added, so an hour of remote, video observation should be a sufficient amount of time to evaluate the attraction claim.
I collected continuous footage for over a week, ending observations on September 10th. The mosquitoes were still plentiful on that day.
Results
During 183 hours of footage, I couldn’t find a single mosquito on or near the device. Here are the contents. I also posted a photograph to iNaturalist.
Conclusion
Because the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech did not attract any mosquitoes, it therefore did not kill any mosquitoes. If my results are generalizable to other yards, the device is worthless as mechanism of mosquito control.
It is noteworthy, I think, that Spartan Mosquito has not made public a single video of mosquitoes gathering around a Pro Tech (or an Eradicator) when it is deployed outside. My guess is that the company has tried many times to get such footage but has not succeeded in attracting a mosquito. It will be interesting to know whether they will be compelled to disclose their efforts in a court of law. I.e., because the company has formally claimed to the EPA that “mosquitoes will gather” around the Pro Tech, the company would be in substantial legal jeopardy if that statement turned out to be false. If that’s what is going on then it seems likely that the EPA Enforcement Office might coordinate with the FTC as well.
In case anyone might be skeptical of my results, I decided to upload all 183 hours of footage onto YouTube. I had to break it into 16 segments due to size limits on YouTube.
