Call it the perfect storm of paranoia: Stories appear of lots more bed bugs in the Northwest. And in New York. And even in fancy hotels.

The small, nocturnal insects, which hide in box springs and bed frames by day and feed at night, are like cockroaches, only much smaller and less leggy. Although not known to spread disease, they cause itchy welts and they're just … icky.

Not since philosopher Franz Kafka's allegory about a man turning into a giant cockroach have we read of something that makes our skin crawl more. (I apologize if you are scratching, even as you read this.)

But there's one suggestion making the rounds of the blogosphere that is even spookier:

To get rid of the bedbugs that most of us probably don't even have, we should reauthorize the use of DDT. This pesticide was widely used after World War II to rid areas of mosquitoes and other insects, but it did not stop there. It accumulated in fatty tissues and decimated the populations of raptors - flesh-eating birds. Long-lived in the environment, DDT caused such thinning of the raptors' eggshells. Baby birds could not be incubated into fledglings, raptor reproduction virtually stopped and hawks, eagles and falcons began to disappear.

It was, without a doubt, the single biggest reason for the near-extinction of our own national symbol, the bald eagle. So after Rachel Carson's well-timed and influential book, "Silent Spring," woke people up to the damage that DDT caused by thinning eggshells, bird populations began to rebound.

So it's an ironic coincidence that just about the time we trumpet the return of from the brink of our national symbol, the bald eagle, which has flown off the endangered species list, people are calling for the return of DDT.

DDT use after World War II was akin to wiping out weeds by bulldozing gardens, with similar ecologic effects. It is not needed again, and the notion of allowing it for household use is alarming. Our main water pollution problem, diplomatically termed "non-source" pollution, refers to contamination largely from the household chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides that wash from urban areas into storm drains.

The last thing we need is to introduce DDT into that mix. As the bald eagle soars back into the skies, we don't need to begin poisoning its progeny again with a fear-based rumor fueled by a high "ick" factor.

Theresa Novak is the opinion page editor at the Corvallis Gazette-Times. A podcast version of this column is available at gazettetimes.com under the GT to Go link.