New, Easy Way to Kill Ticks

This came from a newsletter from Andrew Dr. Weil.

If you’re worried about ticks hitching a ride home with you after a walk in the woods, toss your clothes in the dryer for a few minutes. That should get rid of them permanently, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC previously advised killing ticks by first washing the clothes they might cling to and then drying them for an hour. The new report suggests if you skip the washing, you can kill ticks and immature nymphs much faster, in only 4 to 11 minutes in the dryer, depending on the dryer temperature. It turns out that although ticks are vulnerable to heat, they are extremely sensitive to dryness. The researchers found that 100 percent of the blacklegged ticks they used in the study survived cold-water washes, 94 percent of them lived through warm-water washes and 50 percent survived hot water washes. It then took 70 minutes of drying on low heat and 50 minutes on high heat to kill ticks that made it through the wash. Even though this new method may get rid of ticks on your clothes, the CDC still advises using repellents on your skin and clothing in tick-infested areas.