Since 1942, USDA has performed repellent testing, initially for the US military. In recent years, there has been a collaborative effort to evaluate a number of natural extracts and compounds for their repellent efficacy. Plant-produced compounds are usually more volatile than synthetic repellents and therefore will not persist as long on the skin. Formulation might extend the lifetime of natural repellents, therefore we currently assess the minimum effective dosage (MED) of compounds rather than the complete protection time (CPT). The MED is an estimation of the threshold surface concentration at which a repellent fails or drops below the effective dose for 100% bite prevention (ED100). Extracts of plants have been evaluated and some found to be repellent. Individual compounds from these extracts as well as compounds from citrus have been evaluated for their MED and will be presented in this talk.

Determination of repellent efficacy of natural compounds

244th National Meeting (2012)

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