Study summary
FTC enforcement against marketers of ultrasonic and wearable mosquito repellers
U.S. Federal Trade Commission
Read the original paper- Study type
- Other
- Year
- 2016
- Published in
- U.S. Federal Trade Commission, press release, May 2016 (with earlier related actions)
- Evidence strength
- Well-supported evidence
Summary
This entry is a regulatory action rather than a scientific study, included because it is an authoritative check on the gadget-repellent market. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission polices advertising claims and requires that pest-control claims be backed by competent and reliable scientific evidence. When marketers of wearable and electronic mosquito repellers could not support their claims, the FTC stepped in, which tells a buyer that these are not fringe complaints but findings by a federal regulator.
Key findings
In 2016 the FTC announced that the marketers behind Mosquito Shield Bands, wearable bands advertised to repel mosquitoes over a surrounding area, agreed to a $300,000 judgment and were barred from making such pest-control claims without competent and reliable scientific evidence. This followed earlier FTC action against sellers of ultrasonic and electronic pest repellers, including a case resolved in 2003 involving Lentek International over unsubstantiated claims for its ultrasonic devices. The practical signal is consistent: when these area and wearable repellent claims have been examined by regulators, they have not been substantiated.
Limitations
An enforcement action addresses specific companies and their specific advertising, so it is a judgment about those marketers rather than a laboratory measurement of every device. It also reflects the state of the evidence the marketers could produce at the time. Read alongside the field studies and the Cochrane review, however, the FTC actions reinforce the same conclusion from a regulatory angle: claims that these gadgets repel mosquitoes have not held up to scrutiny.