Apr 30, 2011 – Wrong 100% of the Time
QUESTION:
Has the Brown Recluse arrived in Florida? I live in the Deltona area and I have been told that LOTS of people are being bitten by the Brown Recluse. Have you heard of such a thing?
ANSWER:
I love this topic but also am frustrated by it, because California (my home state) suffers from the same problem as you folks in Florida do. The REPORTS of brown recluse spider bites made by doctors diagnosing every open sore on someone's skin as a spider bite are apparently wrong nearly all the time. The fact is that YES, the brown recluse has "arrived" in Florida several times, and has "arrived" in California maybe a dozen times over the past 30 years, but neither state has resident populations of this spider. In-depth investigations by the Universities in both states and the Departments of Agriculture have concluded that nearly every reported recluse bite could not be confirmed, and nearly all the time no spider was definitely linked to the skin problem.
I sent your question to one of our sales reps in Miami, who got an excellent response from an expert in Florida, and his answer is that Loxosceles reclusa is NOT an established resident spider in Florida. There have been only a couple of confirmed incidents where this species was actually found, and in each case clearly was imported with materials from other states. They investigated 328 "reported" Recluse bites, and found that only 1 (that is One, Uno, one less than 2, 1 more than zero) was factual, and this was a truck driver handling freight brought into the state. This is pretty much an exact parallel with California, where the reported bites outweigh the actual presence of the spider by about 100%, and it is the extreme rarity for a victim to actually have seen a spider, much less see one bite them.
According to Dr. Rick Vetter of the Univ. of California, who has been on a decades-long campaign to try to educate the medical community and news media, perhaps 95% of these skin lesions are not even related to insect bites or stings, but likely are bacterial infections, and currently many are likely due to MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureas - the "flesh eating bacteria"). To diagnose the skin lesion as a spider bite instead of a staph infection could then lead to incorrect treatment of it. The spider expert in Florida goes on to say that most people who truly have been bitten by a Recluse show no symptoms at all, but that only those with over-sensitive immune systems react badly. You may remember that home in Missouri where they trapped over 2000 recluse spiders one summer, just to see how many were in the house, and no one living there had ever been bitten nor was concerned about them.
But, just try to change the opinions of people, who are so strongly influenced by the media (which just LOVES scary stories) and the medical community (in whom they put complete faith). As Dr. Vetter stated it at a conference, being able to tell people you were bitten by a Violin Spider is like a a Badge of Honor, and much better than saying "I got a staph infection". Heck, friends want to hear all about the spider bite, but probably run in horror from the disgusting staph infection. Bottom line is that a few confirmed brown recluse spiders, one here and there, have been found in Florida but always associated with materials recently brought into that location. There are no known resident populations of them, and all of those people who are reporting that they have been bitten by the recluse are wrong.
Has the Brown Recluse arrived in Florida? I live in the Deltona area and I have been told that LOTS of people are being bitten by the Brown Recluse. Have you heard of such a thing?
ANSWER:
I love this topic but also am frustrated by it, because California (my home state) suffers from the same problem as you folks in Florida do. The REPORTS of brown recluse spider bites made by doctors diagnosing every open sore on someone's skin as a spider bite are apparently wrong nearly all the time. The fact is that YES, the brown recluse has "arrived" in Florida several times, and has "arrived" in California maybe a dozen times over the past 30 years, but neither state has resident populations of this spider. In-depth investigations by the Universities in both states and the Departments of Agriculture have concluded that nearly every reported recluse bite could not be confirmed, and nearly all the time no spider was definitely linked to the skin problem.
I sent your question to one of our sales reps in Miami, who got an excellent response from an expert in Florida, and his answer is that Loxosceles reclusa is NOT an established resident spider in Florida. There have been only a couple of confirmed incidents where this species was actually found, and in each case clearly was imported with materials from other states. They investigated 328 "reported" Recluse bites, and found that only 1 (that is One, Uno, one less than 2, 1 more than zero) was factual, and this was a truck driver handling freight brought into the state. This is pretty much an exact parallel with California, where the reported bites outweigh the actual presence of the spider by about 100%, and it is the extreme rarity for a victim to actually have seen a spider, much less see one bite them.
According to Dr. Rick Vetter of the Univ. of California, who has been on a decades-long campaign to try to educate the medical community and news media, perhaps 95% of these skin lesions are not even related to insect bites or stings, but likely are bacterial infections, and currently many are likely due to MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureas - the "flesh eating bacteria"). To diagnose the skin lesion as a spider bite instead of a staph infection could then lead to incorrect treatment of it. The spider expert in Florida goes on to say that most people who truly have been bitten by a Recluse show no symptoms at all, but that only those with over-sensitive immune systems react badly. You may remember that home in Missouri where they trapped over 2000 recluse spiders one summer, just to see how many were in the house, and no one living there had ever been bitten nor was concerned about them.
But, just try to change the opinions of people, who are so strongly influenced by the media (which just LOVES scary stories) and the medical community (in whom they put complete faith). As Dr. Vetter stated it at a conference, being able to tell people you were bitten by a Violin Spider is like a a Badge of Honor, and much better than saying "I got a staph infection". Heck, friends want to hear all about the spider bite, but probably run in horror from the disgusting staph infection. Bottom line is that a few confirmed brown recluse spiders, one here and there, have been found in Florida but always associated with materials recently brought into that location. There are no known resident populations of them, and all of those people who are reporting that they have been bitten by the recluse are wrong.
