Industry and agriculture agency offer competing evidence as legislature weighs rodenticide limits

Tyler Hawkins, representing the New England Pest Management Association, and David Huber, deputy director of the public health and agricultural resource management division at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, testified before the committee about H 326 and related restrictions on rodenticides.

Hawkins testified in opposition to a full ban on anticoagulant rodenticides in H 326. He said pest management professionals rely on integrated pest management (IPM) — exclusion, sanitation, mechanical trapping and, when necessary, rodenticide baits placed in tamper‑resistant stations — to protect public health in homes, schools, hospitals and food facilities. "Rodents can transmit more than 35 diseases, including hantavirus and plague," Hawkins said, and he warned that restricting rodenticide access could hamper control of infestations. He described rodenticides as a rarely used but necessary…