INSECT REPELLENTS: Bugging Ticks For Profits

New health fears often bring windfall business, as the manufacturers of sun block and condoms can attest. This season the booming product is insect repellent. The near hysteria over tick-borne Lyme disease, along with a proliferation of other buzzing pests because of wet weather, has sent the sales of bug spray and lotion rising at double-digit rates.

Besides boosting products ranging from S.C. Johnson's best-selling OFF! to New Hampshire-made Ben's 100 lotion, the mania has also encouraged new entries. Florida-based Eclipse Laboratories seized upon the potential profits by introducing Tick Garde. The bug spray contains DEET, or diethylmetatoluamide, the same active ingredient found in many standard repellents, but the product's name appeals directly to the latest fears. The 6-oz. blue-and-white-colored cans cost $7.95, almost double the price of other sprays; yet in just a little over three months consumers have snapped up more than 500,000 of them.