New or recently introduced weeds are biological pollutants in our natural and agricultural ecosystems. Unlike chemical pollutants, new weeds left unchecked often proliferate and pose problems that may not become apparent until eradication is too expensive or impractical. Management strategies for weeds should include: 1. prevention (from entering foreign commerce); 2. exclusion (detection of weed contaminants in imported products at ports of entry); 3. detection, containment, and eradication of incipient infestations; and 4. perpetual control (of widespread species that cannot otherwise be addressed). Appropriate legislative authority, modern weed technology, funding, and a renewed commitment to the concept of prevention are needed to prevent the introduction of new weeds. A national initiative to prevent the establishment of new weeds would be beneficial by saving on future losses and perpetual control costs. Actions taken now will prevent the continued introduction and spread of new weeds in the United States.

The fox tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis is typically perpetuated in a cycle with red foxes as definitive hosts and various rodent species as intermediate hosts. In this study, foxes were baited with a highly efficient drug against cestodes (praziquantel) in 5 blocks of 1 km2. Voles, Arvicola terrestris, the most abundant intermediate host species, were trapped in the 5 baited blocks and in 5 non-baited control blocks. Baiting the foxes reduced the prevalence of E. multilocularis in fox faecal samples in the baited blocks, but voles trapped in the two blocks did not differ in their infection rates. However, voles from the baited blocks had significantly smaller spleen masses and were more likely to be infested with mites than those from the control blocks, possibly reflecting different immunological activities. Our study suggests that the environmental contamination with E. multilocularis eggs, and perhaps those of other tapeworms, influences the immune system of the intermediate host species A. terrestris in the wild.

High prevalences of Echinococcus multilocularis have been reported from foxes of the city of Zurich, Switzerland. In order to characterize transmission in urban areas, a coproantigen ELISA was evaluated for diagnosing the infection in fox faecal samples collected in the environment. In addition, trapped rodents were investigated for the presence of metacestodes. Faecal samples could reliably be classified as being of fox origin by assessing physical properties as shown by the different parasite spectra of putative fox and dog faecal specimens. From the total of 604 tested putative fox faecal samples 156 (25·8%) were positive in the ELISA with a distinct increase in the proportion of positive samples from the urban to the periurban zone. Furthermore, samples collected in the border zone had significantly more coproantigen-positive results during winter. Prevalence of E. multilocularis in rodents was 9·1% (81/889) for Arvicola terrestris (with 3·5% of the animals harbouring between 14 and 244400 protoscoleces) and 2·4% (2/83) for Clethrionomys glareolus. E. multilocularis-infected A. terrestris were found in 9 of 10 trapping sites in the border zone. The high infection pressure in the periphery of urban areas might pose a risk for infection with E. multilocularis for both domestic carnivores as well as for urban inhabitants. Interventions into the cycle aiming at reducing the infection pressure should therefore focus on these areas.