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- The joys of childhood
are timeless: Swing sets, birthday
parties... the occasional
school-wide outbreak of head lice. It used to
be that a quick dose of a
foul-smelling mixture called permethrin (Nix,
Rid) and a fierce
comb-through were enough to annihilate the bloodsucking
pests and their
eggs, but now those days of relative ease may be over.
According to the
results of a Harvard University study of 75 lice-infested
children,
some lice are no longer susceptible to over-the-counter medicines
traditionally recommended by pediatricians. And so kids who come home with
a case of head lice and are treated with the popular chemical return to
school with their infestation and proceed to reinfect the whole class.
And the cycle begins again.
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- Why are lice becoming hardier? According to TIME medical
reporter Janice Horowitz, the Harvard study results revealed a correlation
between over-treatment and resistance.
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- The researchers looked at kids
in two American cities,
Boise and Boston, and compared them with kids
with lice in Borneo. In Borneo,
where few or no pesticides are used,
lice were killed very quickly by an
application of permethrin. In Boise
and Boston, the lice were far more
resistant to the pesticide, having
been exposed to the chemicals before.
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- Horowitz notes that an
increased dose of the lice-killer
in Borneo destroyed the parasites
faster, whereas an increased dose in
Boise and Boston did nothing to
expedite the lice's decline. While no new
medical treatments are on the
immediate horizon, parents are taking matters
into their own hands. The
emergence of the Super Lice has spurred informal
trials of folk
treatments for infestations (Vaseline, baby oil, mayonnaise)
in
bathtubs nationwide.
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