Content area
Full Text
Headlice have been with us for centuries and show no sign of loosening their grip on the nation's hair. But after scare stories involving carbaryl and malathion, is this the beginning of the end for chemical treatments? Lesley Keen investigates.
A letter from school usually sets off the alarm bells - headlice are on the march again. It's the signal for many parents to reach for the insecticide and douse the whole family.
But that, say headlice experts, is just what they should not do. Using headlice products like a kind of human sheep dip just helps build up resistance among the notoriously resilient louse population. Experts at the Medical Entomology Centre now see the resistance being shown to chemical treatments as more of a problem than the health risks potentially posed by too-frequent use of insecticide-containing lotions, creams, shampoos and rinses.
Health risks
Carbaryl was the first headlice product to fall foul of controversy. Towards the end of 1995 it was switched from P to POM after the Committee on Carcinogenicity said it would be prudent to consider it a potential human carcinogen.
Seton Healthcare, whose portfolio of headlice products includes carbaryl-based Carylderm, Derbac-C and Suleo-C, still firmly believes in carbaryl and wants to see it returned to P status.
Technical director Graham Collyer says: "Seton did not agree with the decision to restrict the availability of carbaryl-containing products, but nevertheless co-operated fully with the MCA. We have already demonstrated that carbaryl is appropriate for first line therapy use and are generating data to switch the product from POM to P."
He says the company believes it is an essential active ingredient for headlice products and if resistance is to be tackled by a rotational or mosaic policy it is essential to have a number of different types of insecticide available.
The Medical Entomology Centre, too, recognises the value of carbaryl and Christine Brown, a nursing sister at the centre, says it was the first choice for staff there when they caught headlice in the course of their work.
...