By Alan Mozes
NEW YORK, Jun 16 (Reuters Health) - A shampoo that dyes tiny lice eggs
attached to a child's hair, making them glow under ultraviolet light? Science
fiction it's not--a Yale pediatrician has invented precisely such an agent to
help parents more quickly find and remove eggs--called nits--from their
children's hair.
"This is a terrible problem for parents...because it takes anywhere from 45
minutes to 1 hour or more per day--especially with kids with dense hair--to pick
out the nits," said Dr. Sydney Spiesel, the shampoo inventor and an assistant
clinical professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven,
Connecticut.
Spiesel developed the shampoo in response to his work as a medical advisor
at a day care center. He found that children who play and nap together were at
risk for picking up lice. Lice cannot fly, but they can walk from head to head,
or be passed via shared combs or hats.
And while he noted that lice are not particularly dangerous, he also
recognized that the itching discomfort as well as the stigma and shame
associated with the critters makes an infestation both annoying and
embarrassing.
Unfortunately, medicinal shampoos and rinses that have been used for a
number of years to poison the lice have stopped working as the bugs developed
resistance. This leaves caregivers with the tedious task of repeatedly removing
the bugs and their hard-to-see nits one by one from the child's scalp and hair
shafts over a period of days.
To simplify and shorten the nit-picking process, Spiesel developed a shampoo
with a nontoxic fluorescent dye that is not in itself a treatment, but rather
stains the nit shells to make them easily visible when the hair is viewed under
ultraviolet "black" light.
In an interview with Reuters Health, Spiesel pointed out that the issue of
bug resistance to the old pediculocide shampoos is very real and problematic.
"There aren't, anymore, a lot of insecticides we use on humans," he noted. "It's
easier dusting a cornfield. But we have to be especially careful when applying
the chemicals to a child's skin, which is very absorbent. So the ones that have
been in use used to work great. We all were very confident--use the shampoo and
that was it. The medication was working and killing the embryonic lice in the
shells. But they don't work anymore."
Spiesel seemed hopeful his shampoo will be a practical end-run around the
problem. "It's intended for use at home. I expect the final product would have
to come with a light--either that or go to a disco, because the light used is
basically disco lighting. A long wavelength ultraviolet light. It's almost in
the range of visible light, purplish light," he explained.
"These are not the rays that cause UV skin damage," the doctor noted. "It's
very practical and safe, and this type of chemical is already incorporated into
certain products, like clothing detergents. One is still stuck with the job of
nit-picking or combing them out--but at least you can see them."
Spiesel said that the product, which is not yet available on the market,
will be called HeadLights, a name suggested by an 11-year-old patient.
