The only people who won't admit that their chemicals might no longer work the way they used to are the companies that produce them. Most parents, who discover lice on their otherwise perfect child, are told to use a louse shampoo. When they do everything they are told to do (use a pediculicide, clean the house, and pick out all the nits), they assume that they are done. They heave a sigh of relief that it's over. Then in 2-3 weeks, if there are more nits, most parents start to feel that they have entered The Twilight Zone. Everything feels out of control. All that additional work, on top of the busy schedules most families already juggle, sends most of us right over the edge.

We can't tell you the number of sobbing mothers we have counseled on the phone. It's not like we have the time. Our schedules are as insane as everyone else's (probably worse because we tend to be disorganized.) But our assistant, Sarah, always asks us to take calls from women who are on the verge of a nervous breakdown, because we are mothers, too. As inconvenient as these calls are, they are also usually the best part of our day because we can make a real difference in someone's life. If someone had a life-threatening problem, we would be helpless. But when someone's problem is head lice-- that we can fix. Usually it's a matter of listening and affirming. Here's what most mothers need to hear:

o “No, you're not crazy.

o “No, you're not a bad mother. This does not mean your children are dirty. In fact, head lice like clean, healthy heads the best.

o “No, changing schools won't help.

o “To our knowledge, head lice do not carry any diseases.

o “Yes, you can get this completely under control with a couple of days of hard work, and then three weeks of vigilant follow-up.”

Here's what men need to hear when their wives put them on the phone:

o “No, your wife isn't crazy. Many women have a visceral reaction to the idea of head lice on their children. Stay calm, be supportive, and help get rid of the lice so your family can return to normal.”

Unfortunately, sometimes the emotional consequences of head lice can be much more serious and long-lasting then the lice themselves. After Joan Sawyer's experience with head lice, she noticed an interesting phenomenon. Every time her head itched, or she saw someone in her family scratch their head, she experienced all the symptoms of a panic attack. Her hands felt clammy, her heart pounded, her lips went numb, she became light headed and her intestines melted. It was as if her head itching caused an alarm to sound inside her brain screaming “Danger! Danger! All systems alert! Invasion threat ahead!” She was so frightened that she had head lice that she was physically unable to look at her head or her children's heads because her fear was so great that she couldn't distinguish what she was seeing. Was she seeing her worst nightmare or nothing at all? She would rake her nit comb over her head so much that her business partner, Roberta, said if she didn't stop, Roberta wouldn't go out in public with her.

Now I talk about head lice wherever I go. I love gathering information from other mothers. One day, I was waiting with a roomful of women while our darling daughters tap-danced over our heads like a herd of stampeding elephants. I mentioned the video I was producing about head lice. One by one, each woman in that room pulled a nit comb out of her purse and admitted to scraping her head raw with it every time she itched. Each one had been through the same crazy-making experience I had been through. It was then that I realized that this experience was leaving women emotionally scarred. And the really sad part is that it is completely unnecessary. If parents were given accurate, helpful information, and were able to eliminate the infestation efficiently with a minimum of trauma to both parents and children, then the thought of head lice would not carry any more dread then the thought of chicken pox or poison ivy.

This is sometimes the result of parents bucking up against social workers in social service departments who don't understand the current head louse epidemic. Many bureaucrats in positions of power grew up at a time when there were very few cases of head lice in the schools. Children used to sit at desks all day, and start school at the age of five or six, thus reducing the amount of time kids spent in head to head contact. These days, many children start daycare or preschool before they can walk, and classes are more open, with children working together in groups at large tables or on the floor.

We've had several nightmarish encounters with social service departments in various states including West Virginia, Massachusetts and California. In each case, parents were forced to go up against social workers who simply didn't believe that the parents were doing everything they could to get rid of the infestation. Every day the children were taken to school and every day they were sent back home when the school nurse found more nits. Finally, the kids had missed so much school that Social Services were called in. The social workers assumed that the parents were being negligent because, surely if they were trying, they would have gotten rid of the infestation. One social worker said that since head lice were preventable, the parents must be at fault and the parents were charged with Educational Negligence. Eventually, the children were removed from the parent's custody for neglect. In several of the cases, the children, who still had lice, were sent to live with families who had other foster children. But the parents had used so much pediculicide on these children that the court restrained the foster family from using any more pesticides. There was nothing more the foster family knew to do to get rid of the lice, and the other children in the house were eventually infested as well.

In each of these cases, when the parent's attorney called us, we explained that the pediculicides were not working and explained how and why the olive oil protocol worked. We sent the video overnight to the attorney who presented it to the judge as a viable alternative to removing the children. The judge returned the children to the parents and the olive oil eliminated the infestation. Happy ending, right? Yeah, well, maybe, if you don't think about how traumatized those poor children were, at being taken away from their parents over head lice. Would any of this have happened if the manufacturers of pediculicides had been more forthcoming about their products?

As consumers, we make the assumption that the FDA rides herd on these companies, and the pesticides they produce. The United States does have the most stringent drug testing policies in the world. There is just one small glitch. According to FDA regulations, these products only have to be tested once. They are not continuously monitored. So, if the products stop working, due to resistance developing over time, the companies can continue to claim that the products have the same efficacy they had when originally tested.

In the summer of 1998, we received a phone call from a representative of the makers of one of the top selling lice products in the country. They wanted to know if we had proof that their products no longer worked. We explained that we received thousands of phone calls complaining that all the pediculicides, including their product, were no longer effective in eliminating head lice. The caller replied that she was only interested in whether we had any laboratory proof that the product didn't work. We told her about the preliminary results on testing of Nix by the Harvard School of Public Health, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. This testing indicated that Nix was no longer effective. According to entomologists the molecules in permethrin and pyrethrin were so similar that crossover resistance was almost certain. Again, the woman said that she was only interested in laboratory proof that their product didn't work. Since that time, we continue to see commercials declaring that product is 100% effective in eliminating head lice.

Corporations are making serious money from products that don't always work as advertised. And as long as no one monitors the continuing efficacy of these products, companies can continue to rake in the profits. We're talking close to $200 million dollars a year from these little creatures.

Here's why they get away with it: head lice-- the actual adult bugs--are hard to see. They move fast on a head of hair-- picture little Tarzan and Jane lice swinging through your jungle of hair by their little claws. And lice avoid the light so when you part the hair to look, they beat a hasty retreat. People hardly ever see an actual louse, and if they do see one, you can bet there are a lot more on the head that they're not seeing. What you do end up seeing are the nits-- those little tiny oval eggs cemented to hair shafts at an angle.

When the typical Mom finds out her child has head lice, she shampoos the infested child with a pediculicide, then spends hours pulling nits off the child's head. But because the pesticides don't always work, the lice may be left to continue to lay eggs at the rate of around six a day. These eggs are so small; they're barely visible because they're first laid right up against the nice warm scalp. (Never let it be said that lice are bad mothers.) And those first few tiny eggs on a head full of hair are not easy to spot. As the eggs mature, and the nymph inside grows, the egg gets larger and slightly more visible. It stays on the hair shaft where it was first cemented, but the hair grows, and therefore the nit grows further away from the scalp and easier to see.

It takes 8-10 days for an egg to hatch and another 8-10 days for the louse to mature enough to lay eggs of its own. So, the first week, Mom spends hours picking out every nit she can see. The second week she checks a little here and there for a few days but doesn't see much of anything. She thinks she's finished. Home free. So, she stops checking. Big mistake.

After three weeks, the new eggs have hatched. These nymphs have matured and are all now laying their own eggs. This whole new generation of lice is now feeding off the child's scalp. The child is once again scratching frantically. Mom's heart clutches and finally, she takes a deep breath and another look. There they are…hundreds of nits now being laid by an entire new generation of lice.

But when the lice shampoo hotline tells Mom she's been reinfested by the child of some less conscientious mother, or that the lice are hiding out in her vacuum cleaner planning their future assault on her family, she believes them. Why shouldn't she? And what does she do? She goes out and buys more lice shampoo, all the time cleaning like a banshee and the profits for pharmaceutical companies shoot up. Here's the irony: these companies are making more money than they would if the product was working.

And what else does Mom do? She gets good and angry with the “other mother” who isn't working as hard as she is to get rid of the lice. She won't let her children play with other children. Moms turn against other Moms and they ostracize each other's children, making it impossible to talk to each other and compare notes. Because, if they did, they'd find out that the same scenario is happening to everyone. So, now, instead of working together, everyone is angry with the wrong people, especially those “other, lazy parents” and the school nurse. And it is the school nurses who are unfairly taking the brunt of parents' anger, and who stand on the front line in these louse wars.

Janis Hootman, RN, Ph.D., CSN and head of research for the National Association of School Nurses wrote in a letter to the editor of the American Academy of Pediatric News:

“Repeatedly, parents become volatile to the extreme of making death threats to school nurses and school staff over this issue.”

Why are parents angry with the school nurse? Because it's her nasty job to send children home if they don't comply with the “no-nit” policy. The no-nit policy dictates that all nits must be removed before a child is admitted back to school. The problem is that unless all the live lice have been removed, the ones that are left will continue laying eggs and the parent is essentially shoveling during a blizzard… a never-ending blizzard. This is an act of futility for both the families and the school, resulting in heightened tensions and hostilities.
Parents whose children have head lice are angry because their children continue to be sent home from school. Parents whose children don't have lice are angry when children who do have lice are allowed to stay at school and infest other children. And all parents seem to blame the school for allowing an epidemic of head lice to occur.
And who comes out the winner in the lice wars? Is it the stressed out parents, the ostracized children, or the overworked and underpaid school nurse?
For your answer, follow the money. What do these stressed out parents do? They keep going back for more chemicals because they are convinced that it's their fault-that they haven't cleaned thoroughly enough, or followed the directions carefully enough. Or else they blame the other kids and the other families for “re-infesting” them. Many, many families spend thousands of dollars attempting to get rid of head lice: buying chemicals, dry-cleaning everything in the house, and disinfecting the home. And despite all this time and money, some infestations continue for years.
There are some vigilant district attorneys in various states, like Virginia who are campaigning to change FDA regulations to include continuous product testing, but the wheels of government turn slowly.

When we started marketing our video, a group of attorneys were in the process of launching a class action suit against Warner-Lambert Co., makers of Nix. (Nix was chosen as the target for the lawsuit because they had an implied warranty on the box.) These attorneys were actively enlisting people who had used Nix and could not get rid of the lice. Seems you need 100 people to start a class action suit. But just as the attorneys were getting near the 100 families needed to file suit, everything stopped. No one who had signed on heard another word.

Until Nov. 4, 1998.

According to an article in the Washington Post dated Nov. 4, 1998, the attorney who was putting together the class action suit, "has had ethics charges filed against him by his clients for cutting a deal with Warner-Lambert Co. lawyers in which he and his co-counsel agreed to drop the matter and turn over the names of 90 consumers interested in joining the class action in exchange for $225,000."

These companies do not mess around. Here's an account of what happened to Joan Sawyer when she premiered “Head Lice to Dead Lice” at the National Association of School Nurses Convention in Dallas in 1997.

Within weeks of completing production on "Head Lice to Dead Lice" Paul Wagner, the actor/comedian who starred in HLDL as the Mother, the Father, the School Nurse and the voice of Nit Pickens, the Louse and Joan Sawyer flew to Dallas, Texas to attend the National Association of School Nurses annual conference. We figured it was the best possible launch for the video. Who would be more interested in a non-toxic, effective solution for head lice than school nurses?
Paul dressed up as a school nurse and filled his pockets with Hershey kisses. (We figured that with all those women a good percentage would be craving chocolate.) The other exhibitors joined in the fun and helped dress Paul. One loaned him an orange neon stethoscope, another a cardigan sweater which read, "I heart my school nurse."
We rented a booth in the exhibition hall with a videocassette recorder and played the video over and over again to the crowds of nurses who packed the booth. We displayed huge blow-ups of newspaper articles, which proclaimed growing suspicions in various parts of the country that pediculicides no longer worked. A representative at the next booth (makers of a leading lice shampoo) came over and asked about olive oil because her young son had just had head lice and she couldn't get rid of them. Everyone was having fun and the video was selling faster than we could write the orders. The president of NASN, dropped by the booth to say hello. When she left, she said she hoped to see me the next morning at the breakfast seminar entitled “Current Concepts in Resistant Head Lice” sponsored by Pfizer, makers of Rid.

When I registered for the conference, I had been told that as a paid exhibitor, I was welcome to attend all seminars.

Here's my account of what happened when I tried to attend the seminar.

When Saturday morning came, I was one of the first to arrive. A staff member of NASN stopped me at the door. She said I wasn't welcome at the seminar. I asked why not and Ms. S., Senior Marketing Manager of a prominent pharmaceutical company who was sponsoring the seminar, came over. She said I wasn't welcome because I wasn't a member of NASN. The head of continuing education for NASN asked if she wasn't allowed in because she wasn't "a member." Ms. S. replied that I couldn't come in because I was a "competitor."

This is particularly interesting given the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has rules regulating pharmaceutical companies who sponsor continuing education seminars for health professionals. They're not allowed to control the content of those seminars. The American Nurses Association has the same rules. Seems Ms. S. didn't want someone in the seminar with a different opinion asking difficult questions.

The continuing education director of NASN declared that this was the first time in the history of the organization that an exhibitor was denied access to a seminar. I asked someone to find the president of NASN, to verify that I was expected at the seminar. She refused to speak to me and said I must have misunderstood her. Nothing anyone could say could get me into that seminar.

I took a deep breath and decided to visit the Lady's Room near the banquet hall to regroup. I always get my best information in Ladies' Rooms. (You should see what goes on in the Ladies Room at the Academy Awards. It's better than watching the show on TV).

When I tried to pass the banquet room where the louse seminar was being held, a banquet manager, whom I mistook for a security officer, walked away from a group of pharmaceutical company employees and approached me. He asked where I was going.
"The Ladies' Room," I replied.
"You can't use this Lady's Room," he said. "You can use the one over there." He pointed to the other end of the lobby.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because these people don't want you around here," he answered.
I stared at him.
He looked down and said, "They're cleaning that one."
"Then why are all those other women walking in and out?" I asked.

Months later, I got a letter of apology from Reynolds Stewart, Assistant Food and Beverage Director of the Hyatt Regency Dallas. It reads: "With large groups such as School Nurses, our public area restrooms are in great demand so they are closely monitored and, at times, closed for cleaning or other maintenance. The restroom closest to your location in the lobby was being serviced by our Housekeeping Department and was not available to any of our guests at that time. This was, in fact, the situation that our banquet manager was trying to explain when you requested directions to a restroom. I apologize for any misunderstanding of his intentions."
There were school nurses coming and going from that restroom the whole time. I mean, can you imagine the idiocy of planning to clean the Ladies Room right next to a banquet hall where 200 women are drinking coffee? I don't think so.
No one tells me I can't use a Ladies Room in a hotel in which I am paying for not one but two hotel rooms. I marched into the office of the assistant manager of the Hyatt Regency Dallas. I told him what had happened. The assistant hotel manager explained to the banquet manager and the folks from the pharmaceutical company that they couldn't keep a guest from using a Ladies' Room.

I went into the Ladies Room. It was full of school nurses.

By this time, I was shaking, I was so angry. Inevitably, one of the nurses asked if I was all right. I told her what had happened. One by one, school nurses gathered to hear the story.

The final result was that the matter was being taken up with the Board of Directors at NASN. Their continuing education chairperson was outraged by the entire episode. It was a blatant example of a corporation controlling the flow of information to health professionals who are dependent on that same company's corporate largesse. Obviously, the administration of NASN was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The pharmaceutical company had paid for a breakfast banquet for all the school nurses and for those trips to England for their president. When the pharmaceutical company's interests conflicted with their own professional, moral and ethical responsibilities, it made the choice extremely difficult for the nurses.

However, when the companies who manufacture the drugs and chemicals that consumers use, also disburse most of the information our health professionals receive, we all have a problem. Health professionals must be able to maintain their own integrity. When I heard the theme of the 1998 conference, it struck an ironic note. It was "The Courage to Care". Yet, I do understand. I have made numerous movies about political issues for nurses. It all comes down to the issue of survival. Most non-profit organizations cannot survive without some corporate sponsorship.

Today, school nurses all over the country continue to use “Head Lice to Dead Lice” and tell us how much they appreciate our work. Many buy the video out of their own pockets. They help us gather information, add to the body of knowledge and we are forever impressed with their sincere and selfless desire to help children and their families.

We also understand that companies only continue to exist if they turn a profit. But turning mothers into obsessive-compulsive cleaners rather than admit that their products aren't as effective as they used to be isn't very nice.

But we're not helpless consumers either. We can use the power of our purses to make our displeasure known. And that, my friends, is an awesome power.

If you feel that a company has deceived you, write and let them know how you feel. Then, when you buy other pharmaceutical products, notice who the manufacturer is and make a conscious decision about whether you feel comfortable buying other products that the company produces.

Now, what about non-profit organizations who are supposed to be altruistic, and educationally oriented? Don't they reap the benefit from Uncle Sam of not having to pay any income taxes because they exist to help their fellow man? Yeah, well, that's what we thought too, until we encountered the National Pediculosis Association.

We've been producing educational films and videos for the health education market for a combined total of 40 years. Between the two of us, we have received numerous awards for our work, including an Academy Award nomination. Each time we've begun a new project, we've first contacted the non-profit organization that has as its mission, the education of the public in that particular field. Usually that group is thrilled to cooperate in return for an excellent teaching tool that comes to them free of charge, and which they can turn around and sell or loan to their members. It has typically been a mutually beneficial relationship.

A lot of people give non-profit organizations enormous credibility because they are supposed to be altruistic. The problem with the NPA is that their main focus over the last few years has been the promotion of their own nit comb. When we requested educational assistance with our educational video, we received a letter from Administrative Director, Linda Menditto stating, “we cannot 'give the house away'…to anyone in fact that may be a potential competitor….” The letter went on to say “Your Corporate Membership fee would be $1,000. This would make you an active member and qualify you to participate in NPA Corporate Projects such as video consulting…. “ 36

In all our years of producing health care films for schools and health care professionals, we have never been held up for money before receiving educational advice and materials by a not-for-profit health education agency. We decided it would be best to steer clear of the NPA.

To their credit, the NPA started off with an excellent mission, the removal of the neurotoxin, Lindane, from use as a pediculicide. But now, it appears the NPA considers themselves the only permissible consumer authority on head lice. And they seem to follow a pattern of not approving of any materials they don't sell, or any advice they don't author. This ethically questionable pattern enters the realm of dishonesty when combined with the NPA's habit of misquoting other people and then, ironically, announcing that these misquoted statements are untrue. This dubious practice results in the misquoted victim losing credibility. The NPA did it to Lenny Copeland, author of “The Licebuster Book” and they've done it to us. The following quote was taken from the NPA WebPages:

"There is also a site on the web that claims a Harvard study of lice and olive oil. Again, if olive oil encourages people to avoid pesticides, then this is good. As far as a bona fide Harvard study to support the claim that olive oil kills lice when used on children with head lice - there is no Harvard study on this method. We raise this issue, not because we oppose olive oil per se, but because it is our job to keep the record straight.” 37
The problem here is that we never claimed that there was a Harvard study supporting our claim. We do say that the Harvard School of Public Health performed a series of informal experiments on head lice and olive oil. Entomologist Richard Pollack sent us a letter outlining these experiments.
We decided not to pursue an expensive formal study on olive oil because it would have very little chance of publication. Scientists already know that insects can be smothered in oil. Therefore, there is no additional scientific data to add to the general pool of knowledge to justify the expense of a formal study. In addition, the results of a formal study cannot be released until the paper has been published. That would take some eighteen months, assuming a publisher could be found.

We feel that the NPA, which purports to be educationally oriented, has an obligation to consider the olive oil treatment objectively. However, no one from the NPA has ever asked anyone at Sawyer Mac Productions or our consultant, Mary Ward, for information about the efficacy of our protocol. They appear to have dismissed it out of hand, which is unfortunate for the consumer.

The fact that the NPA has non-profit status gives them an amazing amount of credibility with lazy reporters. After one phone call to the NPA, some reporters never bother to call us and confirm anything that the NPA says about the use of olive oil. We were particularly disturbed that “Consumer Reports” wrote an article listing the olive oil as a “dangerous treatment option”. The reporter never called us and asked us how and why it worked. She simply took the word of a group that considers us “competitors”. We would have been happy to provide the reporter with contacts at the hundreds of public health departments that recommend our treatment and loan out our video to the public, or the Health Maintenance Organizations like Harvard Vanguard that routinely recommend the use of olive oil. All attempts by us to respond to their statements were completely ignored. This is ultimately not helpful to consumers. We were terribly disappointed in the research efforts of this particular reporter and hope that this type of journalism is not representative of the magazine that so many consumers have come to depend upon.

Several years ago, we were contacted by Terry Meinking from the University of Miami. (Dr. Meinking is the entomologist who recommended that consumers use Vaseline to remove lice. She failed to explain how to remove the Vaseline and we understand that she has since come to regret the suggestion.) Dr. Meinking said that she was conducting research comparing different “natural” remedies for eliminating head lice. The study was being sponsored by the makers of Hairclean 1-2-3, a product that uses essential oils to eliminate head lice. Dr. Meinking offered to include olive oil in the study if we were willing to pay her $5,000. We replied that we would, in fact, be interested in participating in this research if she would tell us exactly how the olive oil would be used. Obviously, if the olive oil is not used properly, as directed in our protocol, it will not fare well in a study. Dr. Meinking never got back to us. When the report of her study came back, surprise, surprise… “'We could see the home remedies weren't working as well as the name brands', Meinking explained.” We never did find out how she used the oil, but we're willing to bet it wasn't the way we tell people to use it. Otherwise, it would have beaten any other product hands down. It's amazing how many ways a study can be skewed so the results that the sponsoring company wants can be achieved. Remember: when you are reading the results of any “study,” first take a look at who sponsored the study, then take the results with the appropriate grain of salt.

So, here we are, a little disappointed and a little wiser. The good news is that we are still here and the real word on olive oil is spreading like wild fire because nothing can stop the “Mom Network.”

In conclusion:

Head lice are a pain. But they are not dangerous and if you know how to smother them safely, you can get rid of them without making yourself crazy or harming your children. The two best things about head lice are that they are on the outside of the body and they are visible.

The worst thing about a head lice infestation is that if you don't have enough information, an infestation can make you feel out of control. And an out-of-control Mom is not good for the emotional stability of the family.

So, take the time to learn enough about head lice to get back in control, keep your louse fighting tools handy and spread the word about the olive oil protocol.

The best ways to deal with head lice are:
o Use simple prevention techniques
o Catch an infestation early
o Make sure others in your community are educated
o Don't waste too much time cleaning. Concentrate on heads where head lice live and feed.
o And then take a deep breath, pat yourself on the back for another job well done and get on with your life.