Lousebuster Machine

Back to Main What's Up page

Much has been made in the news in the past few weeks over a new machine invented by Dale Clayton of the University of Utah. It resembles a cross between a vacuum cleaner and a hair dryer and is supposed to dry out the lice and nits.

We understand this machine may be available in late 2008, and while we certainly applaud any safe solutions for head lice epidemics, we remain concerned about the deceptively optimistic level of success reported by the inventors. While the Lousebuster may indeed turn out to be a useful tool in helping to eliminate head lice infestations, we are leary of researchers who skew results by conducting tests that intentionally do not tell the whole story.

The researchers state that they checked the subjects after one week and found no evidence of an active head lice infestation. However, as anyone who has dealt extensively with head lice knows, one week's followup tells us exactly nothing--especially when researchers are only examining lice and nits that have been combed off the head.

Researchers reported that most of the lice and eggs combed off the head were dead and thereby deduced that their machine was extremely successful in killing lice and nits. We don't feel that this evidence is particularly compelling or indicative of the effectiveness of the Lousebuster machine. It would be extremely unlikely that a comb would be able to comb out new nits after one week because one week old nits would be too small to be caught in a comb. And logic tells us that most adult bugs that are able to be caught in a comb would naturally be dead because any self -respecting, mobile louse would be able to avoid a comb unless its system was first shut down with a smothering agent.

The only way to really tell if head lice have been eliminated is to to remove every single nit, then check for new nits for at least three weeks. We believe that the only reliable criteria for the successful elimination of a head lice infestation is that the entire family is louse and nit free a full three weeks after treatment.

In addition, the light hearted reports of Lousebuster researchers accidentally infesting members of their own families was quite alarming. Either the researchers are not being careful enough or this new machine may end up doing more harm than good.

For anyone using a regular hairdryer to help kill nits, please be careful. Children's heads are sensitive and easily burned.

Back to Main What's Up page