Down With Lice

Barbara Rowlands reports on a new treatment

In South-West Cornwall, a dozen or so families are desperate to get their hands on further supplies of a honey-coloured liquid. They have tried it and know that it succeeds where everything else has failed. Stocks are running low and the thought of endless hair combing - or massaging stinking gunk on to their children's scalps - fills them with dread. Fortunately, they haven't long to wait.

The liquid that passed between friends and neighbours - and which seemingly wipes out head lice - is launched this week. "I used it on my 12-year-old daughter, Nicola, and it killed the lot within 10 minutes," says Bryan Pursall, from Falmouth. "I gave some to my business partner and he treated his little boy and girl and gave some to other parents in the village. We've treated about 30 children and the results have been the same." Like many medical breakthroughs, Follicel was discovered by accident. Dr. Fiona Macdonald, a veterinarian and independent fish consultant, was working with an animal health product company to develop an agent to fight fungal and bacterial infection in fish. She found that not only did the product wipe out bacteria and fungi, but it also destroyed fish lice, which are particularly common in farmed salmon. Derived from the processed pulp of citrus fruit, Follicel was originally used as a food preservative and is hypo-allergenic and biodegradable, so will harm neither the skin nor the environment.

The company has been researching the product for five years. When it became evident that Follicel killed fish lice, the leap to using it on humans required little imagination. A chance conversation between the company's co-director, Dr. Howard Marginson, and Mr. Pursall, a business acquaintance, led to a bottle of the liquid being dispatched to Cornwall. "We think it's quite a dramatic breakthrough," says Dr. Marginson. "Many scientists wouldn't care to admit that a lot of breakthroughs occur as a result of something happening in the background rather than as the result of a narrow piece or research.. Thousands of childrens' lives are made miserable by head lice - as are their parents' = and it's a very difficult problem to get rid of." Follicel doesn't poison the louse; it works by creating a membrane around the mucus in the louse's airways, so suffocating it. Treatment is simple: spray it on the child's scalp, massage it in for a couple of minutes, wrap a towel around his or her head, rinse out and watch the lice cascade off. Shampoo the hair and you're left with glossy locks. No stink, no mess, no hair damage, no chemicals - and no lice. "We were delighted," says Dr. Macdonald. "It was clearly safe in use - and our work with fish was positive, so why not give it a go? The fact that it worked on these children confirmed our instincts. The thought of being able to stumble over something that might be totally safe for children and of tremendous benefit for them and their parents is wonderful." And if you have nay left over after treating the children, try some on your pets.

Dr. Lance Jepson, a member of the research team and a specialist in exotic animal medicine at Liverpool University, is exploring its use with small animals, such as rabbits, guinea pigs, reptiles and ornamental fish. "I believe there's a very good chance it will work against surface-dwelling mites. We had a pet rat with quite a nasty lice problem and it cleared that up. We also had a guinea pig with a similar problem and it worked again." Despite Follicel's almost 100 per cent hit rate, its manufacturer is making no medicinal claims, saying merely that it is an excellent scalp conditioner which will make the environment unacceptable for head lice. "It wouldn't do any harm just to use it as a scalp conditioner, " comments Dr. Macdonald. "It is a natural product that can be applied as a cosmetic and, at the same time, it will discourage lice."

The parents of south-west Cornwall are not concerned about how it's marketed. They just want more of it, so they can kiss goodbye to the combing, conditioners, pungent tea-tree oil lotions and foul-smelling organo-phosphate based lotions they worry might damage their children or the environment. Standard Treatments The Public Health Medicine Environmental Group - the national professional association for consultants in communicable medicine - issued a report on head lice treatment earlier this year. It recommends two-stage removal: first, wet-combing to detect living lice and then two applications, a week apart, of a licensed shampoo or lotion containing one of the three main chemical insecticides: pyrethroids, malathion and carbaril. These can be found in such products as Derbac-M liquid, Full Marks liquid, lotion and mousse and Prioderm Lotion.

The report is the most comprehensive investigation into the control of head lice to date and says many "cases" are imagined as the result of hearing about other cases in the school. However, if living lice are detected through wet combing, then chemical treatment is the only method that has been demonstrated scientifically to be effective. The full report is on www.fam-english.demon.co.uk.