Link between lice shampoos and childhood leukemia

by Melissa Summers (Subscribe to Melissa Summers's posts) Jan 18th 2006 2:34PM

Text Size:

My name is Melissa and my goal in writing for Blogging Baby is bring you all the head lice news you can handle. Maybe even more than you can handle!

A new study has found a possible link between household insecticides and childhood leukemia. Use of insecticidal shampoos doubled the risk of developing the disease, according to the study.

Oh, you mean like the lice shampoo I slathered on my daughter's head not once but twice in my own epic battle against head lice? Great!

Critics bring up the following points about this study. It's too small and relied heavily on parental recall which is often unreliable. Ken Campbell of the Leukemia Research Fund says, "There are mixed reports [about the link between leukemia and insecticide use] and the problem is that the ones which make the link get the publicity."

Source

Comments (5)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Eugenia 1-18-2006 @ 3:01PM

It's hard for me to put much faith in these type of studies until conclusively confirmed. I could say that 98% of children who had developed leukemia had drinken orange juice at some point in their lives before hand, 99% had gotten rained on outside, 95% had mothers who sat less than 10 feet from a television while pregnant,etc. What about those children who did not have delousing treatment but develop leukemia. I believe pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, etc. probably do have some adverse effects, but I imagine children ingest far more chemicals through food than is put on and rinsed off their heads maybe once or twice.

Ann Adams 1-18-2006 @ 4:36PM

Melissa, if you want head lice news, drop on over to granny. You'll have more than you ever wanted including a surefire threatment that I can't add here.

Just finished treating two of three girls with NIX. Now I'm swapping pests for leukemia? At least they cleared with one treatment. I'm not sure I could do a second after reading this.

Missy 1-18-2006 @ 4:52PM

From the article:

"The research did not specify any of the lice shampoo brands used by the children, but cited ingredients such as malathion, pyrethroid and lindane which are often in such products."

Pyrethroid is a class of pesticides, the most commonly used being permethrin. It works by disrupting the use of sodium in nerve pathways (if there's no sodium, nerve doesn't work so well). All are pretty rapidly absorbed and broken down in humans but a very large dose is needed to effect us. Generally considered much safer than the organochlorines and organophosphates. Dervied from the natural pesticide found in chrysanthemums. Neurotoxic. Overdose can lead to seizures and death. Supposedly carcinogenic in rats but haven't been demonstrated to be so in humans.

Malathion is an organophosphate pesticide. These types of pesticides inhibit acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme crucial to normal nerve and nerve/muscle function. It was one of the pesticides used extensively in the first Gulf War, which may be one reason for "Gulf War syndrome". It is also neurotoxic.

Lindane is an organochlorine pesticide (DDT is the most famous in this group). All organochlorine pesticides have been banned in North America and Europe but can still be imported for use in personal care products in the US. It is totally banned in California. I'm not really sure how it works. Lindane is absorbed by the skin, stored in body fat and released very slowly. Neurotoxic. It causes cancer in rats but hasn't been demonstrated to be so in humans. This is probably the most likely to be carcinogenic out of the three listed in the article.

The best part of all of this? Fleas and ticks are becoming resistant to this stuff! I love it!

Something else funny, is the most popular artifical sweetener these days is also an organochlorine compound, although not technically a pesticide. Yup, Splenda, is an organic molecule (sugar) bonded to a chlorine group. You can just think of it as chlorinated sugar. :)

In the environmental industry, which I worked in prior to having my baby, we always agreed that whenever a halogen (chlorine, bromine, fluorine, etc) is bonded with an organic (anything containing carbon and hydrogen) is BAD. Examples: PCBs, most flame retardants, most synthetic pesticides, etc. Stay the hell away from that shit.

Alice 1-19-2006 @ 5:58AM

I have to add here, to all those struggling with lice, that there is a problem with the chemical lotions that hasn't been mentioned.
After a chemical treatment has been used a few times on the same child, be it over days, weeks or even months; pretty soon the head lice will become immune to its effects and it will stop working.
The best way to explain why this happens is to ask you to consider the common cold: it mutates so frequently and subtly that no real cure or prevention has ever been found, right? Well, that's what happens to head lice. I don't know how, exactly, but over time the chemical properties just start to glance harmlessly off them instead of killing them. It doesn't even have to be that one or two survive the slaughter and carry on breeding in the chemically treated hair; it can be a brand new bunch from someone else's hair. It just happens.

My best advice as someone for who head lice has never stopped being a problem (thanks mom. You just HAD to be a teacher of first school kids, didn't you?) is go back to the old remedies used when these chemical wonder lotions didn't exist: comb regularly, and use household concoctions. Lemon, egg and milk (someone told me about that one), vinegar... Vinegar works best for us.
But regular combing is what clinches it. That's ultimately what gets rid of them. Vinegar although it can be used for treatment, is more prevention because as well as killing them the lice can't stand its odour (well, understandable seeing as it kills them) and tend to steer clear.

My (VERY long winded) tuppence contribution, anyway.