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How a Tiny Insect Was Used to Trace the Origins of Human Clothing

Almost all mammalian and avian species are host to various species of lice. But humans are among the few species that are host to three (or subspecies). The human head louse (Pediculus humanus capitis), the body louse (P. humanus corporis, also considered P. humanus humanus) and the pubic louse (Pthirus pubis) are obligate ectoparasites to the human body and can’t survive on other species, including pets. See full article. …

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Markey to FDA: Stop Use of Toxic Chemical in Children’s Shampoo

Use of insecticide ‘lindane’ in treatment for lice could harm children, pollutes environment May 31, 2012 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, today called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to halt the use of the insecticide lindane in pharmaceutical treatments for head lice in children. Despite research supporting its toxicity and ineffectiveness, the FDA continues to allow lindane to be used in prescription shampoos and lotions to treat cases of lice and scabies, overwhelmingly on children. Lindane has been found to cause skin irritation, seizures, and, in rare instances, even death. Infants and children are especially sensitive to the health risks posed by pesticides such as lindane because of their …

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A crawling issue: Head lice treatments worse than the pest itself?

Parents often aren’t aware that some of the most prescribed and over-the-counter treatments can be harmful to children, an iWatch News investigation found. The Food and Drug Administration’s adverse event reports – collected anonymously from doctors, hospitals and others – detail cases where the pesticides in lice treatments have been involved in conditions ranging from headaches to death. See full article: "A crawling issue: Head lice treatments worse than the pest itself?" …

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The LiceMeister® comb featured as a lindane alternative at a global meeting of the Stockholm Convention!

In 2009, more than 150 governments agreed to list lindane in the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) for global elimination. However, they provided a temporary exemption for its use as a human pharmaceutical to address head lice and scabies. In response to this and other listings, the Stockholm Convention Secretariat launched a pilot project to help countries identify POPs-free alternatives to listed substances. Among various requirements, candidates had to submit products for testing by the Environmental Agency of Austria (EEA) to ensure they did not contain any of the 21 substances listed in the treaty. The project identified the LiceMeister® comb as a POPs-free product and will feature it at the global meeting of more than 150 countries April 25 - 29, …

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Classic Articles Prior to 2010

The NPA has been helping people around the world since long before there was an Internet. This section features some of the timeless articles and editorials that appeared in peer review journals, newspapers and from the NPA's own publications. Please note that many of these resources will open as pdfs and other document types and some may open not yet formatted for our relaunched website. Return to complete listing of classic articles. 2010The Lindane Project: A Petition to the United States GovernmentLindane is a persistent bioaccumulative toxic (PBT) chemical to which the US population continues to be exposed to and at risk from the past and current use via the ambient air, water, soil, food, manufacturing, Superfund sites, stockpiles, recycled plastic and the …

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The Lindane Project

The Lindane Project is a petition to the United States Government to cancel lindane’s registration as a pharmaceutical as it has been cancelled by the EPA for all other uses. THAT this compilation of government surveillance documents the presence and persistence of the pesticide lindane and its related isomers in the United States. THAT the world via the Stockholm Convention has voted to take proactive measure to protect the citizens of the world from lindane and related isomers while the U.S. did not ratify the Convention but asked and received exception to allow lindane to be directly applied to humans as a pharmaceutical. THAT lindane was banned by the US Secretary of the Interior in 1970 for use as a pesticide on lands managed by …

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Collembola (Springtails) (Arthropoda: Hexapoda: Entognatha) Found In Scrapings From Individuals Diagnosed With Delusory Parasitosis

Twenty individuals diagnosed with delusory parasitosis participated in a single site clinical study under the auspices of the National Pediculosis Association (NPA) and the Oklahoma State Department of Health. The objective of this study was to determine if there were any common factors in skin scrapings collected from this population. These individuals, whose symptoms were originally attributed to lice or scabies, were part of a larger group reporting symptoms of stinging/biting and/or crawling to the NPA. Multiple skin scrapings from each person were microscopically examined. Any and all fields of view that appeared incongruous to normal human skin were digitally photographed. When the photographic images were initially evaluated, no common factor was identified. However, more extensive …

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National Pollution Prevention Roundtable Awards NPA 2001 Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award

"It was the first major program to convince physicians to change the medications they prescribe based on environmental concerns." The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR) recently announced the winners of the Fifth Annual Most Valuable Pollution Prevention (MVP2) Awards. The MVP2 Awards honor the most innovative and successful pollution prevention (P2) programs in the country. The First Place MVP2 Award was awarded to the Sanitation District of Los Angeles County, City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, and the National Pediculosis Association for its Lindane Usage Reduction Project. Lindane is a persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemical used in prescription medication for head lice and scabies. A single treatment for lice contains enough Lindane to pollute six …

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