Big headlines on Drudge this week, linking to The Daily Caller –
Study: 98% Of Head Lice In 42 States Now Resistant To Common Treatments
Well, because of our cynicism here, we can sniff these things out, and this story turns out to be a big head-fake. More on the real answer below, but first I’ll explain why the above article is so sneaky.
The Daily Caller does not appear to carry a whole lot of pharmaceutical ads, so we can trust them, can’t we? But is this article as much news, as it is an ad? Well, it turns out every word they published is true…. but they left a really big piece out. Where we come from, that’s called “lying by omission“.
The article is based on a published medical journal study, downloadable here, and (we saved a copy) here, and it appears that’s all the hint we’ll get as to who is profiting by putting out such a terrifying story.
Well, if we open the study link in our favorite PDF reader and scroll down to the near bottom, we come to “Acknowledgements”, and there it is:
Acknowledgements
This work was supported, in part, by a cooperative agreement (SKL01/PO#4700516733) from Sonofi Pasteur, Swiftwater PA 18370. The funder had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The project could not have been completed without the help and organization of Kathleen McManus at The Shepherd Institute for Lice Solutions, West Palm Beach, FL, and the 71 volunteers who collected the lice used in this research. We wholeheartedly thank each of them for their interest and efforts. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the sponsor.
Sanofi Pasteur. One of the biggest big-pharma drug & vaccine manufacturers in the world. So big, in fact, they need two websites, here, and here.
Because we know the real answer, we cynically translate the entire study and story as:
“We intentionally weakened the old over-the-counter formula so it doesn’t work anymore. Just like we did for pin worms. Now to rid yourself of lice, you will need to feed the system by getting a doctor’s prescription, for the new stronger prescription priced, er um, prescription strength formula, so that:
a) insurance will pay for it, so that
b) the sky’s the limit for us to charge you whatever we want just so you won’t have to shave little Daisy’s head.”
What’s conveniently left out? A very easy, non-pharmaceutical answer. Had our family not experienced it a couple of years ago we might not have known. (One of us had tried on a hat in a hat store to start our journey 🙁 )
available everywhere without a prescription
The whole “big scary resistant lice” bubble bursts right here: A one time $20 purchase of an electronic lice comb, available in any chain pharmacy, Walmart, and multiple online sources, works exceedingly well at killing lice and their eggs on contact, by zapping them to death with microcurrents. Little Daisy doesn’t feel a thing. The school nurse can run it through her dry hair before even sending her home with the dreaded note, and the little critters can never develop a “resistant mutation”. Every school nurse should have one, (some do), and you can own one in your bathroom drawer for life. Boo hoo, cuts big-pharma and their nasty pricey refill-by-prescription-only chemicals out of the equation and gives YOU the POWAH.
– Investigator
(see note)
