LICE FREE... GUARANTEED!
Serving the Palm Beaches and surrounding communites.
 

 




Your child has been sent home from school.

Now what?

"While absence from school or
child care is a loss of educational opportunity and an encumbrance
to working parents,
readmitting an infested child
is not the solution."

Schools maintain a “no nit policy”. This means that once your child has been found to be infested they can not return to school until all bugs and nits and bugs have been removed. This policy is intended to keep schools and children lice free.

LICE FORCE supports the standards recommended by the National Pediculosis Association.
The spirit of the No Nit Policy is to minimize head lice infestations.

Early intervention provides the needed assurance for those who have successfully eliminated an infestation that everything possible is being done to prevent new outbreaks when children return to groups where close contact is inevitable. Repeated exposures to pesticidal products put children at risk. Parents need to be informed that chemical treatments may also be dangerous for children with certain pre-existing medical conditions and/or medication regimens. Families with pregnant or nursing mothers should be given advance notice that early detection with manual removal of lice and nits can serve as a safe alternative to pesticidal lice treatment products.

Opponents of the No Nit Policy say that "overzealous" enforcement can lead to inappropriate exclusion of children with residual nits, but whose infestation has otherwise been "treated." Those who judge enforcement to be "overzealous" may not consider the broader public health values and preferences of the community. Few who oppose the No Nit Policy would accept infestations for themselves or for their own children. Without the No Nit Policy, communities are left with a hit-or-miss approach. Indifference about adopting a standardized management protocol permeates the attitudes of health professionals at every level. This in turn gives way to a maze of conflicting opinions and directives that are counterproductive. Public health policies for head lice cannot be based solely on the use of chemical remedies.

The Food and Drug Administration recommends repeating chemical treatments in 7-10 days because none of the available treatment products are 100% effective against lice eggs and that remaining viable nits will hatch lice. Unfortunately, the FDA’s directive does not take into consideration the endemic nature of head lice. Children being managed in this manner can infest others or become reinfested in the interim. Mechanical removal of head lice and nits is less noxious and more likely to be successful than repeated chemical treatments


Manual Removal of All Lice and Nits:
 There are no safe pesticides, "natural" or otherwise, scientifically proven to be 100% effective against head lice, nits or nit glue. Reliance on head lice treatment products that are ineffective promotes repeated use of potentially harmful chemicals and contributes to ongoing infestations, outbreaks, and resistant strains of head lice.

Parents should be discouraged from spending unnecessary time and money on "concoctions" for which there is no scientific basis for claims or evidence of efficacy and human safety. A wide variety of such "lice remedies" are vigorously marketed to consumers especially via the Internet. The result is more confusion for families already deluged with conflicting treatment recommendations. Manual removal is the safe alternative and necessary component to any head lice treatment regimen.

Temporary Dismissal of Children with Head Lice and/or Nits: Administrators and health personnel must take all reasonable measures to help ensure that infested children do not join the group setting. It is more than fair to expect that uninfested children will be safeguarded while infested children will be cared for with sensitivity.

LICE FORCE offers a non-toxic solution to head lice infestation by manually removing all the bugs and nits, screening the household members and making our clients knowledgeable on the prevention of head lice and future infestations.

School Nurses cited non-removal of nits as one of the primary causes of treatment failure. With nit removal absent from school policy, children with hatching nits are readmitted to the group setting. Still there are many, perhaps more distant from the front lines, who dispute the value of removing nits. This opposition is based on a reliance on chemical agents rather than a preventive approach, a belief in second and even third pesticide treatments as "mop-up" operations and the notion that pediculosis is not a significant disease.

In 1990, the NPA published a warning to the public that resistant strains of head lice were inevitable based on the way the products were being vigorously marketed and inappropriately used. Again in 1995, the NPA notified leading manufacturers of both permethrin and pyrethrin-based pediculicides that the NPA was receiving increased numbers of treatment failure reports from parents and health professionals alike, indicating possible lice resistance to some of these products.

In 1996, the NPA sponsored independent scientific evaluations of head lice sensitivity which documented permethrin-resistant head lice from children in Massachusetts, Iowa, and Washington. In 1997, the World Health Organization review of treatments for pediculosis noted the issue of lice resistance to almost all of the commercially available pesticide treatments including permethrin-based products. As recently as February 1999, the Journal of Parasitology reported lice resistance in England, following in the footsteps of journal reports from Israel, Czechoslovakia, France and the U.S. Resistance issues alone warrant that people be reminded in advance that products may not provide the positive outcome they seek. Repeated use of these products will not change product performance and may risk children's health and contribute to more strains of resistant lice. While absence from school or child care is a loss of educational opportunity and an encumbrance to working parents, readmitting an infested child is not the solution.

A policy for head lice must consider not only the infested child, but also his or her peers who have already been successfully deloused or who have not yet been infested.

All this considered, the No Nit Policy remains a sensible approach that sets the standard to serve and protect all the children in the group.
© Lice Force, Delray Beach, FL • Site Design Seventh C Studios, Selden, NY