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NPA Press Release 02/01/2005
It's
2005!
Why Are We Still Shampooing Children With Pesticides?
The continuing
use of pesticide treatments for head lice makes Pediculosis a
major public health issue affecting children in America today.
Shampooing with pesticides has the potential to damage children
in the same manner as these chemicals are designed to damage
pests. Why are we still shampooing children with pesticides in
2005? Because the pharmaceutical companies invest millions of
dollars to convince consumers and health professionals that this
is what they should do.
The National Pediculosis
Association (NPA), a non-profit health and education agency
has as its mission
the protection of children and their families from these potentially
harmful chemicals. NPA's President Deborah Z. Altschuler says
you would think protecting children from such unnecessary direct
exposure to poisons would be a given – but it is not.
Lice products containing pesticides and other serious chemicals
are
readily available in the neighborhood drug store and continue
to be recommended and prescribed by the pediatricians and school
nurses who rely on product
marketing information as the basis for treatment-centered
public health policy.
This scenario is a classic example of
what is discussed in three recently published books addressing
how product driven health policies negatively impact society.
They warn of how Americans as individuals, and the health care
system in general, have been sacrificed to sell pharmaceuticals.
The titles alone speak volumes.
Marcia Angell, M.D., former editor in
chief of the New England Journal of Medicine in her book The
Truth About the Drug Companies, How They Deceive Us and What
to Do About It, dedicates an entire chapter to
how pharmaceutical companies promote their products by masquerading
marketing as
education in order to influence consumer and health professionals.
John Abramson, M.D., a former family
practitioner who teaches at Harvard Medical School, in his newly
released book Overdosed America: The Broken Promise
of American Medicine, reports a "changed purpose of medical knowledge – from
seeking to optimize health to searching for the greatest profits."
In the third book, On
the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger
Your Health, author Jerome Kassirer, Professor
at Tufts University School of Medicine outlines the conflict
of interest
between "profit-centered business and people-centered
medicine."
The NPA says the issue isn't just the
pharmaceutical companies promoting their pesticide products for
use on kids: it is how this profit-driven approach permeates
the non-profit sector as well. The same organizations that issue
treatment guidelines to pediatricians, family physicians and
school nurses receive support and funding from the lice treatment
manufacturers whose products they recommend and accept as paid
advertisers in their publications. Have these influential organizations
become, in effect, the tax-exempt marketing arm of industry?
Each child shampooed with poison by
a mother misguided by a system of "profits first" is
a travesty and a red flag for just how little consideration is
given to children's health in these supposedly health conscious
times.
Information
on the NPA's non-chemical approach
The National Pediculosis Association
is the sponsor of Jesse's Project which
addresses yet another aspect of the ill-effects of pesticides
in head lice treatments for the higher risk children who have
already been diagnosed with cancer. The NPA and St. Jude's Children's
Research Hospital have implemented Jesse's Project in St. Jude's
parent resource areas to make sure no parent leaves the hospital
without knowing the risks of pesticides and sprays for lice.
With what these children have to endure to regain their good
health—it is vital that all opportunities are taken to
protect it for the future. Jesse was a child whose mother attributes
his death to her having treated him with pesticides for lice
after he had had several bouts of chemotherapy and a successful
bone marrow transplant for leukemia.
The National
Pediculosis Association is a non-profit organization.
Contributions are tax-deductible under 501c(3) status.
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