Louse-busting device created
Professor Clayton demonstrates the device on his daughter
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Monday, 06, Nov 2006 11:48
A new hairdryer-type device dubbed the Lousebuster eradicates head lice in children, its creators have claimed.
The chemical-free appliance exterminates the eggs, or 'nits', during a 30 minute session and kills enough lice to prevent them from reproducing.
Detailing the machine's potential in the journal Pediatrics, Dale Clayton, a University of Utah biology professor who led the research and co-invented the appliance, said that it has "considerable promise" for curing head lice.
"It is particularly effective because it kills louse eggs, which chemical treatments have never done very well," he said.
Millions of children are affected by lice each year, leading to vast amounts of lost school days. The Lousebuster's creators argue that head lice have developed resistance to many of the currently-used insecticide shampoos.
"Hot air is an effective, safe treatment and one to which lice are unlikely to evolve resistance," Professor Clayton argues.
After he moved to Utah he was not able to keep lice alive on laboratory birds like he used to as the air was too warm. This led him to test whether warm air kills the lice.
Following trials of the Lousebuster, the researchers found that warm air kills lice and nits by drying them out, not by heating them.
But he warned that parents should not attempt to rid their children's hair of lice by blasting them with a hairdryer.
"We don't want kids getting burned by parents who think it's the heat that kills lice", he said.
"This thing is actually cooler than a hair dryer, but requires twice as much air flow, and the special hand piece is critical because, unless you expose the roots of the hair, it doesn't work. And it's difficult to do that with a regular comb."
Patents are pending on the technology and it is hoped that the machine will be available on the market within two years for use in schools and clinics.