New York Follows California to Ban Prescription Pesticide Lindane for Lice and Scabies

NY State proposes legislation banning the sale, use, and prescription of lindane. Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg introduces bill that would prohibit any lice or scabies treatment product from containing the pesticide Lindane.

NY (PRWEB) February 9, 2004 -- Bill A008628 filed in the state of New York proposes to amend the public health law to ban the sale, use, and prescription of any product containing the substance commonly known as lindane, used for the treatment of lice or scabies in humans, from containing the pesticide.

The provision states, "Lindane is the working ingredient in over 2 million prescriptions for shampoos and creams meant to control head lice and scabies and that these prescriptions are issued to children, pregnant women and young mothers." Lindane has been shown to damage the liver, kidney, nervous and immune systems of laboratory animals. It adds that there are more effective and less toxic ways available for the control of head lice.

Also included is reference to lindane as a man made pesticide that has been categorized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic pollutant, meaning that it lingers for a long period in the environment, moves up the food chain and is highly toxic to humans and wildlife. If finds that the main source of lindane in sewers is from treatment of head lice and scabies and that a single treatment of lindane pollutes 6 million gallons of water.        

The bill reports lindane as a carcinogen, one that can cause seizures or even death when absorbed through the skin. In the past few years, over 500 cases of adverse impacts from lindane-containing products have been reported.

The National Pediculosis Association (NPA), a non profit agency, directs parents, health care professionals and child care providers to safer head lice control options via a standardized prevention approach focusing on routine screening, early detection and thorough manual removal of lice and nits.

The NPA promotes this as the rational strategy over chasing lice with pesticides that offer more risk than benefit and have a well-documented history of lice resistance and failure.

The agency says prevention isn't just about stopping head lice. It is also about protecting children from unnecessary and potentially harmful exposures to pesticides such as lindane or malathion.

The NPA emphasizes the fact that none of the available chemical treatments are 100% effective, and that manual removal of lice and nits remains the most critical component to successful treatment. Hence the slogan, "If you don't get 'em out, you've still got 'em."

The NPA says treatment for scabies is more challenging as it is often difficult to obtain a definitive diagnostic workup for scabies. The result is guesswork and therapeutic trials.

This has included off-label use of Ivermectin, an antibiotic indicated for cattle worms and those who suffer with River Blindness. Ivermectin for scabies appears too risky given the growing number of adverse event reports related to it use, especially among the elderly where deaths associated with Ivermectin prompted a 1997 warning in the medical literature that it not be used at all.

Yet despite the adverse impact of the pesticide lindane and the availability of better options, the use of lindane-containing shampoos and creams continues to be permitted by prescription.      

Research conducted by the Los Angeles County Sanitation District (LACSD) found lindane to be particularly toxic to their water. This realization was the impetus for what eventually became California's state-wide ban.

Senior engineer Ann Heil was at the helm of the LACSD research effort and found that after use, lindane shampoos and creams and residue rinsed off in the sink or shower made its way through the sewer to a wastewater treatment plant.

Since lindane is not removed well in wastewater treatment plants, it passes through to downstream rivers, lakes or the ocean.

LACSD and the NPA received an EPA grant to join forces to educate the community about the hazards of lindane. The project was so successful that the Sanitation District of Los Angeles County, City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, and the National Pediculosis Association were given the nation's most honored pollution prevention award.

The program targeted those parties who either treat or provide advice on the treatment of lice and scabies: doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, school nurses, day care centers, hospitals, and correctional institutions.

It was the first major program to convince physicians to change the medications they prescribe based on environmental concerns.

Average lindane concentrations dropped 50% in the Long Beach and Burbank outreach areas within the first year. A bill to ban the medical uses of Lindane was passed in the California legislature as a direct result of the Lindane Usage Reduction Project.

The NPA says environmentalists and child advocates alike are elated about New York's lindane Bill, but cautions New Yorkers not to replace one poison with another.

As soon as word of a lindane ban in California became known, industry began positioning malathion (an organophosphate pesticide) as lindane's replacement for the state's formulary.

Marketing information for malathion makes it appear that malathion is an acceptable alternative to lindane, although the malathion product's own information sheet has warnings to indicate otherwise.

There are many health and safety problems with malathion according to National Resources Defense Council. Jennifer Sass, PhD, a senior scientist with NRDC and an expert on the toxicity of malathion has written extensively on the lack of available safety data and malathion's own potential for serious negative effects on human health and the environment.

The New York Bill to ban lindane says the chemical has been shown to be a human carcinogen. Recent case control studies report high rates of childhood brain cancer treated with lindane shampoo.

It also cites several reports of six-fold increases non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in farmers exposed to lindane, evidence of carcinogenicity is confirmed by the World Health Organization, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Bill states that lindane is a known blood poison. In many case reports, lindane exposure from recommended dosages has resulted in adverse events such as blood diseases including aplastic anemia and leukemia.

Lindane is well known as a neurotoxin. Treatment with lindane has resulted in vomiting, seizures, brain damage, spontaneous abortion, learning problems and epilepsy. Adverse effects have resulted from recommended dosages of this product.                                           

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates all pharmaceutical products, lindane included. Only recently did the FDA put a black box warning on lindane. Up until this warning the FDA had taken very little action to inform patients of the acute as well as long term effects of exposure to lindane.

The Agency For Toxic Substances and Drug Registry ranks lindane 33 out of 275 other substances on its Priority List of Hazardous Substances and the Environmental Protection Agency has severely restricted the use of lindane as an agricultural pesticide due to lindane`s adverse health effects.

For detailed information on lindane visit www.lindane.org

For help with obtaining non-chemical alternatives to pesticides for head lice visit www.headlice.org

For more information on NY Bill A008628 to ban lindane contact Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg's office (518)455-3042.

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/2/emw103521.htm