An Emerging Health Crisis Wheres Dr House When You Need Him

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An Emerging Health Crisis Wheres Dr House When You Need Him

 

May 19, 2005 -- If it weren't so tragic, it could be the story line in

a Stephen King novel. Each day the National Pediculosis Association

(NPA) is contacted by individuals describing the torment and horror of

oozing skin lesions, sensations of bugs biting and crawling under

their skin and doctors who diagnose it as nothing more than a delusion.

 

In a 1994 Ladies Home Journal article about children who suffered

seizures after being exposed to Lindane, a treatment for lice and

scabies, the NPA provided a toll free number to launch the first

national reporting registry for lice and scabies outbreaks, product

failure, and adverse reactions to treatments. Adverse reaction reports

to the NPA registry about Lindane led to the FDA giving Lindane a

black box and its strongest warning. The NPA registry available at

www.headlice.org also provided the earliest reports of head lice

having developed resistance to the most widely used pediculicides.

 

However, almost as soon as the NPA's registry was launched, reports of

a bizarre health problem began to surface. Individuals reported biting

and crawling sensations -- symptoms for which they could find no

explanation and assumed were related to lice and scabies. But such

symptoms were inconsistent with lice or scabies, signaling a very

different problem.

 

The compelling nature of the reports prompted the NPA to contact the

Centers for Disease Control (CDC)in 1995 and on numerous occasions

thereafter. Deborah Z. Altschuler, NPA's president says the CDC as an

agency has not shared the NPA's concern.

 

Unable to find any studies where such a population had their skin

assessed in a single site clinical setting, the NPA in 2000 conducted

its own clinical research in conjunction with the Oklahoma State

Department of Health. The research identified Collembola (also known

as springtail) in 18 of the 20 participants. According to Stephen

Hopkin, author of The Biology of Springtails, Collembola are among the

most widespread and abundant terrestrial arthropods. Collembola can be

large enough to be seen on the backside of a leaf, but also minute

enough to require the use of a microscope. The majority of them feed

on fungal hyphae or decaying plant material, but they can also feast

off of each other. Known mainly as soil-dwellers, they can swarm and

aggregate in the millions. Referred to as decomposers, their primary

function is to break down organic matter.

 

The report on the NPA research was published in the Journal of the New

York Entomological Society in the spring of 2004.

(http://www.headlice.org/news/2004/pr071204.htm)

 

The report spoke to the challenges of the trailblazing research and

demonstrated how easy it had been for these minute arthropods to

remain overlooked by the medical community for over a century and also

by the entomologists who had not utilized the NPA's approach.

Entomologists have thought it impossible for Collembola to colonize

humans, although they've acknowledged them as first of the decomposers

to appear on human corpses. The research provides evidence of

tremendous numbers of these organisms concealed, if not disguised, in

their own aggregations. Yet the CDC maintains the position that

Collembola cannot be human parasites and therefore they are of no

medical importance. While the presence of Collembola in human skin

continues to be met with skepticism by some collembologists; the

relationship of Collembola to humans is an area of research the NPA

maintains has not been adequately explored. Where's Dr. House when you

need him?

 

It was in the late 1800's that people with the sensation of bugs in

their skin were first classified as having a delusional illness, a

diagnosis still accepted although now challenged by the NPA's

research. Many physicians have never heard of Collembola - let alone

expect to find them in humans.

 

Dermatologists and entomologists appear comfortable diagnosing

Delusional Parasitosis (DOP)on the basis of the reported biting and

crawling and without consultation with a psychiatric specialist. Some

physicians will attempt therapeutic trials with pediculicides,

scabicides, fungicides and mega doses of antibiotics, using treatment

failure as a basis for a delusory diagnosis.

 

Individuals can often pinpoint a time and place when they first

noticed the feeling of being bitten. A young mother in New York said

the first time she felt the skin problem was in the middle of the

night while sleeping in a hotel. Others first noticed symptoms after

taking in a stray animal. Many have had water or sewage problems in

their homes. A number of nurses reporting these symptoms remember

caring for a patient who had a shaven head or was covered with skin

sores. Reports also come in from individuals who have moved into new

homes built on land previously used for agriculture or cattle grazing.

Others, and most worrisome, report symptoms after being exposed to

someone with this condition.

 

Michelle of Canada states: " I've watched my father go from a happy,

balanced, reasonably healthy individual to the brink of suicide

because of this condition. He had to quit working at a good job and is

teetering on financial ruin. He has been treated so cruelly and

inhumanely from so called 'care-givers', that if I hadn't seen it for

myself, I probably wouldn't have believed it. This disease is

destroying people's lives. There is no help, not even basic curiosity,

from the majority of the medical community. New diseases, bacteria,

virus strains pop up all the time, so why is this situation so

outlandish to the doctors? It's time for the medical community to

stand up and acknowledge this disease, and start doing their jobs. "

 

A nurse from the state of Washington says that both she and her ten

year old suffer with this condition and came down with it at the same

time. " I'm outraged that my human rights have not been taken into

consideration because my complaint of having parasites did not fit

into the medical community's way of thinking. This in turn caused my

family to abandon me as 'crazy'. I have not been allowed to see my

five beautiful grandchildren for 2 ½ years now. "

 

The NPA reports advances in its image research technique since the

original digital imaging work was done in 2000. However,

interpretation of slides and digital images still requires skill and

experience. Without it people are left misdiagnosed, misguided and

with secondary complications from the arsenal of chemicals and

pesticides they feel forced to use in desperation. To date, the NPA

reports that Collembola in human skin appear impervious to treatment.

 

Whether a crisis of delusional illness or Collembola in human skin,

the longer it takes for the medical community and the Centers for

Disease Control to take this seriously, the more widespread and well

established it appears to become.

 

The National Pediculosis Association is a 501 ©3 nonprofit

organization serving the public since 1983. It's website is

www.headlice.org.