Super Lice – School must be starting soon

The age of the super lice has begun and it’s just in time for a new year of school. A study has found a set of three mutations that allow lice to survive the most treatments used to get rid of them, pyrethroids. This is the same insecticide we use to kill ants, bedbugs, silverfish, moths and wasps. Super head lice resistant to the most popular over the counter treatments are now common everywhere in Canada. Head lice started becoming increasingly resistant to pyrethroids in the 1990s, and now they may kill as little a quarter of lice during treatment. There are 300 different insects that have become resistant to the pyrethroids, and many of those insects became resistant by acquiring these mutations. Prescription medications like Natroba and Ulesfia still work extremely well against head lice.