Lousy Chemicals

Anyone with kids has probably had to deal with lice at some point. I don't remember lice being much of a problem when I was a kid (I was born in 1960) but schools regularly send out lice alerts these days. I don't know if more kids really did have lice in the "old days" and it was just never talked about it, or there really was less of it.

Anyway, it turns out one of the key ingredients in lice treatments is not all that safe and there is movement in the Illinois legislature to ban it. Dan Johnson-Weinberger of DJWinfo is helping get the bill passed:

I've been working with Representative Dan Burke (D-Chicago) on a bill to
ban the use of lindane (a toxic pesticide that can kill you) for use in lice or
scabies treatments. Although a few dozen countries have banned the toxic
chemical, we still let people put it on their kids' scalps in this nation. And,
by the way, it poisons the water at something like 6 million gallons per regular
use flushed down the drain. Drink up! To lindane!

Johnson-Weinberger says the Medical Society opposes the bill because some doctors say that lindane is the only thing that works for some patients.