An Emerging Health Crisis -- Where's Dr. House When You Need Him?
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.
Needham, MA (PRWEB) 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. Collembola rather than bedbugs were implicated in her
case. The identification was done by a state lab.
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, 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.
Listen to: When it isn't lice or scabies - Radio
Interview posted as a news item at http://www.headlice.org/news/index.htm
The National
Pediculosis Association is a 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization serving the public
since 1983. It's website is www.headlice.org.
Contact:
Jane
Cotter
781-449-6487
e-mail protected from spam bots
NATIONAL
PEDICULOSIS ASSOCIATION
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/5/prweb241522.htm