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Lousy Story

The story quickly spread online like a disease: teens doing “selfies” — photos of themselves and friends using cell phone cameras — were causing an epidemic of head lice. “Ridiculous,” says Dr. Richard J. Pollack of the Harvard School of Public Health. “This is a marketing ploy, pure and simple,” he says. “Wherever these louse salons open a new branch, there always seems to be an epidemic. It’s good for business.” Sure enough, the story started with a California lice removal business, who told a web site that they were seeing a “huge increase of lice in teens this year” because they are “sticking their heads together every day to take cellphone pics.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that lice is mostly found in children through about the fourth grade. Even if a teen did have lice, Pollack says, it takes “direct and prolonged head-to-head contact” to spread it, not the brief time needed to take a snapshot. “People should not be using insecticides on their kids unless there really is a reason to use them.” (RC/NBC) ...And “they’re bugging me” isn’t a good reason.