Author: Jon Merz
Date: 12-05-05 15:25
Source: Houston Chronicle
URL: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/nation/3502402
Date published: December 5th 2005
from Haavi Morreim:
Dec. 4, 2005, 9:43PM
Doctor reveals what's in $285 lice treatment
By LINDSEY TANNER
Associated Press
CHICAGO - Parents who paid $285 for an experimental head lice treatment for
their children might be scratching their own heads, now that the doctor
selling the stuff says it's really a skin cleanser available for under $10 a
bottle at drug stores nationwide.
Dr. Dale Pearlman got widespread media attention and skepticism from some
head lice experts last year when the journal Pediatrics published his study
detailing results with a product he called Nuvo lotion. He described it as a
"dry-on suffocation-based pediculocide" and the first in a new class of
nontoxic lotions for head lice.
And as of this weekend, his Web site still said the costly treatment was
only available at his Menlo Park, Calif., office.
But now, in a letter to the editor for release today in December's
Pediatrics, Pearlman says the treatment "was actually Cetaphil cleanser,"
available over the counter nationwide and abroad, and made by a company he
has nothing to do with.
The letter "kind of blows the cover," said University of Minnesota medical
ethicist Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, who called Pearlman's failure until now to
disclose his product's true identity ethically troubling.
"He seems to imply that you could do it yourself" ‹ something patients would
have wanted to know, as well as doctors and Pediatrics' peer reviewers who
read last year's study, Kahn said. "You don't pull tricks on your colleagues
and the peer review."
Leonard Fleck, a Michigan State University medical ethicist, said Pearlman's
lack of disclosure in the original study made it impossible for other
scientists to test his methods.
"At the very least, there's deception there for reasons of self-interest,"
Fleck said.
Pearlman acknowledged that he didn't disclose the information until now
"because I wanted to get rich" and had hoped pharmaceutical companies would
offer him money to further develop a Cetaphil-based product for head lice.
When that didn't happen, he says, he decided to write the letter.
"I thought it would be so fun to make the world a better place by telling
everyone about this," Pearlman said in a phone interview.
He would not say how many patients had sought the treatment or how much
money he'd made on it since his study was published.
He said they were given bottles of Nuvo and were told the treatment was part
of his research, but were not told they were getting Cetaphil.
Pearlman said his treatment should still be considered novel because it uses
Cetaphil in a new way, having patients apply the lotion and dry it with a
hair dryer to suffocate head lice.
Diagnostic testing makes the in-office price worth it, Pearlman said.
HoustonChronicle.com
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