Menlo Park doctor under fire for head-lice treatment disclosure Menlo Park doctor under fire for head-lice treatment disclosure (December 14, 2005)

By Renee Batti

Almanac News Editor

It has not been a good week for Menlo Park dermatologist Dale Pearlman: He's been called a "louse" over the Connecticut airwaves, a possible "flimflam man" in a Bay Area newspaper and, reportedly, "a bit of a huckster" by the editor of Pediatrics, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The attacks on Dr. Pearlman, who made national news last year for developing a highly successful treatment for head lice, were the result of his December 5 revelation that his lice-treatment preparation -- called Nuvo lotion -- was simply an inexpensive over-the-counter cleanser, Cetaphil.

Dr. Pearlman, who says he's really "a good guy" who's been "unjustly treated" by his critics, didn't disclose the Cetaphil connection when his study of the use of "Nuvo lotion" was published in the September 2004 issue of Pediatrics.

And that's at the root of the outcry heard when a letter by Dr. Pearlman was published in this month's Pediatrics informing readers that they could apply the Nuvo solution themselves after a trip to the drug store.

"$285 Head Lice Lotion A Scam, Researcher Admits," is the headline at www.medicalnewstoday.com, a United Kingdom-based journal.

"Turns out an experimental head lice treatment that cost $285 was just a skin cleanser that sells in drugstores for ten dollars," write the folks at News-19 Online in Chicago under the headline, "Doctor Admits to Marketing Overpriced Drug."

But Dr. Pearlman admits no such thing, and insists that "the public's been grossly misled" by such reports. Yes, the total bill for patients who signed on for his experimental treatment while he was conducting the study paid $285. But that cost included his standard $185 office visit to diagnose whether lice were at the root of the itchy-scalped patient's problem, $60 for subsequent professional time and diagnosis, and $40 for four bottles of Cetaphil, he told the Almanac last week.

What's more, he added, his head lice treatment is a method, not merely a simple application of the lotion, and his goal was to find the backing of a pharmaceutical company "to develop a much better lotion" to put on the market as an alternative to products now available, which contain insecticides.

The insecticide-based treatments, he said, have led to mutated lice that are resistant to treatment.

When pharmaceutical companies told him that there wasn't a large enough market to back his enterprise, "I decided it was time to move on in life and decided to give it away."

That's when he wrote his letter for the December issue of Pediatrics. In addition to naming Cetaphil as the lotion used, the letter directed readers to Dr. Pearlman's Web site, Nuvoforheadlice.com, for more information on how to use the Nuvo method.

The treatment includes application of Cetaphil, blowdrying the hair, and allowing the dried lotion to remain on the scalp for a number of hours to suffocate the lice. His study showed that the "overwhelming burden" typically prescribed for households in which someone has head lice -- such as frequent vacuuming and clothes-washing -- were unnecessary when using his method, he said.

Had a pharmaceutical company been willing to back his further research and development, he said, he would have developed a lotion that would dry more quickly, and that would have a fluorescent "tag" -- which would allow schools to check whether a student had been treated for the vexing pest.

Dr. Pearlman noted that he had worked on developing his Nuvo treatment for eight years, "and for the first seven years, I donated my time." The year before he concluded his research and treated patients for his study, "I asked people to pay for my professional time," he said.

"I have behaved fully honorably," he said. "I'm proud of my work, and I stand by it."

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