Give credit to Denise Murphy, a Baltimore day-care provider and mother of three children. She courageously stepped forward and admitted this startling news: Children under her care had a problem with head lice last winter.
That admission isn't really startling considering 8 million people, mostly children, bring home these wingless, bloodsucking, six-legged parasites each year.
For those children -- and their parents -- head lice are an unpleasant fact of life. Yet there is still an undeniable stigma surrounding lice and paranoia about discussing it.
"The hardest thing is realizing that you have it!" Mrs. Murphy says.
She's not exaggerating. A round of phone calls to public and private schools in the Baltimore area revealed that nearly all have had problems with lice at one time or another. But school officials and parents are reluctant to talk about it publicly. It's as if they've taken an oath not to divulge a sordid secret.
One northern Baltimore County school nurse initially agreed to talk about lice problems at her school, then later begged that her name and the school's name be kept out of the paper for fear of sparking mass hysteria among parents.
"It would be just too upsetting for the neighborhood," she says.
Message to parents: Chill out already! We are talking head lice. It is absolutely no indicator of cleanliness and neither fatal nor life-threatening.
"There is the unfounded impression that head lice represents neglect from parents and represents filth," says Dr. David Taplin, a professor at the University of Miami School of Medicine.
"We've been trying to dispel that impression for years," says Dr. Taplin, who has researched the lowly louse for more than 20 years.
Kids get lice from each other. The parasites don't hop, jump or fly, but they move easily from head to head. So any place children congregate can be a breeding ground for the insects. And children who share hats, pillows, combs or brushes are especially vulnerable to infestation.
And once they've got lice, getting rid of them can be a nightmare for parents, says Lennie Copeland, a mother in Mill Valley, Calif., whose daughter, Ashley, 12, came home with head lice five times in one year.
"Each time was like 'Oh No!' " says Ms. Copeland, whose experiences prompted her to write "The Lice-Buster Book, What to Do When Your Child Comes Home with Head Lice."
