By Will Collette
 |
| From Pollen. com |
Let me give you the good news first. Even though we have had hot and muggy weather, the air quality in South County is "good." We have not had a repeat of the high ground ozone and particulates that made the air in South County "unhealthy," according to DEM's rating system.
The other bit of good news is that the DEM tests for mosquito-borne illnesses for the week produced no hits for bugs infected with West Nile Virus or Eastern Equine Encephalitis. DEM reported last week that it got its first hit of the season in North Kingstown, but nothing this week.
Now, the bad news. First, the pollen count will be bad for the next several days. It's the season for grasses, goldenrod, etc.
But worst of all - and all the Patch news websites in our area have been covering it with SCREAMING click-bait headlines about "Mutated Super-Lice Invade." Holy shit! Where's the National Guard? Where's the United Nations? Where are the Oath Keepers?
Apparently researchers have found that lice do what most living organisms do, which is adapt to threat.
Mom and dads have been using the stuff available at every drug store to kill head lice just about every September for generations.
The surviving lice - the ones not killed by pyrethren-based treatments - breed and eventually you get head lice immune to pyrethren.
NOW, call out the National Guard and the Oath Keepers? Time for panic?
Well, no.
There are other remedies, but you can get the alternative pesticides only on prescription. The stuff you see in CVS may not work on your kids anymore.
There are a number of non-pesticide remedies that usually use a combination of various oils and herbs that dissolve the exoskeletons of the little critters. I don't know how effective they are, but of course they all make the claim that they are effective.
