More pronouncements from the hard-of-thinking brigade

I've just had the latest newsletter from the primary school and it states that letters will no longer be sent to parents if headlice are detected in the school.Now, as a parent, I find these letters invaluable beause it means that I step up my checks, much to the distress of my small son who hates them.Given that I'll no longer get a "heads-up" (pun unintended) and if I want to ensure that we avoid headlice, I'm going to have to increase my checking to the level of what I call "amber alert". So, as a family, we'll be on constant amber alert.The rationale behind this piece of lunacy is based on PCness and is to avoid stigmatising children. The instructions continue that if your child has headlice, you go along to the chemist, announce the infestation in public and you're given free nasty chemicals to get rid of them. And this avoids stigmatisation how, exactly?They advise Am I thick? How can you manage simultaneous treatment when the treatment is down to the parents and they won't let the parents know if and when there is an outbreak?In addition the active ingredient in the recommended treatment is an organoposphate, malathion. While in normal doses and irregular use this should have very few side effects it is known to cause teratogenic, mutagenic and carcinogenic effects in animal models. It's also been shown that a single dose can suppress the immune system. Now, I have nothing personal against malathion-based insecticides for headlice treatment and infact used it on the one instance where there was a mega outbreak at school. I do, however, have a problm with using it as frequently as we will have to if the powers that be get away with this.They point out that parents are the first line of defence, then jam our radar. On top of this they then have the audacity to suggest that reccurring or persistent infestations may be due to parental neglect!!! They actually state They go on to say, and this is the part that really took my breath away To be honest, I don't think I can type enough boggle icons to express my disbelief at this statement.I've posted this in Coffee house because it's a Coffee house topic and I'd appreciate some input. Am I getting this entirely wrong? I hope I am, because I wouldn't like to think that my take on the policy (that it will encourage the spread of headlice) was correct.Any takers?

He has that anyway, with the Mohican look in the middle. He's 7, going on 16 . I'm lucky he's a boy, my friend has three long-haired daughters. On "amber" alert she has to spend 9 hours a week combing through the hair of very distrssed and upset girls since it is painful when you have long hair, I know, I have longish hair and it's very unpleasant going through it with a fine-toothed comb. Primary school kids don't tend to co-operate with painful procedures.

Yes, the kids brought the letters home, but if a single case was found, previously every cild in the school got a letter, not just those in the same class. I don't see how this could stigmatise anyone? No-one knew who the child was, except the parents of said child, since they were usually the ones to inform the school in the first place. The child in question would also be given the exact same letter at the exact same time as the rest of the school so that there was no way to identify the child.To be honest, and I know this sounds daft, every time the dreaded letter came out, there was almost a Blitz-like spirit as the mothers of the community laughed together at the antics of their children in trying to avoid the dreaded combings. Given that we all knew we were in it together, parents were open with each other when their child got headlice and would warn other parents. Now, courtesy of these idiotic ideas, parents are being told that it is a stigma so it won't be announced in a letter. And this is their attempt at removing a stigma that was, until now, not a stigma!!! Sheesh!The hilarious thing is that there is a picture of Malcolm Chisholm (one of the MSPs from the Scottish Executive responsible for this piece of nonsense) on the front of the Guidance Document and he's as bald as a coot

Neat ideas! If I use my vaccuum on my child's head, it's liable to suck him up as I bought a good strong one for vaccuuming up coal (don't ask). That could solve a whole myriad of problems for me although it will likely give rise to a whole set of interesting new ones.The shaving heads idea I like, but it might not go down so well the the mothers of some of the "Ikkle Princesses". Would give a whole new look to the annual torture that is known as the Nativity Play. As an aside, my son's line in the school Nativity was (they were spelling out the word Christmas) "M is for the Three Kings from the East"! I damned near fell out of my chair laughing!

Do you have a link to it? I'm like to see that, but sadly, I've never been a bg Southpark fan, if only cos i never had the time?

.....but there's a snag. The school thinks the policy is idiotic, the community health professionals think the policy is idiotic, the equivqualent of the County Council think the policy is idiotic. The instigator of this piece of PC madness is the Scottish Govt and they're my employers!!!Luckily I'm employed in an area of science far, far removed from this, but I have to watch what I do as I'm a civil servant and there are various nasty, little rules governing Civil Service code of conduct.

It's the talk of rubbing alcohol which reminded me of this.A friend of mine was trying to rid her Red Setter of sheep ticks it had picked up on a walk and was dabbing petrol on each tick to make it remove it's mouthparts from the skin. The method actually works very well and is quick and painless for dog or human - no tweazers, no tugging, no mouthparts left in to set up an infection. The dog then sauntered off in the direction of the back door where her husband as sitting.At the moment the dog was approaching, he was lighting a cigarrette.WHOOOOOOSH!!!!!!!!!!!The dog barrelled past, flames trailing, and belly-flopped into the garden pond. It then emerged, begraggled, minus quite a bit of fur and ticks, draped in pondweed and with an indignant look upon it's face.