I got the call from the school last week. "Please come and fetch J. He's got head lice."
He'd complained of having an itchy scalp at breakfast that morning, but I'm ashamed to admit it didn't occur to me that my son had an infestation.
We went straight from the school to the pharmacy, and there we stood in the lice treatment section, contemplating the options.
There was no sign of Gambex, the lice shampoo containing the toxic insecticide lindane or gamma benzene hexachloride, which has featured in this column several times since 11-year-old Lachlan van Rensburg's mother told me how he'd contracted a life-threatening blood disorder after several exposures to Gambex shampoo.
The pharmacist solemnly told me that she'd removed Gambex from the shelf in the wake of the media exposure, but there sat Searle's Quellada, a lice shampoo that contains the identical concentration of lindane.
"This one's fine," she said, clearly unaware that Gambex and Quellada are essentially the same product.
I chose one of the natural, non-toxic lice treatments and it solved the problem in just one application.
After The Star broke the Lachlan story last October, the Medicines Control Council (MCC) began an in-depth review of the safety of these toxic head lice treatments and the MCC recently announced the following restrictions on lindane shampoos Gambex and Quellada.
They are no longer to be recommended for use in the treatment of scabies. (Gambex's current package insert advises that the product should be applied over the whole body, from the neck down, and left on for eight to 12 hours.) Lindane shampoos are to be used as a last resort only, after the failure of other, non- toxic treatments.
It will be a Schedule 2 drug, which means that while no prescription is required it will be kept behind pharmacy counters, to be dispensed only by pharmacists. Currently, a consumer can walk into any chemist and pick it up off a shelf, receiving no advice or warnings.
The shampoos will be sold in 60ml bottles only - enough for just one or two applications, depending on hair length. Gambex and Quellada are currently sold in 100ml bottles.
New warnings: the words "Excessive use leads to toxicity" will appear on the box. The companies have a grace period of a year in which to introduce the smaller bottles, but the new warnings must appear within two months.
"These products are also known to cause seizures and other side effects of the nervous system if they are used in excessive doses and/or stay in contact with the skin for prolonged periods of time," the MCC statement read. "These serious side effects can also occur if the product is used repeatedly on separate occasions."
Currently, the packaging of these products offers very little in the way of warnings about the toxicity of this product, especially when one considers that they are banned in many countries and highly restricted in others. It is considered especially risky for use on those weighing less than 50kg, i.e. children.
Dr Andrea Rother, senior researcher with the Occupational and Environmental Health Research Unit of the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town, has expressed the view that lice shampoos containing lindane should be removed from the market completely.
"There are many less toxic alternatives available and the risks are too high with using lindane-based shampoos," she told Consumer Watch.
Last week, a reader emailed me to say that a pharmacist had told her that nothing but Gambex would get rid of her child's lice. So much for the MCC's "only as a last resort" advice.
Clearly it's going to take some time for the message to get through.