Crop Damage From Cold Snap

Regarding “County Tests Children for Reaction to Malathion” (Metro, Dec. 16):

Kim Woloshin, the county health official coordinating the malathion study, erroneously states that there is more malathion in head lice lotion than there is in the skin-test patches. There is only one product containing malathion to treat head lice, and it contains 0.005 mg/ml malathion. The test patches used in the county study contain as much as 2-5 mg of malathion--up to a 1,000 times more malathion than found in the head lice lotion.

If the county Department of Health Services were only looking for “allergies,” there is a blood test that could have been used to determine whether any of the subjects were allergic to malathion without re-exposing them to more of the pesticide. Furthermore, the study itself is flawed--an individual having a reaction to sprayed malathion may or may not have a reaction to a skin patch. Also, the main concern about malathion is not allergies, but the poorly understood long-term neuro/genotoxicity to which children may be especially sensitive.

KENNETH P. STOLLER MD

Burbank