REPORTAGE. A lab breeds lice (and looks for the best way to get rid of them)

Located at the University of Tours, it is the only laboratory of its kind in France. A scientist tests all the anti-lice products currently on the market.

It is sometimes the unpleasant surprise of the start of the school year. After a few days of school, lice may have invited themselves onto the children’s heads. How can we get rid of this scourge? A laboratory is working on it, at the University of Tours, it is the only one in France. A scientist tests all the anti-lice products currently on the market.

Berthine Toubaté has been studying lice for 20 years, and therefore breeding them. She takes out a few from the thousands that are in an incubator in her laboratory. “It’s a female, she’s 2 at 3 mm, she explains. And since the louse moves like a crab, it can go in front, behind, to the side, always facing us.” If you just scratched your head, it’s normal, it’s a reflex for all of Berthine Toubaté’s interlocutors: “As soon as I talk about lice or as soon as people see what I do, they scratch their heads. But it’s psychological! It’s all in the head, it’s just in the head.”

And contrary to popular belief, explains Berthine Toubaté, lice do not fly and do not jump. This research engineer at the University of Tours is, as she says, their “worst enemy”His work includes testing all the anti-lice products on the market, often at the request of manufacturers. “There we have holes, she said, pointing to a louse, These are the respiratory openings. And that is precisely where the products act since they block these openings.” What suffocates them. “The last tests were about twenty products, remembers the scientist. Out of about twenty products, there are only four or five that stand out and kill both lice and nits at the same time.”

Berthine Toubaté does not give a brand name, but gives some advice: prefer silicone-based anti-lice products. The researcher also explains that some products based on coconut oil or crystallizing products can be effective. But above all, forget about grandmother’s remedies. “For example, they say that mayonnaise or vinegar kill lice. I tested it, it doesn’t work at all.” Berthine Toubaté does not hesitate to regularly leave her laboratory to hunt for lice on children’s heads in schools. She also answers questions from parents who contact her.