Doctor admits to defrauding people with miracle head lice treatment lotion

• A doctor that sold an experimental head lice treatment to parents who forked over $285, now admits the medicine is actually a skin cleanser available at drug stores across the country for under $10 a bottle.
• Last year, Dr. Dale Pearlman received media attention and skepticism after the journal Pediatrics published his study detailing results with a product he dubbed Nuvo lotion, which, according to the Associated Press, he described as a "dry-on suffocation-based pediculocide" and the first in a new class of nontoxic lotions for head lice.
• In a letter to the editor slated for release in Monday's edition of Pediatrics, Pearlman says the treatment "was actually Cetaphil cleanser," and available nationwide, as well as abroad.
• University of Minnesota medical ethicist, Dr. Jefferey Kahn, describes Pearlman's lie as ethically troubling, stating, "He seems to imply that you could do it yourself" - something patients would have wanted to know, as well as doctors and Pediatrics' peer reviewers who read last year's study.
• "You don't pull tricks on your colleagues and the peer review."
• Pearlman says he did not reveal the true identity of the medication in the pursuit of getting rich and hoping pharmaceutical companies would offer him money to develop a Cetaphil-based product for head lice.