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I've been getting a lot of questions about this story -- is is actually possible for lice to exsanguinate a person? Well.... THREAD https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/indiana-woman-charged-after-daughter-nearly-died-lice-n1266748?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma
Lice and ticks do occasionally kill wild animals by exsanguination (draining of blood). Mites and lice on domestic chickens can build up to high levels and sometimes result in death
What about humans? Well, please don't ever forget this is a TERRIBLE story of child abuse. It's very likely that these children were malnourished as well as denied basic hygienic care. Thankfully, they are out of that situation and recovering now.
There is a lot we don't know about this story. We don't know if the children had body lice as well as head lice. We don't know what other terrible things might have happened to these kids. And... it's likely they suffered a lot. But! Louse infestations at very high levels
certainly are capable of making humans anemic; it's reported often https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S073646791000404X
And, there is one fatal case report that cites lice as a factor in a girl's death; ALL the trigger warnings on this article https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738081X21000110
Anyway, you can keep reading research papers like those to make yourself very depressed; the most vulnerable among us (children, homeless, elderly, refugees) are the most likely to have lots of lice, and to suffer terribly. And yes, sometimes lice can be medically significant.
In case you want some math: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16700788/
