A Better Way To Clean

That was the subject line of an email my mom forwarded to me this week. She had received it from a friend, who had received it from a friend. The email simply said:

Click here: snopes.com: Hand Sanitizer Alcohol Poisoning
Very important to pass this around to everyone you know.

This is the second time a wave of emails on this topic has been passed urgently from woman to woman within and between generations. The first time was when the Snopes.com piece titled “Booze Ooze” was written. Around this time CleanWell Hand Sanitizer was included in a Today Show feature that discussed the dangers of alcohol hand sanitizer and highlighted CleanWell as a non-toxic option.

I suspect the reason this snopes.com topic is getting attention again is because of the increased usage of alcohol hand sanitizer as a result of recommendations from the CDC in regards to Swine Flu (H1N1).

I’m glad I was reminded to share this information. As far as I can tell snopes.com is an impartial voice that has taken on the task of proving rumors “true” or “false”.

This is really helpful information, especially for parents and grandparents of young children. Thanks Mom!

Two years ago I was contacted by Patti Wood, the founder of the non profit organization that publishes the Childsafe Product list. She had discovered CleanWell hand sanitizer at her local Whole Foods and contacted us because she had been waiting for a company to crack the code on how to use essential oils as a germ killer that worked as quickly and effectively as the toxic alternatives.

Today CleanWell products are the only antibacterial products on the Childsafe Product List. In fact we are the only antibacterial hand soaps and non-alcohol based hand sanitizers on the recommended product lists of the following organizations:

Healthy Child Healthy World
Childsafe Product List
Food and Water Watch

CleanWell products samples are also distributed by Environmental Working Group and Breast Cancer Fund at their educational and fundraising events.

The reason these organizations include CleanWell is simple. They are versed on the facts about CleanWell versus other germ killing chemistry used in personal care products such as triclosan and benzalkonium chloride, and they do not recommend products that contain these latter ingredients.

In my conversation with Patti back in 2007 I shared CleanWell’s hope that our breakthrough would push additional innovation. We hope to see more products being placed on these lists and replacing those that represent risks across a myriad of other consumer product categories. We all deserve to easily find safe products at our local stores without holding a chemistry degree.

I have! This one is called Girlcott.

The women behind Girlcott have created an awareness campaign that launched with an April 18, 2009 event that invited women in San Francisco to surrender products with bad ingredients they found in their homes and learn about better options.

The outcome was a big pile of stuff (image source: girlcott.com)

And then lots of helpful information

Unlike a boycott which traditionally involves abstaining entirely from purchasing a product they are redefining this idea by attempting to shift the dollars women spend as the primary household purchaser into non-toxic, safe personal care products.

Christine Gardner the founder of moregreenmoms, the organization behind the movement, states “Boycott means saying No. Girlcott means saying Yes.”

Now you’ve got some good guidance on when to say Yes.

As the news and information concerning the Swine Flu (more properly “H1N1”) outbreak continues to evolve the public is, quite reasonably, left wondering what to think.

The challenge is that our Public Health officials are simultaneously understanding and managing this situation and the news media are then disseminating this information quickly. My intention with this post is to provide some perspective and a framework for interpretation as things progress.

Last week the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that we had reached Phase 5 out of the 6 phase WHO Pandemic Phase Description. This is a relatively straightforward tool that describes the global spread of a virus. It DOES NOT provide any insight into the severity of the illness. Just because a virus spreads quickly to reach a Phase 5 or 6 on the Pandemic Phase Description, doesn’t mean that it will produce severe illness.

The severity of a pandemic has its own measure tracked separately by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) it is called the PSI or Pandemic Severity Index . In the case of H1NI Swine Flu while it would appear it will probably reach Phase 6 on the WHO rating scale for its global spread, thus far the severity has been mild outside of the initial reports from Mexico.

Understanding the numbers and information that we hear from the media help us to sort through all of this and make good decisions. .

Image Source: World Health Organization

The CDC Public Health Advisory signaled that the H1N1 flu (swine flu) outbreak in Mexico was the beginning of another global influenza event. It is too early to tell what this will mean or how severe it will be - for now the only safe conclusion is that it bears watching and taking appropriate precautions.

• Most important – DON’T PANIC – panic is never therapeutic. From the phone calls and the e-mails I’ve received already it’s evident a bit of a crisis mentality is emerging.
• Prevention is primary – while I urge all of you to avoid overreaction - good judgment and attention to personal hygiene will serve you well.
• Anyone who feels sick, especially if they have a fever should stay home!
• Get the straight facts. Web MD has provided an excellent FAQ on this outbreak.

I started blogging in 2006 to provide an accessible source of simple, practical, good enough solutions for the very real problems of health, hygiene, and infectious disease. Please post a comment for me below at any time if you have questions.

The D.C. based non profit foodandwaterwatch.org has added an interactive tool to their website that invites you to report the products containing Triclosan that you discover in your home. It then allows you to share if you’ve stopped using the product and replaced it with an alternative. This information is published under “Triclosan sightings”

Take the time to look around your home and report your findings - it is easy, only takes a few moments, and it feels good. Talk about real spring cleaning!

Photo source: foodandwaterwatch.org

You may find this as interesting as I do; that one of the biggest draws to our blog is people searching for information on Benzalkonium Chloride (a Quaternary Ammonia). So we will continue to bring you the latest research and information that’s being published and discussed about this chemical so that we can all become better educated on the products being used in homes and hospitals.

The following are excerpted from a Harvard study just published on March 28, 2009 in the online Environmental Health Journal and reported in Good Guide , Science Daily, and Reuters.

Some of the major points from the study are:
• For the new study, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Massachusetts analyzed cleaning practices at several Massachusetts hospitals
• Among the most common and concerning chemicals were those known as quaternary ammonium compounds, or “quats,” Anilo Bello and her colleagues report in the online journal Environmental Health.
• Quats, the researchers note, are thought to promote airways allergies and asthma.
• Quats have been identified by Nielsen 2007 as one of the indoor agents that may promote development of airway allergy. In his review, Nielsen summarizes the evidence from animal and humans studies that relates quats exposures with allergy–promoting effects. He concludes that the mechanism of asthma from quats remains unknown.

So while this news is disheartening because of the ubiquity of quats what is encouraging is that studies are being done and there is growing interest in becoming educated on this topic.

A photo from the gathering in Los Angeles at Stella McCartney’s to launch the new book Style Naturally: The Savvy Shopping Guide to Sustainable Fashion and Beauty, by Summer Rayne Oakes.

Summer has created something very interesting by combining her training at Cornell in environmental science with modeling resulting in “cause modeling”. Her desire is to push sustainability issues through fashion and media and between her modeling, design projects, and now her book she’s clearly on the path to her goal.

CleanWell was part of the line-up of stylish products included at Summer’s LA and DC launch parties. If you’re interested in checking out her book you’ll find it at amazon.com.

If you’ve read our blog before you know that we’ve been taking the toxic chemical Triclosan to task for a while. In fact we even have a Triclosan category for easy reference (you’ll find it over there on your right). Triclosan converts into carcinogenic dioxin when exposed to water and sunlight. Plus a recent study found that Triclosan interferes with thyroid hormone function.

Recently The Breast Cancer Fund created a one-click process for you to ask the EPA to re-examine triclosan immediately rather than wait for another five years’ worth of evidence of harm.

The Fund has pointed out that while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently re-approved triclosan, the agency must have some reservations about the chemical, because it scheduled the next review for 2013 – 10 years ahead of schedule.

In addition to contacting the EPA you can also take action by checking labels on personal care products before you bring them home to ensure that you are not purchasing Triclosan based products. It’s time to take a stand.

“Nature Forever. Triclosan Never”.

You’ll find this on each of our CleanWell soap bottles - it’s a statement of our commitment to help you eliminate dirt and germs without the use of toxic chemicals.

Now we’ve brought Nature Forever to life graphically. Enter to win an organic cotton t-shirt at the blog crazedparent.org . Entries are accepted until by 11:59 PST on Thursday, April 2, 2009.

Or visit www.cafepress.com/cleanwell to buy a shirt — 100% of proceeds will be donated to healthychild.org