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posted by mrpg on Tuesday February 20 2018, @02:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-use-roses-like-everyone dept.

Impact of Cleaning Products on Women's Lungs as Damaging as 20-a-Day Cigarette Habit: Study

Regular use of cleaning sprays can have as much of an impact on health as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, according to a new study. Scientists at Norway's University of Bergen tracked 6,000 people, with an average age of 34 at the time of enrolement in the study, who used the products over a period of two decades, according to the research published in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine [open, DOI: 10.1164/rccm.201706-1311OC] [DX].

They found that lung function decline in women regularly using the products, such as cleaners, was equivalent over the period to those with a 20 cigarettes a day smoking habit. [...] The experts attribute the decline in lung function to the damage that cleaning agents cause to the mucous membranes lining the airways, resulting over time in persistent changes.

The results follow a study by French scientists in September 2017 that found nurses who used disinfectants to clean surfaces at least once a week had a 24 percent to 32 percent increased risk of developing lung disease.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday February 20 2018, @07:44PM (4 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @07:44PM (#640797) Journal

    I think you underestimate the wishful thinking and propaganda people engage in. We've had amoral organizations recklessly exposing their loyal employees to dangers that were at the least strongly suspected-- the story of the Radium Girls springs to mind. I mean, wow, using radioactive materials just to make a watch dial glow, how trivial a use can you find for running such high risks?

    It's stunning to realize just how cavalier we used to be about radiation in the 1930s, even peddling dangerously radioactive materials as health cures, and what a complete 180 everyone has done on that. Here we had all these newly discovered radioactive materials, and instead of cautiously investigating them for dangers as well as uses, we just dived in and used them even when we had perfectly acceptable alternatives. For instance, in 1930 one of my relatives had a birthmark removed, and the doctors used radioactive material to burn it off. They could have burned it off with a simple hot iron, but evidently radioactive substances were the hot new thing in medicine at that time-- just how hot, they didn't then understand. Now our use of radioactivity in medicine is much, much more restrained and our understanding of the risks far better.

    In the years since, we've concocted novel chemicals by the thousands, and as with the radioactive substances, have dived right into using them without thoroughly checking them out. Evidence of their harmfulness is routinely dismissed, blamed on bad genes, the obesity epidemic blamed on our unhealthy habits. I suspect future generations will be appalled by our willful ignorance and the consequences we suffer daily. One of the worst sources of toxic stench is a new plastic shower curtain, and somehow this has evaded scrutiny for decades. New carpet is also very stinky-- formaldehyde, as I recall. Cheap furniture made out of particle board is bad too. We've made some progress. Good that leaded gasoline is gone, and there's lots of awareness about Bisphenol A now. And yet, lead is still used in lots of places. It's crazy what the psychopaths running large corporations will do to save themselves a few pennies.

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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:04AM (3 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:04AM (#640965) Journal

    The whole radiation thing is all over the place. Yes, the radium girls was a terrible case of employer negligence. The so-called health products were quackery at it's finest. The only saving grace there is that most of the "radium" products "for health" also fraudulently contained no radium. However, in spite of radium watch dials being so popular for many years, I am unaware of any evidence of elevated cancer rates on men's left wrists. Likewise, no elevated rates of cancer of the feet for people who were children when fluoroscopes were popular for fitting children's shoes.

    At the same time as the radiation paranoia, household cleaners and personal scents have gotten an unwarranted free pass. Perhaps least excusable are the "masking agents" that "eliminate" bad odors by deadening the nerves in the olfactory bulb which is fairly closely connected to the brain.

    • (Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:31AM

      by legont (4179) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:31AM (#641012)

      The Radium Girls were instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips to save time while men at the factory used lead enforced protection. Than employers claimed that girls died of syphilis. That's murder - pure and simple.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:37AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:37AM (#641070)

      Perhaps least excusable are the "masking agents" that "eliminate" bad odors by deadening the nerves in the olfactory bulb

      Except Fabreeze doesn't work like that at all ;) It's masking by hiding smelly molecule inside a bigger, neutral, non-smelly molecule. Basically, it puts smells in the box.

      And they are talking about "cleaning" in general terms which doesn't even imply using aerosols.

      I wonder if "cleaning at home" also implies less physical activity. Occupational cleaners had much lower incidence, which seems ass-backwards. This may be one of these studies that correlation doesn't imply causation as the only correlation seems to be high smoking rates and lung disease.

      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:01PM

        by sjames (2882) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:01PM (#641234) Journal

        But many masking agents do. Those are often put in household cleaners and detergents to deaden the perceived smell. Those are usually called "scent" in the ingredients since neurotoxin might be off-putting.