I’m not really asthmatic but plug in air fresheners, odour eliminating/spray cans, in general- chemical cocktail air polluting things whether fragranced or supposedly to remove odours seem to give me symptoms of asthma. I mooched around the web quickly and found I am not completely alone and mad on this (although as this is a new area of research there are not a lot of studies, but certainly something is afoot). It looks like what goes into these things has yet to be fully assessed for their combined impact on the people who willingly buy the things then slowly gas themselves in their own home-
A 2006 study at the University of Colorado and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in which it was concluded that air-freshening chemicals may lead to the formation of cancerous cells by suppression of the enzymes that are essential for regulating normal cell death…Air fresheners and plug-ins don’t actually freshen the air or eliminate odors. Rather, they permeate the air with a powerful synthetically derived chemical fragrance to cover up odors. They also contain chemicals designed to numb our sense of smell by deadening our nerves.
“The study assessed scented sprays, gels, and plug-in air fresheners. Independent lab testing confirmed the presence of phthalates, or hormone-disrupting chemicals that may pose a particular health risk to babies and young children, in 12 of the 14 products—including those marked ‘all natural.’ None of the products had these chemicals listed on their labels.”
Scented sprays, gels and plug-in fresheners offer no public health benefits yet contain harmful chemicals linked to breathing difficulties, developmental problems in babies and cancer in laboratory animals, according to the petition sent to the two federal agencies. The environmental groups commissioned independent lab tests of some popular brands and also cited health studies that call into question the safety of some chemicals found in the air freshener.
A study recently published in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, found the regular use of sprays increased the risk of asthma by 30 to 50 percent. The study was done by the European Community Respiratory Health Survey, and followed 3,500 people in 10 European countries.
Overall, 42 per cent of those surveyed used the sprays on at least one day a week. One in seven cases of asthma could be accounted for by exposure to cleaning products, according to the study’s lead author,Jan Paul Zock, of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology at Institute of Medical Research in Barcelona.
Oust is made by S.C. Johnson & Son, In- For Asthma and Allergy Sufferers, consult your Dr. before using this product in your home. It is recommended that before you use Oust in several rooms of your home, you should test it in only one room and wait 24 hours to see if anybody will have a physical reaction to it.
Jeebus, I might as well have continued smoking, at least I’d look cool while I died (Don’t smoke kids, it does not make you look cool, ok it totally does, but it’s really bad. I know I stopped). Hmm, so they recommend you test ‘Oust’ to see if it affects people, what do they know they are not telling us? Of course it could be a genius scam, radical Malthusians and genocidalists get consumers to voluntarily gas themselves, paying corporations who make this stuff for the privilege (plus all the money from medications for the ill effects before they croak, damn they’re cunning). But seriously, they certainly fuck up my respiratory processes so beware. Look at this, public health advice and everything. *Wheeze*
16 December, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Those products bother my allergies. I guess I’m lucky that the symptoms are just in my nasal passages, not my chest.
16 December, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Aha! I’m not insane! No one else seems to get hit with them so I’m glad you can confirm they have some effect, although y’know not glad you suffer too. Yeah it gets my whole deal, I suppose my evil smoking past hasn’t helped either. My lungs used to take any old crap thrown at them, now they are very picky.
31 December, 2007 at 5:16 am
Rick, thanks for this post. Air fresheners are scary. If I look at the spray bottles, many don’t even say what’s in them. They just say: Made in China. It’s crazy to spray anything made in China into the air. China’s air is the worst. But seriously, I don’t have asthma, but I often have severe allergic reactions to this stuff.
Frankly, I’d rather breathe second-hand smoke or automobile exhaust than air-freshener anyway. Air freshener is crap.
31 December, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Hey Jotman, yeah it really is a testament to social conditioning via marketing that the air freshener sector is accepted while if you lit a ciggie in someone’s home/office they would see it as very rude and illegal. But all over these plug in things and spray cans are deployed and they are not perceived as pollutants, if the smell resembles a flower or tree, then it must be good!
In one forum a woman described the British situation perfectly, of tightly closed double glazed homes kept at 25C with central heating, zero fresh air and completely saturated in chemical air devices. The converse with air con in warmer climes is also true, with internal micro environments so artificially created we really ought to think about what is in that air. I’m no doctor but I understand breathing is relatively important to health.
So far any testing on the chemical cocktails in these things has found many dodgy compounds, it’s an odd case of a new class of product completely bypassing existing health/environmental regs. Put a picture of a flowery meadow on a can of chemicals and apparently any sucker will buy it.
14 February, 2008 at 9:06 pm
[...] think this is a distant cousin of the tendency to gas ourselves in our own homes and pay for the privilege. Look, your clothes are clean, if you use tablets or pouches of soap [...]