Organic Beauty: The Cosmetic Cover-Up

 

The Dangers of Household Poison
by Lorrie Montgomery

 

Between five to ten million household poisonings are reported every year – many are fatal, and most of the victims are children.

When I was five years old, my brother and I went to the hospital to have our tonsils removed. In the early '60s it was pretty routine to take out the tonsils of young children who had recurring infections. With promises of all the ice cream we could eat, our parents checked us in and left. As this was a common procedure, many of us were left there that night so we could be operated on first thing in the morning. I recall two little girls who stayed in their beds and didn't play with the rest of us. They looked very sick and I remember feeling afraid around them.

The next day after much chaos and trauma, my brother and I woke up about the same time with pain in our throats, feeling very sick. We were back in the Children's ward with the other children, some of whom also had surgery. Some of the kids were crying and some were throwing up from the anesthesia. Soon the nurses came in with ice cream for everyone. One of the little girls that didn't play took a bite of her ice cream. I'll never forget what followed: the little girl made a strange, strangling sound. She made more wild whisper screams and started spitting up blood. The rest of us were terrified and huddled in our beds watching the nurses try to help the little girl. The other little girl that was too sick to play never moved; she was too sick to be scared by what was happening. Soon the little girl who tried to eat settled down and went to sleep. I never saw that little girl try to eat again.

When I went home, my mother explained to me what was wrong with the little girls I saw in the hospital. The little girls were sisters. They were playing together one day and opened the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. They found a can of Drano and opened it, discovering the pretty crystals inside. The little girls each took a spoon and ate some of the Drano. My mother said they were very lucky they didn't die. She said they would never be able to eat or speak and would never live normal lives. "That's why you are never to go under the sink!"

This story is not an isolated incident. According to Debra Lynn Dadd, author of "The Nontoxic Home and Office," five to ten million household poisonings are reported every year. Many of these poisonings are fatal, and most of the victims are children. Poisoning doesn't only happen by ingesting toxic products. Any chemical that touches the skin or is inhaled can be absorbed into the bloodstream and spread throughout the body.

Long-term exposure to chemicals in the home has been linked to many health issues, including respiratory problems, cancer, birth defects, developmental disorders, behavioral disorders and more. In "Poisoning Our Children," author Nancy Sokol Green writes that women who work at home have a 54% higher death rate from cancer than women who work outside of the home. This figure came from a fifteen-year study, which concluded that the increased death rate was due to daily exposure to ordinary household products. Some experts report that 30% of all cancers are from exposure to toxic chemicals.

The use of toxic products also poses a threat to us in the form of pollution. Empty containers are filling our landfills with poison. Everything we do affects our water, air, and soil. It has been estimated that it takes at least one hundred years for plastic to breakdown, though it could take longer.

Buying childproof locks or storing your chemicals in hard to reach places isn't really a solution to safeguarding for toxicity. Dangerous cleaning products release toxic vapors when they are used and even when they are stored. The next time you are in the grocery store, notice how strong the odors are in the household cleaning aisle. This is an example of outgassing. Many of our homes are as energy efficient as possible; unfortunately, this also keeps any toxins in our indoor air tightly sealed inside, with us.

So what can we do to protect our families and our environment? First, eliminate the poisons in your home. Choose only products made from natural, safe sources. One of the easiest ways to make a positive impact on our planet and our lives is to use environmentally safe, nontoxic cleaning products. Make sure the products you choose use only renewable, biodegradable ingredients, and are free of artificial dyes and fragrances. Not only does this mean a faster breakdown time, but most of these products are non-allergenic. Use concentrated products that you mix yourself -- you will then be throwing away fewer plastic bottles. And, yes, you can even save money purchasing natural products!

Please remember: all of the water on our Earth is the same water that has always been here. Our water is never replaced. We must all do our best to keep our water and air clean. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem!

Health Risks Associated With Some Toxic Cleaners:
From "Is Your Home A Healthy Home?" By John K. Beaulieu (R. M. Barry Publications, 1997)

Air Freshener --	May cause cancer; irritates nose, throat and lungs.
Disinfectant --	May cause burning on skin, throat and lungs; may cause coma.
Drain Cleaner --	May cause skin burns, liver and kidney damage.
Oven Cleaner --	May cause skin, throat and lung burns.
Window Cleaner --	May cause Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders, liver and kidney disorders.
Floor/Furniture Polish --	May cause CNS disorders and lung cancer.
Toilet Bowl Cleaner --	May cause skin, nose, throat and lung burns.
Dishwasher Liquid --	Harmful if swallowed; irritates the skin.
Bleach --	May cause CNS disorders.
Stain Remover --	May cause cancer; vapors can be fatal.

Want to learn more ? Check out the following books:
The Nontoxic Home & Office by Debra Lynn Dadd (Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1992)
Poisoning Our Children by Nancy Sokol Green (The Noble Press, 1991)

Lorrie Montgomery and her husband John market products that reduce unnecessary waste, improve health and protect us from the harmful effects of pollution. Call 243-1420 for more information.

A Silent Killer in My Home

Aliza Sherman Risdahl

 

I knew something was not right. Deep in my gut, I knew it…

 

I learned a hard lesson this winter about the importance of clean air in my home. I still struggle with the fact that I learned this lesson the hard way and a little too late.

 

In September, my beloved dog Chewie—a black and tan, 10-pound Chihuahua —got sick. Very sick. It was completely unexpected because his most recent Vet visit, a few months earlier, confirmed a clean bill of health. Now his Vet didn't know how to diagnose him other than to say he probably had a brain tumor.

 

Chewie's symptoms included falling down, bumping into walls, walking in circles, and an inability to stand while eating at his dog bowl. Soon he began having mild seizures.

 

The entire time he was sick, I had a nagging feeling that something wasn't right. Yes, I know, my dog was dying, but his decline seemed too sudden. I gave him the medicine my Vet prescribed and provided Chewie with around-the-clock hospice care for three months.

 

Caring for him was particularly challenging because I was several months pregnant with my first child and feeling very ill myself with nausea, headaches and dizziness. Still, I woke up four or five times every night to respond to his cries. I cradled him in my arms like a baby to soothe him.

 

In December, the day before my birthday, I was finally advised to put Chewie to sleep. I didn't know what else to do, so I complied.

 

Several weeks later, in January, my second oldest Chihuahua , Ernie, got sick. He exhibited the exact same symptoms as Chewie: dizziness, bumping into walls, falling down—everything but the seizures.

 

The Vet said that Ernie had a brain tumor. Another brain tumor? How could two unrelated dogs both get brain tumors? I questioned my Vet but was only advised on the next steps: testing, medication, and the inevitable.

 

This time, I watched Ernie closely to see if there was something going on around him that was making him sick. Was he eating a plant that was toxic? Was I using a cleaner that was poisoning him?

 

That is when I noticed that his dizziness increased after he would lay down in front of the heating vent on the living room floor. The Chihuahuas had gotten into the habit of dozing in front of this vent for warmth to replace the sunlight they were missing in winter.

 

Could something be coming through the vent that was making him sick? Something like carbon monoxide?

 

"It couldn't be," my husband said, pointing to our top-of-the-line carbon monoxide detectors. "See," he pointed out, "the reading shows zero carbon monoxide." I looked at the LCD display and the red zero, but still wasn't convinced.

 

As an experiment, I shut off the furnace vent so that Ernie wouldn’t breathe in any air coming up from that vent. Within a week, all of his symptoms were gone. I asked my Vet about getting Ernie tested for carbon monoxide poisoning, but it involved first having to locate a Lab that could do the test. By the time this was done, the carbon monoxide was already out of his system.

 

I thought that was the end of our problems.

 

In March, I went in for an unscheduled sonogram, something I asked for just to make sure everything was okay with my pregnancy.

 

Sonogram technician Villa Guiterrez at Alaska Perinatology in Anchorage examined me.

 

"Do you smoke?" he asked.

 

"No." I replied honestly.

 

"Are you around people who smoke?"

 

"No."

 

"Do you light a fireplace in your home?"

 

"No. Why are you asking me these questions?" I was beginning to get nervous.

 

Villa explained that he saw blood pooling in my placenta. According to him, my placenta at 26 weeks looked like a placenta at the end of a pregnancy. He thought I was a chronic smoker because the blood lakes he described could signify exposure to low levels of carbon monoxide—similar to the amount a smoker would get.

 

Carbon monoxide? But our carbon monoxide detectors in our house read zero.

 

A few days later, I called a furnace company. The furnace guy spent about five minutes checking the house for carbon monoxide with a hand-held detector. Once again, the reading was zero.

 

Then I told him about my dogs. He decided to stay a little longer and turned the furnace up a little higher. Within a few minutes, the numbers on his detector began to rise.

 

"You have carbon monoxide in your house," he said. Off he went to our carbon monoxide detectors (both upstairs and downstairs) to check “peak levels.”

 

Check peak levels? This is when I learned that neither my husband nor I knew how to properly read our carbon monoxide detectors. The furnace guy showed me how to press one of the buttons on the face of the detector to see what numbers were registering that were below the level that would set off the detector alarms. Although the levels he found in our house were not enough to kill my husband or me, they were enough to kill a small pet.

 

"Birds would be the first to go," he said. "Then smaller animals."

 

"What about an infant?" I asked.

 

"Yeah, maybe even an infant."

 

And, clearly, enough to affect my placenta and, possibly, my unborn baby. But why didn't my expensive carbon monoxide detectors go off?

 

The furnace guy explained that carbon monoxide detectors are not set to go off with lower levels of carbon monoxide, just the higher levels that could be deadly to humans. He said that even good detectors—as we had—should be checked for peak levels regularly to see if anything is registering.

 

Long story short: we had the best carbon monoxide detectors on the market but we didn't know how to read them.

 

The next day we had a new furnace installed, the heating vent in the garage sealed off, and, just for good measure, I stopped parking my car in our attached garage for the rest of the winter.

 

Our carbon monoxide detectors now read zero, and when I press their peak buttons each day, they still read zero.

 

However, I still think of poor Chewie, suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning all that time while none of us knew anything about it. People try to comfort me by telling me that Chewie was like a canary in a coalmine: his death was the first signal that something was wrong with the air in our home.

 

I'm not getting as much comfort out of that thought as I should. My dog is dead, and for months nobody believed my suspicions that something was wrong. Several Vets never even mentioned the possibility of carbon monoxide exposure even though I've since heard that it can be a problem in Alaska during the long winters. Even the furnace guy didn't detect anything at first. And my dear husband probably thought I was just getting nervous and paranoid because I was pregnant.

 

But I knew something was not right. Deep in my gut, I knew it despite not having anyone backing me up. I stood by my instincts more out of pure stubbornness than anything else, and I'm so glad I did. Now I know with certainty that we have clean air in our house for our baby, our other pets and ourselves.

 

Lessons learned? Spare no expense on buying the best carbon monoxide detectors on the market and, more importantly, learn how to read them properly. Any carbon monoxide registering in a home is unsafe, no matter how small. Get your furnace checked annually before each winter and serviced if you have a leak. If your furnace is old (ours was 21 years old and most models estimate a 20-year lifespan), invest in a new one. Sure, the extra expense will hurt a tight budget, but life is too precious not to invest in safety.

Aliza Sherman Risdahl is a writer, radio producer and consultant based in Anchorage . She is pregnant with her first child after four miscarriages.