Hadn't expected this:
"Researchers at the University of Texas School of Public Health are going to try to get to the bottom of one of the mysteries of the health care profession...why do health care workers, from nurses to doctors to therapists, suffer from asthma at twice or more the normal rate of the population.
"The Centers for Disease Control have granted the UT School of Public Health a $1.3 million grant to follow up in the pioneering research done by epidemiologist Dr. George DeClos ten years ago, which discovered the asthma spike."
Guesses for the high rate include disinfectants used on instruments, medications administered via an aerosol, and "very chemically strong cleansers used in hospitals, nursing homes, and other health centers..." Not to mention latex gloves.
We clean a lot of medical. We do use latex gloves, particularly in restroom cleaning and in health care facilities generally; I do hope latex does not turn out to be the issue. Clearly, doing commercial janitorial work, we don't get to administer many medications, via aerosol or not, and don't disinfect the instruments. But cleaning chemicals we do use.
For decades, we've avoided the obvious bad actors: bleach, ammonia, scouring powders, and aerosols generally. Our go-to cleaning chemical, which also serves as a sterilizer, is a Diversey hydrogen peroxide solution, which ought be relatively benign to our janitors, and leaves virtually no residue for the client to encounter. Using microfiber cloths for most applications also helps, as the microfiber cleans better than cotton, so we use less chemical and, since it does a good job grabbing hold of even tiny particles,(to bacteria and even some virus size), it is essentially a sanitizer itself. Finally, we use a hospital grade quat disinfectant; again, low danger.
So I think we're safe, as are our clients. But I'll follow the research.
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