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What Parents and Teachers Need to Know to Help Schools Reopen Safely

The EPA has for years provided evidence-based guidance designed specifically for schools—their Tools for Schools—yet as of the start of the pandemic, more than half of all schools in the US had not adopted a framework for effective air quality management, called an Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Management plan.

These are not opaque jargony strategies that exist only in the bottom drawers of facilities managers’ desks, they are evidence-based, practical toolboxes written to help families and schools partner to ensure their schools are as healthy as possible within existing budgets. In fact, that partnership is an essential aspect of an effective framework, as parents’, teachers’ and students’ reports of allergies and symptoms related to indoor air quality problems in school spaces are essential to implementing the plan (not to be dismissed, buried, or handled effectively in their absence).

As of the last time I looked, only one state out of 50 had strong laws promising that schools would have healthy air quality and ensuring parents could pursue remedies if they did not. This California PTA Resolution from 2007 may as well have been written yesterday, for all the progress that hasn’t been made in the state in the years since (and the generation of children who could have benefited): link.

As a parent who fought (and lost) to help our local schools adopt an air quality management plan—that would have reduced absenteeism related to asthma, improved overall student performance, and helped our locals schools reopen faster and more safely now—I dearly hope this moment will turn into an opportunity to not only mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in schools, but also to give students and teachers the benefits of good indoor air quality management long into the future. From what I have seen, that isn’t happening despite many good intentions. It’s not too late to change that.

Has your district purchased new filters? How are they being used and monitored for safety and efficacy?  Has your district adopted an effective indoor air quality management plan?  (If they say they have a plan that doesn’t involve working with and communicating with students, teachers, and families on an ongoing basis to ensure the spaces are healthy, the answer is no.)

Everyone who cares about returning to school safely should check out this recent LANCET article “Designing infectious disease resilience into school buildings through improvements to ventilation and air cleaning” from The LANCET Covid-19 Commission Task Force on Safe Work, Safe School, and Safe Travel.

From the Lancet report’s Overview:

“Many countries have prioritized schools in their COVID-19 pandemic recovery plans, including providing funding to support costs associated with reopening safely. These resources represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity for health-based improvements to school buildings, such as improving indoor air quality (IAQ), which can reduce the risk of airborne infectious disease transmission as well as benefit health and academic performance. Unfortunately, there are reports of schools spending millions of dollars on unproven or largely ineffective air cleaning technologies…” [my emphasis]

Then read this article produced by Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. 
Melanie Robbins, mom of a kindergartner and a child in pre-K in Montclair, New Jersey, joined a campaign of concerned parents who tried to raise concerns with the Montclair Board of Education over the use of Global Plasma Solutions ionizing devices in their children’s public school classrooms. (Jackie Molloy / for KHN)
As Schools Spend Millions on Air Purifiers, Experts Warn of Overblown Claims and Harm to Children
By Lauren Weber and Christina Jewett May 3, 2021
 
Link to original article at California Healthline

“We’re going to live in a world where the air quality in schools is worse after the pandemic, after all of this money,” Zaatari said. “It’s really sickening.”

Last summer, Global Plasma Solutions wanted to test whether the company’s air-purifying devices could kill covid-19 virus particles but could find only a lab using a chamber the size of a shoebox for its trials. In the company-funded study, the virus was blasted with 27,000 ions per cubic centimeter.
In September, the company’s founder incidentally mentioned that the devices being offered for sale actually deliver a lot less ion power — 13 times less — into a full-sized room.
The company nonetheless used the shoebox results — over 99% viral reduction — in marketing its device heavily to schools as something that could combat covid in classrooms far, far larger than a shoebox.
School officials desperate to calm worried parents bought these devices and others with a flood of federal funds, installing them in more than 2,000 schools across 44 states, a KHN investigation found. They use the same technology — ionization, plasma and dry hydrogen peroxide — that the Lancet COVID-19 Commission recently deemed “often unproven” and potential sources of pollution themselves.
In the frenzy, schools are buying technology that academic air-quality experts warn can lull them into a false sense of security or even potentially harm kids. And schools often overlook the fact that their trusted contractors — typically engineering, HVAC or consulting firms — stand to earn big money from the deals, KHN found.
Academic experts are encouraging schools to pump in more fresh air and use tried-and-true filters, like HEPA, to capture the virus. Yet every ion- or hydroxyl-blasting air purifier sale strengthens a firm’s next pitch: The device is doing a great job in the neighboring town.
“It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more people buy these technologies, the more they get legitimacy,” said Jeffrey Siegel, a civil engineering professor at the University of Toronto. “It’s really the complete wild west out there.”
Marwa Zaatari, a member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ (ASHRAE) Epidemic Task Force, first compiled a list of schools and districts using such devices.
Schools have been “bombarded with persistent salespersons peddling the latest air and cleaning technologies, including those with minimal evidence to-date supporting safety and efficacy” according to a report released Thursday by the Center for Green Schools and ASHRAE.
Zaatari said she was particularly concerned that officials in New Jersey are buying thousands of devices made by another company that says they emit ozone, which can exacerbate asthma and harm developing lungs, according to decades of research.
“We’re going to live in a world where the air quality in schools is worse after the pandemic, after all of this money,” Zaatari said. “It’s really sickening.”
The sales race is fueled by roughly $193 billion in federal funds allocated to schools for teacher pay and safety upgrades — a giant fund that can be used to buy air cleaners. And Democrats are pushing for $100 billion more that could also be spent on air cleaners.
In April, Global Plasma Solutions said further tests show its devices inactivate covid in the air and on surfaces in larger chambers. The company studies still use about twice the level of ions than its leaders have publicly said the devices can deliver, KHN found.
There is virtually no federal oversight or enforcement of safe air-cleaning technology. Only California bans air cleaners that emit a certain amount of ozone.
U.S. Rep. Robert “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.), chair of the education and labor committee, said the federal government typically is not involved in local decisions of what products to buy, although he hopes for more federal guidance.
In the meantime, “these school systems are dealing with contractors providing all kinds of services,” he said, “so you just have to trust them to get the best expert advice on what to do.”
These go-between contractors — and the air cleaner companies themselves — have a stake in the sales. While their names might appear in school board records, their role in selling the device or commission from the deal is seldom made public, KHN found.
A LinkedIn job ad with the logo for one air purifier company, ActivePure Technology, which employs former Trump adviser Dr. Deborah Birx as its chief medical and science adviser, recruited salespeople this way: “Make Tons of Money with this COVID-killing Technology!!” The commission, the post said, is up to $900 per device.
“We have reps [who] made over 6-figures in 1 month selling to 1 school district,” the ad says. “This could be the biggest opportunity you have seen!”
‘A Tiny Bit of Ozone’
Schools in New Jersey have a particularly easy time buying air cleaners called Odorox: A state education agency lists them on their group-purchasing commodity list, with a large unit selling for more than $5,100. Originally used in home restoration and mold remediation, the devices have become popular in New Jersey schools as the company says its products can inactivate covid.
In Newark, administrators welcomed students back to class last month with more than 3,200 Odorox units, purchased with $7.5 million in federal funds, said Steven Morlino, executive director of Facilities Management for Newark Public Schools.
“I think parents feel pretty comfortable that their children are going to a safe environment,” he said. “And so did the staff.”
Environmental health and air-quality experts, though, are alarmed by the district’s plan.
The Pyure company’s Odorox devices are on California air-quality regulators’ list of “potentially hazardous ozone generators sold as air purifiers” and cannot be sold in the state.
A company distributor’s research shows that its Boss XL3 device pumps out as much as 77 parts per billion of ozone, a level that exceeds limits set by California lawmakers for the sale of indoor air cleaners and the EPA standard for ground-level ozone — a limit set to protect children from the well-documented harm of ozone to developing lungs.
That level exceeds the industry’s self-imposed limit by more than 10 times and is “unacceptable,” according to William Bahnfleth, an architectural engineering professor at Penn State who studies indoor air quality and leads the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force.
Jean-Francois “JF” Huc, CEO of the Pyure company, pointed out that the study was done in a space smaller than they would recommend for such a powerful Odorox device. He cautioned that it was done that way to prove that home-restoration workers could be in the room with the device without violating work-safety rules.
“We provide very stringent operating guidelines around the size of room that our different devices should be put in,” he said.
You can’t see or smell ozone, but lungs treat it like a “foreign invader,” said Michael Jerrett, who has studied its health effects as director of the UCLA Center for Occupational and Environmental Health.
Lung cells mount an immune-like response, which can trigger asthma complications and divert energy from normal lung function, he said. Chronic exposure has been linked to more emergency room visits and can even cause premature death. Once harmed, Jerrett said, children’s lungs may not regain full function.
“Ozone is a very serious public health problem,” Jerrett said.
Newark has some of the highest childhood asthma rates in the state, affecting 1 in 4 kids. Scholars have linked outdoor ozone levels in Newark to elevated childhood ER visits and asthma is the leading cause of school absenteeism there.
Adding ozone into the classroom is “just nightmarish,” Siegel, of the University of Toronto, said.
Morlino said the district plans to monitor ozone levels in each classroom, based on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration level for working adults, which is 100 parts per billion.
“In our research of the product,” he said, “we’ve determined it’s within the guidelines the federal government produces.”
While legal for healthy working adults, the work-safety standard should not apply to developing children, said Michael Kleinman, an air-quality researcher at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. “It’s not a good device to be using in the presence of children,” he said.
But the devices are going into schools throughout the state that will not be monitoring ozone levels, acknowledged Dave Matisoff, owner of Bio-Shine, a New Jersey-based distributor of Odorox. He said the main safeguard is informing schools about the appropriate-size room each device should be deployed to, a factor in ozone concentration.
Huc, the CEO, said his team has measured levels of ozone that are higher outdoors in Newark than inside — with his company’s units running.
“There is a tiny bit of ozone that is introduced, but it’s very, very low,” he said. “And you get the benefit of the antimicrobial effect, you get the benefit of reduction of pathogens, which we’ve demonstrated in a number of studies, and you get the reduction of VOC [volatile organic compounds].”
Meanwhile, despite expert concerns, the devices continue to pop up in classrooms and school nurses’ offices across the state, said Allen Barkkume, an industrial hygienist for the New Jersey teachers union.
He doesn’t blame schools for buying them, as they’re a lot less expensive than overhauling ventilation systems. Teachers often push for the devices in their classrooms, he said, as they see them in the nurses’ offices and think it’ll keep them safe. And superintendents are not well-versed in air quality’s complex scientific concepts.
“Nothing sounds better than something that’s cheap, quiet, small and easy to find, and we can stick them in every classroom,” Barkkume said.
Tested in Shoebox, Sold for Classrooms
While New York officials are “not permitting” the installation of ionization devices due to “potential negative health effects,” schools across the state of New Jersey are installing ionizing devices.
Ten miles away from Newark in Montclair, New Jersey, parents have been raising hell over the new Global Plasma Solutions’ ionizing devices in their children’s classrooms. The company website promises a product that emits ions like those “created with energy from rushing water, crashing waves and even sunlight.”
The devices emit positive and negative ions that are meant to help particles clump together, making them easier to filter out. The company says the ions can also reduce the viral particles that cause covid-19.
But Justin Klabin, a building developer with a background in indoor air quality and two sons in the district, was not convinced.
He spent hours compiling scientific evidence. He created painstaking YouTube videos picking apart the ionizers’ viability and helped organize a petition signed by dozens of parents warning the school board against the installation.
Even so, the district spent $635,900 on installing ionizers, which would go in classrooms serving more than 6,000 kids. The devices are often installed in ducts, an important consideration, the company founder Charles Waddell said, because the ions that are emitted lose their power after 60 seconds.
But the company’s shoebox study and inflated ion blast numbers that helped sell the product last year leave a potential customer with little sense of how the device would perform in a classroom, Zaatari said.
“It’s a high cost for nothing,” Zaatari said. The company has sued her and another air-quality consultant for criticizing their devices. Of the pending case, Zaatari said it is a David-versus-Goliath situation, but she will not be deterred from speaking on behalf of children.
“Size of the [test] chamber has proved not to play a role in efficacy results but rather ion density,” GPS spokesperson Kevin Boyle said in an email. The company notes by its covid-inactivating test results that they “may include … higher-than-average ion concentrations.”
He also said the company is proud to meet the ASHRAE “zero ozone” certification.
Glenn Morrison, a professor of environmental science and engineering at the University of North Carolina, reviewed a March GPS study on a device combating the covid virus in the air. The device appears to reduce virus concentrations, he said in an email, but noted it would not be very effective under normal building conditions, outside a test chamber. “A cheap portable HEPA filter would work many times better and have fewer side effects (possibly ozone or other unwanted chemistry),” he wrote.
Other parents joined Klabin’s campaign, including Melanie Robbins, the mom of a kindergartner and a child in pre-K. Armed with her background in nonprofit advocacy, she reached out to experts. She and other parents spoke at local government meetings about their concerns.
In April, the superintendent told parents the school would turn off the devices, but parents say they haven’t turned them all off.
“As far as I understand, the district has relied only on information from GPS, the manufacturer,” Robbins said during a Montclair Board of Education meeting via Zoom on April 19. “This is like only listening to advice from Philip Morris as to whether smoking is safe or not.”
Dan Daniello, of D&B Building Solutions, an HVAC contracting company, defended GPS products during the meeting. He said they are even in the White House, a selling point the company has made repeatedly.
The catch: A GPS contractor installed its ionization technology in the East Wing of the White House after it was purchased in 2018 — before covid emerged, according to GPS’ Boyle. But the company was still using the White House logo as a marketing image on its website when KHN asked the White House about the advertising in April. It was taken down shortly thereafter.
Boyle said GPS was “recently informed that the White House logo may not be used for marketing purposes, and promptly complied.”
The Montclair school district did not respond to requests for comment.
“I want to bang my head against the wall, it’s so black-and-white,” Robbins said. “Admit this is a poor purchase, the district got played.”
Selling ‘the Big Kahuna’
Academic air-quality experts agree on what’s best for schools: More outside air pumped into classes, MERV 13 filters in heating systems and portable HEPA filters. The solution is time-tested and effective, they say. Yet as common commodities, like a pair of khaki pants, these items are not widely flogged by a sales force chasing big commissions.
After covid hit, Tony Barron said the companies pitched air purifying technology nonstop to the Kansas district where he worked as a facility manager last fall.
Pressure came from inside the school as well. Teachers sent links for air cleaners they saw on the news. His superintendent had him meet with a friend who sold ionization products. He got constant calls, mail and email from mechanical engineering companies.
The hundreds of phone calls from air cleaner pitches were overwhelming, said Chris Crockett, director of facilities for Turner USD 202 in Kansas City, Kansas. While he wanted to trust the contractors he had worked with, he tested four products before deciding to spend several hundred thousands of dollars.
“Custodial supply companies see the writing on the wall, that there’s a lot of money out there,” he said. “And then a lot of money is going to be spent on HVAC systems.”
ActivePure says on its website that its air purifiers are in hundreds of schools. In a press release, the company said they were “sold through a nationwide network of several hundred franchises, 5,000 general contractors/HVAC specialists and thousands of individual distributors.”
Enviro Technology Pros, founded in January, is one company pitching ActivePure to HVAC contractors. In a YouTube video, the founders said contractors can make $950 for each air-cleaning device sold, and some dealers can make up to $30,000 a month. Citing the bounty of the billions in federal relief, another video touted ready-made campaigns to target school principals directly.
After KHN asked ActivePure for comment, the Enviro Technology Pros YouTube videos about ActivePure were no longer accessible publicly.
ActivePure did not respond to requests for comment but has said its devices are effective and one is validated by the Food and Drug Administration.
An Enviro Technology Pros founder, Rod Norman, told KHN the company was asked to take the posts down by Vollara, a company related to ActivePure. He called sales to schools “the big kahuna.”
Shortly after he spoke with KHN, the website for his own company was taken down.
In an Instagram post that also disappeared, the company had asked: “4000 classrooms protected why not your kids?”
Shoshana Dubnow contributed to this report.
This story was produced by KHN (Kaiser Health News), a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

 
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Make a Tax-deductible Donation to Support SolveEczema.org

Posting in the last few hours of the year, in case anyone is looking for another good cause and a tax deductible donation…As you probably know, I’ve been operating the website SolveEczema.org for over 15 years, to share what I’ve learned about how to solve eczema and related conditions, to reduce allergy and achieve clear, healthy skin. I’ve done everything I can to share my solution freely and publicly so more families can get the relief that my family experienced when we finally figured out how to heal our son’s skin. And over the years, scores of parents (and even doctors and nurses) have written to me to tell me how happy they were to discover my website and finally find a way to stop their children’s pain and help them achieve normal skin. Over and over, they have told me that their children could sleep through the night for the first time in their lives after using my website.But I need help getting my solution into the mainstream. I need to get my research recognized and published so the mainstream medical establishment—pediatricians and dermatologists—will respect my methods, learn about our family’s approach to solving eczema, and spread the information to the wider public. This effort has truly been my life’s work for almost 20 years now.So I’m excited to announce that I can now accept tax-deductible donations through the Ronin Institute, where I’m a Research Scholar. The Ronin Institute is a 501(c)(3) organization that supports independent scholarly research (donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law). Working through the Ronin Institute will give me the validation I need to establish my findings as scientifically sound and worthy of recognition.In order to move forward, I need to hire people who are better science writers than I am, I need professional work on the website, and ultimately I need to do a formal clinical study according to accepted standards. And I need the funds to pay for all these things. You can see my page on the Ronin website and make a tax-deductible donation here:http://ronininstitute.org/research-scholars/aj-lumsdaine/When you click “Donate,” you’ll go to the donation page. There you’ll see a drop-down menu titled “Please direct my donation to:” where you can select “Solve Eczema.” The rest is self-explanatory. I’ve tried crowdfunding, which helped a lot in keeping the website up and running (including the tools and technology). I have some affiliate marketing links on my website, but it brings in very little money. It has never been my intent to monetize my knowledge. I just want to share my solution as widely as possible to bring relief to families who need it as badly as ours did 20 years ago.Please help me complete this important work on a real solution to eczema. I’m excited about finding a place that will support my research and enable me to prove the effectiveness of my solution and share it with the widest possible audience. You can help me do this and help other families too. I would really appreciate your help.If you have any questions about my research on eczema or the Ronin Institute, please feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to talk with you.  Please share this with anyone you think might be interested in this work.Have a wonderful holiday, everyone! AJ Lumsdaine

——————————————————PS – I believe the Cares Act allows people who don’t otherwise itemize to deduct donations up to $300 to qualified organizations in 2020. Check with the IRS site or your tax accountant for details.
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CO2 Levels in Rooms Can Diminish Cognitive Function

Since so many of kids are spending more time indoors because of the pandemic, I just wanted to share this article from Smithsonian Magazine by Joseph Stromberg, discussing a study about the effect of CO2 on thinking: Carbon Dioxide in a Crowded Room Can Make You Dumber.The article points out that occupied rooms can easily have CO2 levels of 1,000ppm or higher: “Decision-making decreased moderately at 1,000 ppm as measured on seven of the nine scales, with decreases ranging from 11 to 23 percent, and significantly on those same scales at 2,500 ppm, with decreases of 44 to 94 percent. The most dramatic effects were found in the participants’ ability to engage in strategic thinking and take initiative.”Note the most dramatic impact is on executive function!Even a single occupant in a small room can raise CO2 levels into this range. I already knew all this, but for those stuck at home working and studying in small rooms, it can be hard to know how much anything we do, like opening windows, or keeping a door open during the day, or the house heating system, improves ventilation and CO2 levels. Students may need to keep their doors closed in order to maintain peace and quiet, but that has to be balanced against pragmatic steps to keep CO2 levels to a healthy level.As I wrote in a previous post, a surprising number of schools don’t measure up when it comes to proper ventilation. Nevertheless, many schools and workplaces do pay attention to proper ventilation, something we take for granted. With people at home for long stretches of time, and college students having to work from the dorm rooms, it’s up to us to pay attention to the issue.So I bit the bullet and bought a well-reviewed CO2 monitor, and it showed levels 1,000-1,500 when we plugged it in.  Now we can make adjustments based on data to keep those levels closer to what’s outside, which is around 380ppm according to the article.   Especially if there are other reasons a child has difficulties, maintaining indoor air quality is so important to their health and school performance.  I have done a lot of personal research on the issue of indoor air quality in indoor spaces and health, and CO2 levels aren’t anywhere near the top of the list of concerns. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. I hope this information about CO2 helps people to more easily make decisions about improved ventilation and air quality related to Covid control, too. 
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From Anonymous: Your daughter may have allergies. At 3 months …

Hi there!

Eczema is referred to as atopic dermatitis, is the term for a broad range of skin conditions that generally manifest as chronically inflamed and extremely skin. Atopic begins at any age at common sites such as:

1. infants: scalp, face, cheeks.

2. adults: extremities, inside his elbow, behind the knees, ankles, wrists, face neck, chest.

Some common causes are: Age; infants are most likely to develop atopic dermatitis, Industrialization; those who living industrialization are more likely to develop this disorder.

I have read the e-book that contains the explanation about the disease, the e-book provides the knowledge and 3 simple and easy treatments:

http://vanisheczema.com/eczematreatment/?hop=0

Learn more at http://www.curemydisorder.com/links/eczema-remedy

Want to wash your hands frequently and not dry out your skin? It’s easier than you might think.

I have heard from SolveEczema.org users, including doctors, who used the SolveEczema strategies just so they could wash their hands a lot and not dry or damage their skin.

Over the years, many site users who used Solveeczema.org to get rid of eczema, have also described successfully using the website to get rid of dry skin without needing moisturizers. So a few years ago, I started a multi-part blog post on how to use the SolveEczema website to get rid of dry skin without using moisturizers.Based on my research and observations, and my experience trying to help people on the eczema side, I see so many misconceptions about what causes dry skin, that after writing the first post, I pretty much gave up on trying to make a separate set of instructions for ameliorating skin dryness. The best I can do is recommend: Read and understand the SolveEczema.org website! (It’s not what you think when you first look at it.) The principles work for dryness whether you have eczema or not.You may have to dig a little bit, and keep an open mind. SolveEczema was never built to be the most efficient way to best explain the new concepts of how to problem-solve eczema this way, because, again, people’s preconceived notions get in the way. The site was built for people with infants, and to best help the most number of people—given the most common preconceived hurdles—to see this very different way of looking at skin health and persist in getting the benefits in their unique circumstances.I think medical research, and basic biological principles, are at least pretty clear that the modern eczema epidemic is above all an environmental problem, with a genetic susceptibility. But there seems to be an underlying assumption that the environmental influence happens early and that children and adults with eczema have a fundamental immunological or skin defect that stems from an early environmental circumstance that can no longer be reversed. This assumption is wrong, and I believe I can demonstrate that it’s wrong.When I went to solve my child’s eczema, I could see that the one indisputable aspect of the problem, according to research, was that it is primarily environmental, something about the modern environment, but I didn’t see anything that I recognized as environmental problem solving anywhere. So that’s what I did. This is why the SolveEczema site is basically an environmental problem-solving guide. Sometimes I despair of ever helping most people understand so they don’t keep suffering from what I believe is the completely solvable problems of eczema and atopic asthma, and even the majority of dry skin.In solving eczema, it became really clear that everyone is affected by these same environmental influences even if they don’t have eczema—and I don’t just mean people, I also mean animals (indoors and outdoors), but that’s a topic for another day—and that the impacts are both short-term and long-term. Both short- and long-term impacts on membranes are reversible with the right environmental changes. The best results come from understanding and ameliorating both the short-term and long-term consequences of those environmental influences, but people can do a lot to solve dry skin just by understanding and ameliorating the short-term impacts.

Now that everyone is washing their hands frequently because of the coronavirus pandemic—since washing is superior to hand sanitizer when it comes to preventing the spread of infection—I’d like to try sharing this very different way of looking at skin dryness again. Because when people understand it, they can wash their hands really well, getting them very clean and even scrubbing, without drying out their skin and without needing moisturizers.This kind of advantage is critical for medical professionals because damaged skin can harbor microorganisms and make doctors susceptible to infections themselves through broken, bleeding skin. Let’s face it, damaged skin just plain makes people not want to wash their hands frequently, too. Hand sanitizers, while important for when hand washing is not possible, don’t work as well as washing, and the alcohol (and other chemicals) in them can be absorbed. Sanitizers don’t work at all against some viruses like norovirus. Sanitizers have nevertheless become ubiquitous even where hand washing is available because handwashing is harder, and let’s face it, often times painful, because of the drying. It doesn’t have to be.It’s so ingrained that washing well damages skin, there’s even a pandemic commercial that shows a medical professional scrubbing and proudly holding up red raw hands, as if it is an inevitable sacrifice. In my experience, for the majority of people who understand this different perspective, this familiar outcome of handwashing is not necessary, there is a better way.If you’re willing to follow along and understand this very different perspective, at the end of this article, I will share a simple experiment you can do to demonstrate these principles at home.

With that goal in mind, the first and most important point I need to make is this:

Point #1: Washing hands to get them really clean, washing hands often and really thoroughly, is NOT what is drying your skin.Let me say that again another way: the reason your hands get dry, cracked, and raw when you wash them a lot, is not, as is commonly believed, because you are stripping oils from your skin when you wash.Yes, there is something about the washing process that is making your skin dry and raw, but what you and pretty much everyone else have assumed and concluded about why is wrong. Understanding this can change everything.The second critical point I need to make, and which I have made for over a decade on this blog, and tried to make more memorable by giving it a dopey name (my apologies), is Lumsdaine’s Law:

Point #2:Lumsdaine’s Law: For most people, under most conditions, eczema and dry skin are more the result of what is left on the skin than what is stripped from the skin by washing.Your skin is not getting dry from washing away oils. Your skin is getting dry because the residue of whatever you washed with—and there will be a residue, no matter what the product maker promised about rinsing—has unnaturally increased the permeability of your skin so that it loses more moisture than the natural dynamic repair processes of the skin can replace on an ongoing basis.

This is especially true for modern synthetic detergents like sodium lauryl sulfate, even the organic ones. (The important characteristic being the molecular properties of the products, notably, how hydrophilic—attracted to water, and thus, how good at increasing membrane permeability—they are, not the starting ingredients.) This characteristic of modern synthetic detergents has been amplified beyond anything possible in traditional soaps, and more so over time (in step with the allergy epidemic since WWII, I would note.)Even a layer of water on the skin, all by itself, increases the permeability of skin. Not as dramatically as detergents do, and especially detergents with a layer of water, but you can see this if you wash your hands in the winter and don’t dry them properly, they chap. Your hands feel “moist” just after applying the water, but over time, they lose excess water because that extra layer of externally applied water increases the permeability of the skin. (Though few people would know the effect of water alone anymore since the vast majority of people have residues of detergents on their hands even if they rinse just with water. But the effect is the same.)The molecular properties of surfactants that make them good at destroying surface tension/mixing with water and therefore good at cleaning also happen to make the residues left on skin good at unnaturally increasing the permeability of skin. Modern synthetic detergents (as defined on SolveEczema.org) are inevitably far more hydrophilic than soaps (also as defined on SolveEczema.org) and thus increase the permeability of skin far more. This is an underlying principle of SolveEczema. Even tiny residues of modern detergents left on the skin (yes, even “organic” ones) can unnaturally increase the permeability of skin on an ongoing basis.This principle is supported by a recent study by a group in England, with one of my favorite dermatology researchers in the world as co-author, Dr. Michael Cork, whom I’ve mentioned before. The Effect of Water Hardness on Surfactant Deposition after Washing and Subsequent Skin Irritation in Atopic Dermatitis Patients and Healthy Control Subjects, Simon G. Danby1, Kirsty Brown1, Andrew M. Wigley1, John Chittock1, Phyoe K. Pyae1, Carsten Flohr2,4 and Michael J. Cork1,3,4, Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2018) 138, 68e77; doi:10.1016/j.jid.2017.08.037The group methodically looked at whether the hardness of water affected residues of the detergent sodium lauryl sulfate left on skin, and they found that “Sites washed with hard water had significantly increased sodium lauryl sulfate deposits.” And that “These deposits increased trans-epidermal water loss and caused irritation, particularly in AD patients carrying FLG mutations.”Translation: Rinsing with hard water left more detergent residues on people’s skin. The detergent residues remaining on the skin increased the loss of water from the skin and were associated with irritation, especially in people who are genetically prone to having eczema and allergies.Bingo.This still doesn’t address the, in my experience, wrong idea that skin dryness is the result of oils being stripped from the skin from washing, but it’s a start. (I will write more about this later, but based on my research, it seems that this idea, that washing away oils causes skin dryness, is more the consequence of innovations in 20th century advertising than scientific evidence.)Point #3Using creamy moisturizers and “moisturizing” washing products backfires. Skin seems moisturized right after using them, but over time, they cause the skin to lose water.This is also described in SolveEczema.org. I’ve heard this phenomenon described as the skin becoming “addicted” to the moisturizer and not producing enough oils because of the externally applied moisturizing, and that if people just stop moisturizing, after a painful period of adjustment, skin will be less dry. Again, this is a wrong interpretation that sadly causes unnecessary suffering and poor results.What’s really happening, as I describe in SolveEczema.org, is that the creamy moisturizers are creating a condition much like water on the skin, in which it is temporarily externally hydrated in a way that causes increased permeability and excess water loss over time, and thus, dry skin.A testHere’s that test I promised to prove all this to yourself, if you are able to handle very dry skin for a couple of days. (Note: if you have hard water, the results could be affected by the water hardness, per the paper I cited above. Given the need to wash hands because of Covid-19, I wouldn’t do this full test if you have to be out in the world and need handwashing for serious infection control. “Moisturizing” soaps don’t tend to clean very well, for one.) It’s a 3- to 6-day test, so set aside a time when you don’t expect to go out much.First step:Get a “moisturizing” bar soap. Also get a very neutral bar soap (like from my list of favorites, such as Sappo Hill unscented, which you can get by the bar at Whole Foods) that doesn’t feel especially oily or moisturizing and does a good job cleaning. Stick with “soap” as defined on SolveEczema.org, at least for the neutral soap. Do not use a product with detergent ingredients for the neutral bar soap. If you use a product with detergent ingredients (detergents as defined on SolveEczema.org) for moisturizing soap, then it may take more time to restore your skin to “normal,” possibly a lot more time. For the sake of keeping as many things controlled as possible, if you want to try a detergent in the first phase, maybe do a second trial after trying it first with only soaps (again, as defined on SolveEczema.org).Glycerine “soaps” are perfect for the “moisturizing” one, although you can use any soap that feels really oily when you touch it, with added moisturizing ingredients. Such soaps won’t feel like they clean very well, but seem to leave “moisturizing” residues when you wash. (If you use them, you will see why I no longer recommend glycerine soaps at all, even though they are not detergents as defined on my site. They’re not really drying enough to cause eczema, in my experience, but … you’ll see.)Second step:Once you have the two products, for the next 3 days, ONLY wash with the “moisturizing” product every time you wash your hands (showering counts, but use the soap in the shower then). Rinse well. Remember, don’t use a different product because you’ll wash off the residues of the test product. If you aren’t a SolveEczema site user, please recognize that your skin is regularly touching and absorbing detergents in your environment. Dry your hands for all of these tests with a paper towel (not a washed towel) to minimize that influence after you wash hands. Important: Don’t use a separate moisturizer for the duration of the test.Comment:Immediately after using a glycerine bar or very moisturizing product, the skin seems very soft and hydrated. But then over time, over a period of hours in the short-term, and days in the long-term, it gets really dried out. You’ll probably see the effect within a day, but if you want to have no doubts, go 3 days. (Unless you get fed up from the dry skin earlier, in which case, move forward.)Third step:After 3 days, wash your hands one more time with the “moisturizing”/glycerine soap, and wait for the moisturized-feeling phase to wear off—probably a couple of hours but may be shorter—so that your skin feels really dry. Fourth step:Get out the neutral soap, like the Sappo Hill unscented (the best is an aged bar), and wash your hands really well. Get them super sudsed up, between your fingers, the back of your hands. Rinse them really well. Then dry them with a paper towel.Wait the same amount of time that it took your skin to feel super dry after washing with the glycerine soap. (Try not to do things that would get more detergents on your skin, such as handling dust or clothing.) How do your hands feel? Your skin should be considerably less dry, more supple. If the cause of the dryness had been stripping oils from your skin, your skin would have been only more dry.Keep washing with only this new neutral soap for 3 days. Notice the difference.The Sappo Hill (or whichever product you chose) isn’t especially moisturizing or oily. It washes away oil and dirt better than products that are.

Having substances on the skin that increase the permeability so much that the skin’s natural dynamic repair processes can’t restore water fast enough is what is causing dry skin. You can wash those substances away; when you do that, your skin can replace water and become less dry fairly rapidly. It’s not days like the people who subscribe to the oil-moisturizer-addiction perspective think, it’s more like tens of minutes or hours, and the results are far better. If you don’t follow the SolveEczema site strategies, you are likely to be introducing hydrophilic substances that can cause drying to your skin in ways you don’t appreciate, which have long-term effects, but you should still be able to see the results of this test.If you still want to moisturize your skin after this process, and you may, wash with the neutral soap, dry with a paper towel, and use a thin later of Aquaphor (which you can even wipe off with a paper towel—again, not a washed towel—almost entirely so it isn’t greasy, seriously that will work just as well or better than lots of product). If you keep using the neutral soap (and you don’t have exposure to other surfactants like the detergents that comprise virtually all commercial shampoos including the organic ones), you probably won’t need to use the barrier again.Note: this same principle is at play with all of the surfactants you come into contact with: the laundry detergent, the detergents in personal care products, the dishes and household surfaces, the dust in your home (which is made up so much by lint, skin cells, and hair). It has been my experience and that of others using the SolveEczema site that changing to less-permeability-inducing household products can improve skin dramatically in the longer term, too.

Point #4Read my previous post about aging soap. Aged true soap may be less alkaline, I’ll have to do some testing on that. Regardless, a true soap that is neutral (non-oily) yet drying when you use it, will typically no longer be drying after it’s aged. If it has tons of moisturizing ingredients, though, so that the bar feels oily when you touch it and/or your skin feels like it has a coating of something moisturizing after you use it, aging the soap will never make it better.Point #5Water hardness has such a dramatic impact on the performance of soaps and detergents—how well they suds, remove dirt, and rinse off—in my observation, water softness/hardness is typically a more important factor in cleaning performance than exactly what brand of soap/detergent one chooses. It is also a factor in dryness.Over and over again I find with my site users that people with hard water have the most difficult time getting the detergents washed out of their clothing. Research has shown that there is more eczema in hard water areas than those with soft water. Soap doesn’t work well in hard water, and it forms insoluble residues. Detergents do, too, just not to the same degree. Those residues are why soft white fabrics get grey and coarse after repeated washing. When washed in real soap and soft water, soft light-colored fabrics stay light-colored and soft over time.People tend to use a LOT of detergent when they have hard water, too, because hard water doesn’t allow sudsing or rinse as well and thus leaves a lot of residue (see the paper above). This is not an intuitive fact, because soaps and detergents develop lather and suds so much more easily with soft water, it can seem harder to rinse off. The reality is that with soft water, you can get things clean with far less product, and you can SEE the suds. That squeaky feeling people get when rinsing with hard water is actually residue, not actual clean.This is not common knowledge, in fact there is a lot of misinformation on the internet about whether hard or soft water rinse better. Remember, the 2018 paper above showed that more detergents are left on the skin from HARD water rinsing. But because people see the suds disappear faster with hard water, they assume hard water rinses better. Even the Unites States Geological Survey gets that wrong: They wrote: “Hard water is actually much better at binding with the molecules in soap, allowing us to use less water to wash soap away, and making our skin feel “squeaky clean”.”That is exactly WRONG!!!Remember what the research study above proved?“Sites washed with hard water had significantly increased sodium lauryl sulfate deposits.” And “Softening the water to remove calcium and magnesium ions significantly reduced the level of SLS deposition.”Hard water doesn’t rinse away detergents well. Soft water rinses much better, and you can use less soap or detergent to begin with in soft water. Those residues increase membrane permeability, which increases water loss from your skin.The USGS example is one of many you can find, which are likely the result of rationalizing from a simple observation, rather than using direct scientific testing. The same is true of old beliefs about dry skin and washing away oils, which as near as I can tell, came about because of advertising innovations mid-20th century.At a time when washing hands well is so important to reducing spread of disease, it’s probably also important to know the difference between hard and soft water, and how each affects the performance of soaps and detergents, in particular, rinsing microbes away.

The best results come from following the SolveEczema site strategies fully. When fully and properly implemented, Solveeczema.org strategies typically result in a long-term improvement to skin which is most obvious in the first two months after full implementation. (Note: As I say frequently on my site for good reason, do not implement without first understanding it fully and keeping your doctor in the loop, it is a very different perspective and things can go wrong.)

When I was younger, if I traveled, I inevitably got cracked, dry, bleeding hands. Using those thick workmen hand creams only helped some, and they were a messy hassle. I thought for sure it was the dry air on airplanes. After implementing the site, I just take my own true soap (as defined on SolveEczema.org) with me in a pocket foaming dispenser to wash my hands with when I travel, and I don’t ever have dry skin anymore. I usually take Aquaphor with me but almost never have to use it. My soap is neutral, not moisturizing, and cleans really well—which is why it isn’t drying even when I have to wash frequently. Washing away the many harsh detergent residues I come into contact with when traveling also helps—so washing becomes an important way to prevent dry skin!

I would really love to impart this benefit to every doctor and nurse in the country who is suffering from handwashing, not just since the Covid-19 crisis, so that they can wash their hands as often as they need to, get them very clean, yet not suffer the kind of dry skin they may be suffering now.

Source: New feed

From Anonymous: You may want to try an elimination diet. Soy a…

7.Dyshidrosis. (pomphylox, the id reaction, chronic hand eczema, dyshidrotic eczema) Google images and dermnet.nz …… does it look like this?

It is allergy to a dermatophyte, which is any kind of skin loving ‘bug’. Mold, yeast, bacteria, virus, parasite, pollen. It could be anywhere on or in your body. The rash on the hands(or feet) is just a red flag showing the immune reaction to the dermatophyte. Take anti-histamines for immediate relief. Fexofenadine 180mg, and 8 hours later 60mg, then every 8 hours 60mg. (Allegra to Americans and Sanofi-Aventis give out samples if you ask nicely) This is not the cure. But it will stop the itching. Go to dyshidrosis@yahoogroups for more information. http//dyshidrosis.co.uk (my website).

This condition is your immune system over-reacting to the presence of a dermatophyte.

The most coåmmon dermatophyte is Candida in its dimorphic, mycelial form in the intestines. Which is often diagnosed as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. (IBS)

The cure is really simple, but I very much doubt you can get your doctor to prescribe it for you.

You need a 28 day course of sugar free NYSTATIN by drops, 2 million units daily. That is 5 drops 4 times a day: then a 2 week break, then repeat. If this does not work (and I would bet the cost of your doctor visit it does.) you need a drug called Toctino, to be taken for 90 days. This is expensive, and not great for your liver, you will find a cheaper way on the links at dyshidrosis@yahoogroups.com.

I am studying this condition, also called the ‘Id reaction”. Can I ask you to tell your doctor to refer to page 651, chapter 17 in the 1st volume of the Textbook of Dermatology by Rook, Wilkingson and Ebling.?

You have to realize this is NOT contact dermatitis, and it is not eczema This is a special sort of allergy, and must NOT be treated with steroids and cortisone creams and injection at all. This makes it spread..

All the creams you put on your hand will do nothing for the cure of the condition, but soaking your hand in warm water and vinegar will neutralize the histamine and give you a couple of days relief from itching until the histamine builds up again. Neuragena Norwegian Formula glycerine cream under cotton gloves at night is the least irritant.

Some people find bleach baths help, same applies, neutralizes histamine. But also reduces the fungal load on the skin, and if your dyshidrosis is caused by a seasonal airbourne mold, this is the best treatment.

Podiatrists see a lot more of this condition in response to Tinea, which is athlete’s foot. MD doctors have only out of date treatments and it is a dogma that steroids will take down the inflammation. True, but they cause the spread to new histamine receptors. In fact, it is my theory that steroid/hormonal changes, ie puberty, the pill, pregnancy and pumping iron and the peri menopause which are all hormonal/steroid changes are the inciting cause for the yeast Candida Albicans to morph into the opportunistic pathogen of the mycelia form. This is why it is not detected on allergy tests. Everybody has Candida, but not everybody has candidiasis. Only the mycelial form of Candida seems to cause the major histamine reaction which is Dyshidrosis

Patient Questions:

AGE

HEIGHT

WEIGHT

GENDER

WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE YOU?

HOW LONG HAVE YOU HAD THIS? YEARS? MONTHS? PLEASE BE EXACT.

Do you have any symptoms of IBS?

Do you have athlete’s foot? Ringworm? Any persistent fungal or bacterial infection?

What other drugs are you NOW taking?

What other drugs for all and any conditions have You taken for as long back as you can remember?

(in particular, those you took in the year before this condition started.)

Are you on the Pill? (or HRT)

Did you take a course of steroids or antibiotics at about the time the condition started? (prescribed or not…)

Thinking back to when this started: Did you move to a new house? Area? Or a new job? Was it moldy?

Were you trying to get pregnant? pregnant? just been pregnant? breastfeeding?

Thinking back to when this started: did you have a stomach upset that persisted, did you suddenly become ‘intolerant’ to food that had previously not caused you any problems.

Can you a)dd any information about the starting point of the condition? (Hospitalized, new relationship, rash, holiday, stress

Learn more at http://www.curemydisorder.com/links/eczema-remedy

From Anonymous: Eczema And Sun

Eczema is basically an allergic reaction to something. It could be the soap you’re using, your shampoo, certain things you eat etc. For example, if my brother eats oranges, his face comes out with massive patches of eczema.

I can see how you really want it to go away for your prom, but I don’t know how quickly it can go. You might be able to reduce it in a month, here are some tips that will help:

1. Use Dove. I don’t know if you have dove soap in your country (I like in the UK) but dove is so good for sensitive skin. It’s full of moisture and it doesn’t have anything added to it so it won’t make you itch.

2. Often eczema is itchy most because it’s dry. Moisturise twice a day with a cream you definately aren’t allergic to. Moisturise extra good when you get out of the shower, bath, swimming pool etc.

3. Cool down. Avoid sweating. If you start to itch, do something to cool your skin down. Have a cool shower, go outside, or stand in front of a fan, roll a refrigerated drink CAN on the itchy parts.

4. Avoid dairy products. This is a very common trigger for eczema and reducing the amount you eat could help.

5. Don’t shower too often, as this will reduce the natural oils on your skin that keep it moisturised, and make it more and more dry.

6. Ask your doctor for something called Eumovate, this is a very good steroid cream for eczema that can’t be purchased over the counter.

7. Don’t scratch yourself! If you do it will just make it a lot worse. Wash the area with cold water and apply moisturiser.

When your eczema suddenly came back, can you remember any sudden differences in your life? Did you get a pet? Dogs, cats, and other furry animals cause eczema like crazy!

Oh and I’ve never heard of the sun helping eczema, if anything I would have thought it would make it worse because it’s really hot. Maybe when you went to a hot country last summer, it disappeared because you were away from a trigger in your house that caused it? Just guessing, trying to help.

The sun definitely helps eczema scaring go. If you’ve itched and itched and got a lot of scabs, the sun fades the scars so you can’t see them.

I hope I helped! 😀 Sorry if I wrote a lot.

Source(s): I have eczema too. :(

Learn more at http://www.curemydisorder.com/links/eczema-remedy

From Anonymous: Eczema On My Face

I’ve had eczema pretty much my whole life too, got it on my face for a lil while though its only on my neck now.

As far as moisturizers go use Vaseline, it lasts longest, has no chemicals that might damage your skin if its sensitive or burn it if you scratched it. Only negatives are if you put it on an open area it itches and it is sticky. But Vaseline is by far the best moisturizer you can use…almost forgot it disguises the flakiness but makes look shiny, a teacher thought I was crying once because he thought it was tears. Had to wear it during winter for 2 years till the eczema cleared from my face. btw apply it in the morning b/c when you try to sleep your going to end up thinking about it on your body and might scratch it. Vaseline feels nasty to touch though so if someone is going to be touching your face you might not want to use it, ponds brand cream is okish if that’s the case, but…if it feels nasty you’re just less likely to scratch it and if you don’t scratch at it it can only get better. If you’re a guy vaseline has other uses as well…lol but you can figure those out by yourself.

Hydrocortizone is a no go for the face, while its good for helping to clear up eczema on most of the body it also has the side effect of thinning the skin and the skin on the face and…especially the eye lids is waay too thin to use it on.

Basically all you can do it put Vaseline on it to keep it moist, try not to scratch if it itches b/c then it will keep on coming back, clip your nails so if you accidentally scratch it’s not too bad, when you shower use lukewarm water b/c hot water drys and irritates the skin and also use a “hypoallergenic” body wash/soap, I think Dove brand has one that doesn’t irritate the skin much. Also wash your face quickly near the end of your shower so it’s exposed to water and soaps as little as possible.

You never want eczema on your face b/c that is the hardest place…well aside from maybe in your pants I guess… for you to remove it, and it’s also the most visible. If you have eczema in any area for too long scar tissue (and potentially hyperpigmentation) occurs so try to get it fixed as soon as possible.

Learn more at http://www.curemydisorder.com/links/eczema-remedy

From Anonymous: I bought one of them once. Don’t remember …

ECZEMA: ‘bleach baths’ Standard treatment in the UK, child abuse in the US.

2 cups of 4% chlorine bleach (standard household) in a bath of warm water twice a week.

Decreases the bioburden.

The very latest treatment for eczema is faecal transfer, on the idea that a bad gut microbiome is the cause of the histaminea reaction that is eczema.

It really seems to be successful, tho’ only experimental at the moment. Remember that most people grow out of eczema by 16.

Naturopaths believe a teaspoon of cod liver oil with each meal to be useful.

Source(s):

Study allergy: ‘The powder of poop’ T. Borody centre for digestive diseases, T. Ruzicka, N.I.C.E. (NHS, UK.)

But I would like to know if ACV works as well as Bleach.

Learn more at http://www.curemydisorder.com/links/eczema-remedy

From Anonymous: Foods To Avoid For Eczema

Hi Gerald

Although there are certain types of food that can act as triggers for eczema, not all types of these foods will affect all eczema sufferers in the same way. For example, some sufferers will find that eggs will make their condition worse, while other sufferers will have no problem with eating eggs.

Th reason that eczema cannot be cured through the use of medications is because there are too many variables in the causes, and no one treatment will work the same way for everyone.

Your best bet is to try a systematic approach, where you get a list of foods that commonly trigger eczema and try cutting them out one at a time for a couple of weeks, to see if the condition improves.

Here is a list to start you off

Milk

Eggs

Cheese

White Sugar

Wheat

Seafood

Nuts

Foods with high levels of fat

The other thing is to see what is going on around you. Eczema can be triggered by something that is coming into contact with your skin, so try changing your washing powder, soaps, shampoos, stuff you use to clean the house, certain smells, and also if you have a cat or a dog, the hairs can increase eczema, so use gloves to handle any pets.

A good way to try and get rid of eczema is to make your immune system stronger. This can be done through eating different types of foods. Remember that your immune system is having difficulty fighting eczema, this is why you get the symptoms.

Take a look at the site in the resource box, which can give you more information. Hope this helps.

Learn more at http://www.curemydisorder.com/links/eczema-remedy