Green Housecleaning

Keeping up the house is a LOT of work – that’s why so many people turn to Maid Brigade! When customers ask us for "power clean" tips they can do in between our cleaning visits we share these three “Power Clean” tools that really save time:

Microfiber. Scientifically woven to pick up more dust, dirt and germs than traditional cotton cloths or paper towels, they require little, if any, cleaning solution because they are so effective at cleaning mirrors, glass, counters, furniture dusting, etc. using water alone. They really save time – and money too!

Bucket.  Keep all your house cleaning supplies in one bucket, and keep one bucket on each floor of your home. You’ll be surprised how much time it saves when you don’t have to stop cleaning to retrieve supplies from another area or level of your home.

Cobwebber.  This handy tool telescopes so that you can quickly reach high places, low places and corners. The average home can be cobweb-free in just a few minutes with this tool. Don’t forget the front porch – this is where lasting first impressions about your housekeeping abilities are made first!

Even products that are non-toxic and biodegradable can create health risks.  One problem with cleaning chemicals is that exposures can be from inhalation and skin absorption, not just consumption.  Another is that our families are exposed to these on a regular basis. Also, our body can’t purge all these chemicals and small exposures can add up to larger ones through accumulation.

Did you know that solvents, which are in many household cleaners (to cut through grease, for example) can cause a broad range of neurological damage, from as mild as headaches to as serious as dementia?  One example is 2-butoxyethanol (also known as 2-butyl).  It is in over 200 household products that families have trusted for years (even supposedly "green" cleaning products).  Yet the EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE) has identified 2-butyl as having potential effects on blood, the central nervous system, kidneys and liver.
 
Maid Brigade’s green cleaning solutions are certified by Green Seal to meet stringent health and environmental criteria.  You can trust us to keep you home cleaner and healthier than any other cleaning service.
 

Dr. Phil Landrigan recently opined that “Ignorance is perhaps amoral,” during an Emory Enlightenment series lecture titled “Children’s Health ad Toxic Chemicals? What are the Connections?” in February in Atlanta, GA.  He cited statistics in support of his opinion:  80,000 high production chemicals have been introduced in the last thirty or forty years, yet we don’t know the developmental impact of 80% of those chemicals on children.  Dr. Landrigan is Chair of Mount Sinai’s Department of Community and Preventive Medicine.  He previously chaired a National Academy of Science Committee on Pesticides and Children’s Health and worked as Senior Advisor to the Environmental Protection Agency.  The green living movement seems to be increasinlgy about the health aspects of how we treat our environment.

Dr. Landrigan pointed to the dramatic increase of “modern” illnesses over the last thirty years as evidence of a new kind of survival challenge.  A century ago, the death rate was more than twice what it is today.  Our mortality has decreased in large part due to advances in modern medicine and industrialization.  But the trade off is that the same synthetic chemicals behind many of these advancements introduce their own set of health risks.  Childhood cases of asthma have increased by 67%, childhood leukemia  by 52%, and childhood brain cancer by 36% over the last 30 years.   Testicular cancer, a disease of young males, has increased 50% and male hypospadias (a reproductive disorder) has increased 70%.

In January, the National Institutes of Health announced the launch of the National Children’s Study, an ambitious, decades-long project intended to examine the influences of childhood exposures to toxic chemicals on health, disease and development.  Dr. Landrigan is one of the key figures behind the study.  Expect landmark results; Dr. Landrigan documented widespread lead poisoning in children in 1976, seminal to government mandates to get lead out of paints and gasoline.  This may have been the beginning of a mainstream green living movement.

In the meantime, adopting green living strategies will help consumers minimize chemical exposures for their family and protect their children from potential health threats.  Think.....green cleaning.

As a pioneer of the green house cleaning movement Maid Brigade sees it as our corporate responsibility to act as advocates for the consumer with regards to the health impact of cleaning chemicals. Most of our primary customers, busy working mothers, have neither the time to research these impacts nor the expertise to interpret scientific data which links certain chemicals to various illnesses.  Yet it is vitally important that you be able to make informed purchasing decisions to reduce potential chemical exposures and protect the health of your family.  Our consumer advocacy mission intends to assemble valuable information on the topic of household chemicals and cleaning products and convey that information in a convenient manner that is easy to understand. Our consumer advocacy web site, GreenCleanCertified.com, contains numerous articles and videos, and even an interactive quiz on green living. 

In 2010 we are doubling our efforts and have hired a Consumer Health Advocate to help us help busy working moms to achieve a healthier home through green living and especially green cleaning.  Through our research we have come to understand the “2nd shift” phenomenon – working a number of hours cleaning and keeping house after a full day in the paid workforce.  Our Consumer Health Advocate will also help busy moms with work/life balance – because this balance can have so much impact on health. 

Maid Brigade welcomes Marie Stegner as our Consumer Health Advocate.  A registered nurse, professional health and wellness manager and mother of three, Marie answers the call for more consumer education and advocacy related to the impact of common household chemicals on our health and the environment.   Marie came to us through our partnership with Mom Corps, the leader in the flexible employment arena.  She will be blogging for us on a regular basis as well as writing articles, creating videos and even appearing at local events - all to help busy women lead healthier lives and create healthier homes.
 

Around the house, a thorough de-cluttering this winter will help you feel calmer and more balanced going into the first spring of the new decade. Purging and de-cluttering is not easy and involves physical and often emotional effort. Here are some ideas to make the task more manageable:

One at a time. Look at the trees, not the forest. This project is really a series of small projects, not one massive one. Focus on the immediate closet, or dresser, or room you are de-cluttering. Don’t think about the next area until you have completed this one.

Take the history test. If you haven’t used an item in over a year, do you really need it? Of course this can’t be a hard and fast rule, but if you put each item to the test, you’ll be surprised how much clutter you can eliminate.

Make it green. Recycle or donate what you’ve purged to reduce landfill waste. If you’re going to have your home cleaned after you’ve de-cluttered, hire Maid Brigade, the only cleaning company that is Green Clean Certified® for your family’s health.

Through our relationship with Mom Corps (the leader in flexible employment options for working moms) we get to blog from time to time on their website.  We've heard from several of you that your time is not your own, that you feel over-committed and that there is precious little equilibrium in life.  Too many obligations and too little time to "re-set" leaves us feeling tense, uninspired or lacking energy.

So I blogged about that on Mom Corps' site, and making a new years' resolution to just do nothing sometimes and to find some balance:

http://www.momcorps.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/1/4/2010--The-Year-of-Balance

Resolve with me!

Janitors, scientists, teachers and others who are regularly exposed to chemicals are at higher risk for pregnancies resulting in birth defects, according to a recent online report in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.  A survey of mothers of children with birth defects identified that janitors or scientists were more likely to have children with certain conditions including ear, eye, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal and oral clefts:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/EnvironmentalHealth/17643

The study did not considered amount of time spent in any occupation or the possible chemicals the women were exposed to in their professions.  Researchers say they study was intended to generate hypotheses and indicate the need for more specific studies in the future. 

The study was supported by a cooperative agreement with the CDC.

The H1N1 vaccine that seemed frought with controversy from the beginning has hit a new snag.  When initial production time estimates ended up being faster than what was actually possible the public wondered whether there would be enough?  Would the vaccine be effective?  Was it safe?  Would there be enough health workers to dispense on pace with demand?  Would vulnerable populations get priority over others?

Tuesday, 800,000 pediatric doses of the vaccine were recalled due to potency issues.  Certain doses intended for children 6 to 35 months old are apparently not strong enough to do the job.  According to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene deputy secretary Fran Phillips, "This is not a safety concern, rather a question of whether or not as strong a potency as they needed to be," she said of the recalled doses.  The CDC also describes the issue as "non-safety-related".

The manufacturers of the voluntarily recalled doses, Sarnofi Pasteur, discovered that the potency in one particular lot of pediatric syringes had diminished since it was produced.  Further testing identified three other lots of weakened vaccine doses.

The CDC recommended a two-vaccine protocol for children initially, and health officials say that children under 10 that were vaccinated with the weaker doses should continue through the protocol and get the second shot, however they need not repeat the first vaccine.  All unused doses of the weaker vaccine are being removed from public inventory and returned to the manufacturer.  The problem appears to be confined to 0.25 ml pre-filled syringes in 10- and 25-packs.  Multi dose vials and single-dose 0.5-ml pre-filled syringes for persons 36 months and older are not affected.   The nasal sprays are also not affected.

The lot numbers affected by the recall can be found on this CDC web page.
 

CBS News told 60 Minutes viewers Sunday night that H1N1 vaccine production is falling short of volume projections.  This past summer the Obama administration announced that it expected to have 120 million vaccines ready by fall.  That number was later revised down to 40 million doses.  Far fewer have been available, however.   Only 17 million doses have been delivered to date, according to the 60 Minutes segment. 

Experts cite the slow production cycle as a big part of the problem.   It seems the H1N1 virus, which is grown in eggs, doesn’t grow as quickly as regular flu viruses.  But manufacturers have surmounted that challenge and production is accelerating.  One of the major obstacles is dispensation.

Some 10,000 health care workers were laid off in the 2008-2009 recession, limiting the ability of the government to get the vaccine to the public. "While the pipeline is now beginning to flow - and we'll see more vaccine over the next six to 12 weeks - the faucet where that pipeline then puts that vaccine into the community is largely rusted shut. We don't have a system in this right now for delivering vaccines to adults," commented Michael Osterholm, a top infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota.  “We've got states of multi-million people that have 25 or 30 people that are now available or possibly able to give vaccines," he told 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley.

The other major obstacle is public skepticism and concern for the safety.  Political pundits are quick to criticize the vaccine program as unsafe based on the short development and testing cycle.   Many consumers recall the vaccine program of 1976 and have fears of potential side effects that may not have surfaced during the testing phase.  In the 1976 instance, about 400 people out of the 40 million that were vaccinated developed ‘Guillain-Barre’ Syndrome, a paralysis which “starts at your toes and can work its way up where your nervous system is affected. And some people died from that,” Dr. Bruce Gellin, the director of the federal vaccine program, told Pelley.  Gellin told Pelley that although the government still does not know what went wrong in 1976, it has never happened since and the H1N1 vaccine is manufactured using the same development process that the government uses every year for the seasonal flu vaccine.  Except for the swine flu vaccine used in 1976, no other flu vaccines have been clearly linked to GBS, according to the CDC.  “[The H1N1 vaccine is] as safe as what people take every year," Gellin said.  Gellin told 60 Minutes viewers he has received fewer than 200 reports of side effects after 10 million doses, and that these are mostly muscle aches, stomach aches and sore arms. 

Osterholm likens the H1N1 vaccine to wearing a seatbelt.  His point is that we don’t have automobile accidents every day but we always wear our seatbelts because IF we should happen to be in an accident, we’d certainly be glad we were wearing seatbelts to protect us. 

The number of U.S. cases of flu reported for this flu season, which started October 5th (week 40) are much higher than historic levels.  This CDC chart documents the rapid acceleration in diagnoses over a very short period of time.


All regions of the country are reporting elevated H1N1 diagnoses.  As far as hospitalization rates, according to the CDC 15 – 24% of H1N1 patients are hospitalized, depending on the age group.  The only age groups with lower rates of hospitalization are adults 19 – 24 (9%) and adults 65+ (7%).  The CDC also reports that the highest percentage of fatalities from H1N1 are in adults 25 – 49 and 50 – 64 years of age, each with 32% of cases ending in death. 

Obama declared the pandemic a national emergency two weeks ago. Globally, millions have been infected and there are over 5,000 documented deaths and likely many more, according to Reuters.  Sales of Clorox and sanitizing gels have soared as people scramble to disinfect their immediate surroundings from potential H1N1 germs.

Maid Brigade and Mom Corps have partnered:  Helping busy working moms around the house. 

Mom Corps is an innovative staffing solution, supplying companies top-tier, experienced professionals "on demand" to meet business needs and cycles, while enabling candidates seeking flexibility to pursue their professional careers.  We provide professionals challenging work in their respective fields through virtual, contract, and full or part time flexible jobs that allow them to maintain work/life balance.

Maid Brigade and Mom Corps developed our alliance to foster a better sense of work/life balance for working women who juggle career, family and household management and worry about “doing it all well”.

Take our survey!

Our first venture as partners is a research project.  We want to know how busy women like you feel about balancing housework and career in an age of digital distractions and viral pandemics.

All survey participants will be entered into a sweepstakes to WIN a FREE green house cleaning, valued at $250. Plus, you will receive a FREE copy of our Green Guide to help you learn more about green living for health and the environment.  And, you’ll receive a FREE copy of the survey findings once the research is complete. 

It’s simple! Click the "Take our Survey" link above to tell us how YOU balance career and housework.  We invite you to learn more about our new partner, Mom Corps.

Although H1N1 outpatient cases are down throughout the US, CDC experts say the activity is higher this year than normal for the season.  Parents nationwide are concerned over increased exposure their children will face as they return to the classroom and elevated levels of social contact.  We enter this year's flu season wondering whether we can control the H1N1 pandemic and reduce hospitilizations through medicine, common sense and lifestyle choices.  We wonder whether H1N1 will strike our family. 

While influenza-like illness diagnoses have declined since the spring, deaths attributed to H1N1 are on the rise nationally.  The Wall Street Journal cited the CDC's weekly H1N1 death count of 263 through mid-July, including the very first death caused by H1N1. During the next 8 weeks, ending September 5, 330 deaths were recorded at the CDC.  Through mid-July the US was seeing an average 23.9 deaths per week, versus the more recent average 41.2 per week. 

The state health departments in Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama report H1N1 hospitalizations and deaths are on the rise in recent weeks and the CDC has characterized H1N1 activity for the southeast as "widespread", the most severe category. The southeast is the only region with this designation at this time.  Widespread influenza activity within any region is considered to be uncommon in August.

The most vulnerable population at this time for all influenza (A, B and pandemic H1N1 combined), according to labratory-confirmed influenza hospitalization rates per 10,000 population by age group as per the CDC's Emerging Infections Program April - August 2009, is children aged 5 - 17.  This group has exceeded national baselines for each week since late June, compared to the average for the same week in the previous 3 flu seasons. Adults 18 - 49 are the next most hospitalized group, matching the baseline each week since mid-July.  Infants 0 - 23 months and children 2 - 4 have shown increases over the summer months but still fall short of baseline statistics. Seniors 65+ show the least vulnerability, falling the farthest behind baselines compared to other age groups.

The H1N1 vaccination is targeted to be available this fall, according to most recent information from the CDC , dated August 28.  But the CDC won't give a more specific time frame, citing manufacturing and variables and clinical trial findings between now and then. While efficacy of the antigens does not seem to be in question, the vaccine is experiencing some controversy over "limited testing" perhaps in light of conflicting public views on the safety of vaccines recently.  Yet the nature of pandemic response is hurried; officials and medical experts are racing against a deadline that is both impossible to pinpoint on a calendar and thought to be serious and a matter of national security. 

Pregnant women and school age children are the populations given priority for the vaccines.  It is expected that the introduction of the vaccine this fall will reduce the number of cases of H1N1 but the outcome is largely dependent on variables such as how soon it can be introduced, how many affected parties receive the vaccination and how the clinical trials go.
 

A severe case of H1N1 in a pregnant woman in Washington state is helping to raise awareness, and concern, for other women who are pregant or nursing throughout the US.  In the extreme case of Katie Flyte, a 27-year old pregnant mother with a 2-year old, here H1N1 was not diagnosed until after six days and three other flu tests were administered.  Flyte developed pneumonia, a complication of H1N1, and her baby was delivered by C-section prematurely, after six months in utero.  Flyte had been in a drug-induced coma for several days before she died on August 11. She never met her daughter, who is still in the neonatal ICU.  Her husband, Kenny flyte, told The Early Show that "not one doctor threw up a red flag" or suspected the H1N1 virus.

Pregant women are six times more likely than the general population to contract H1N1.  Pregnancy suppresses a woman's immune system.  The virus, also known as swine flu, attacks the lungs, which are already vulnerable in pregnant women, since the fetus and reproductive organs crowd the pulmonary organs making it difficult to breathe.  Any sort of lung infection further complicates respiratory problems.  Pregnant women with H1N1 are four times more likely to be hospitalized than other populations, and according to the CDC account for about 6% of all H1N1 related deaths.

Pregnant women experiencing any flu symptoms should strongly consider traditional flu remedies and not wait for H1N1 test results to begin treatment with drugs such as Tamiful or Relenza, the CDC recommends. Such treatment is most effective when started within two days of infection, however treatment can still be effective if adminstered later. Tylenol should be taken to reduce fever.  The CDC also advises that if you are pregnant and experience any of the following symptoms, seek immediate treatment:

• difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
• pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen
• sudden dizziness
• confusion
• severe or persistent vomiting
• decreased or no movement of your baby
• a high fever that is not responding to Tylenol
   

Several university campuses are reporting an influx of new swine flu infections and it has sports leagues of all nationalities and varieties talking about the global pandemic H1N1 virus. The New York Times recently reported that 31 Tulane University football players and 6 volleyball team members were believed to have contracted swine flu. According to the article Duke, Texas Christian and the University of Alabama had several players reporting flu-like symptoms with some testing positive for swine flu.  Because the virus appeared before "typical" flu season and spread so quickly, officials suspect all of the flu cases reported by these athletic teams to be H1N1, or swine flu, cases. The trend has sparked some discussion of cancelling athletic events or playing to an empty stadium, although no US schools have made any moves in this direction yet.

Last month Anne Schuchat, chief of immunization and respiratory diseases at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, indicated that the agency expects an increase in H1N1 cases before the normal start of the flu season in mid-autumn because school age children can easily exchange germs once they start back to school, the Times article said.

The CDC weekly FluView for August 16 - 22 echoes the New York Times article by stating that H1N1 activity appears to be increasing, especially in the Southeast, and that almost all of the influenza viruses reported were the new 2009 H1N1 influenza type A viruses. The virus has become so widespread that the CDC ceased recording confirmed and probably individual case counts. The organization stated that as the H1N1 strain became established the individual case counts became an increasingly inaccurate representation due to patients not seeking treatment or not being officially tested.  As of July 24, the CDC counted 43,771 US infections and 302 fatalities as a result of the novel H1N1 virus. The World Health Organization also announced that it has aborted tracking individual case counts.

H1N1 has been noted to strike infants, children and young adults more readily than other populations.  Probably a combination of under-developed immune systems, high social contact and poor hygiene, the health risk for those under 25 appears to be greater than that for older people. The CDC says the highest number of reported cases per 100,000 was in persons aged 5 to 24 years of age, followed by persons 0 to 4 years of age.  The infection rates for H1N1 decline steadily for those aged 25 - 49, 50 - 64 and 65+ respectively.

The CDC says that the first 100 million doses of vaccine are expected to be ready by mid-October.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the CDC hopes that 600 million doses (two for every US resident) will be made available this year to immunize the population against swine flu.
 

According to the EPA approximately 165 pesticide compounds are thought to cause cancer.  To make matters worse, a new study conducted by the EPA and published in Environmental Science & Technology finds that pesticides linger in our homes long after they were applied.  The study detected outdoor pesticides (used in the garden and on the lawn but tracked in on the soles of our shoes) as well as indoor pesticides (used to control roaches, fleas, ticks, lice, ants and more).  Some of the pesticides detected on kitchen floors were banned from sale years ago!

According to the study, the most commonly found pesticides were:

• Permethrin (in 89% of homes)
• Chlorpyrifos (78%)
• Chlordane (74%, banned in 1984)
• Piperonyl butoxide (52%)
• Cypermethrin (45%)
• DDT (42%, banned in 1972)
• Fipronil (40%)
• Diazinon (35%, banned in 2004)

Some key takeaways to help keep your home more green and healthy:

1. When applying pesticides outdoors, wear disposable shoe covers or use a pair of shoes specially designated for this purpose that are left in the garage.  Also, start at the far corner of your yard and work your way back toward the house to keep from stepping in applied pesticides.
2. Find green products to control detrimental bug populations in your yard, and remember, not all bugs are bad - some prey on the true pests.
3. Kill roaches, spiders and other bugs you can see with your shoe, not a pesticide. 
4. Be aware that small children and pets are most often exposed to these harmful chemical residues since they spend the most amount of time on the floor of any member of your family.  Don't allow pets to eat food that has dropped on the floor; remove it before they have a chance.
5. Take measures to minimize the amount of toxins that you can control in your home, to counteract those that you can't control.  Using Maid Brigade's Green Clean Certified (R) Service can help with this since we don't use harmful chemicals to clean your home.

According to The Daily Green, an e-newsletter published by Hearst Women's Network, California has identified 30 chemicals that are suspected to cause serious health problems.  These chemicals are commonly found in household products.  California, perhaps the state most noted for green living,  has historically kept a watchful eye on toxins the public may be exposed to through products we use every day and often bans chemicals from sale in the state.

Among these newly listed chemicals are some that appear in nail polish, adhesive and rubber (potentially causing reproductive harm in women), weed killers, insecticides, cleaning products and gasoline additives (potentially causing reproductive harm in men), floor tiles, cleaning products, cosmetics and certain cancer and HIV treatments (potentially causing cancer!).

For the complete list, see The Daily Green.  Then, you can search for those chemicals on the Household Products Database to learn whether products you use include these potentially harmful ingredients.  Healthier alternative products are often available if you seek to live a green lifestyle.

Maid Brigade is proud to announce that our company has earned Green Routing Certification from ServiceCEO.  Green Routing Certification means that we have met certain criteria to demonstrate that we strive to reduce our company's dependence on fossil fuels.  We do so by using special software that allows our maids and house cleaning crews to schedule client cleaning visits in geographic order.  In other words, the daily schedule is based on the most fuel efficient way to get the teams from client to client.  Spending less time driving means using less gasoline which means fewer carbon emissions, fewer green house gases, less dependence on foreign oil and a greener company overall.

We've been cleaning green for two years and will continue to offer the greenest house cleaning available today. Now Maid Brigade is taking a look at other green practices we can adopt to contribute to improving our environment.