FACTS
- Cleaning products can be toxic for people with asthma as they often contain chemical compounds that can inflame the airways, leaving people prone to an asthma attack.
- Cleaning products can cause long-term lung damage for people with asthma.
- Fumes from cleaning products used at work can make existing asthma worse.
- Products such as bleach, glass cleaner, detergents and air fresheners exacerbated asthma-related symptoms for the women, and their reduced lung function lasted until the morning after exposure, in some cases getting worse with time.
- Many common household cleaners contain chemicals that provoke or worsen asthma or COPD symptoms, making cleaning uncomfortable and potentially dangerous.
STATS
- Many of the children with asthma had significant asthma risk factors besides VOCs: 77% had at least one parent with an allergy problem and 57% had at least one parent with asthma.
- Seventy-seven percent of the asthmatic children had a genetic tendency to have allergic reactions such as asthma or allergies; 51% of the children without asthma had this tendency.
- Children who had lived in a home with a fume-emitting heater during the first year of their life were 47% more likely to have hyperresponsive airways, wheezing, and had twice the risk of developing asthma compared with children not exposed to fume-emitting heaters early in life.
- Exposure to cleaning products caused children to be 35 percent more likely to have chronic difficulty breathing. In addition, they were 49 percent more likely to have chronic allergies.