onic air purifiers, one type of these devices, are said to work by charging airborne particles and then attracting them to metal electrodes. They emit ozone as a byproduct of this ionization process.
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Nizkorodov and colleagues tested various air purifiers in homes, offices and cars. In many cases, ozone levels inside climbed above 90 parts per billion, exceeding California's basic safety threshold. In some cases, ozone soared higher than 350 parts per billion, which if measured outside would trigger a Stage 2 Smog Alert, an event that hasn't occurred in the Southern California coastal air basin since 1988.
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"These machines are insidious," said Barbara Riordan, acting chairperson of the California Air Resources Board (ARB), in a warning last year. "Marketed as a strong defense against indoor air pollution, they emit ozone, the same chemical that the ARB and … U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been trying to eliminate from our air for decades. More chilling is that some people susceptible to the ill effects of ozone will eagerly bring these Trojan horses home."
Yeah, I'm glad someone stood up. My uncle worked as an OSHA consultant and hated these things, now I know why.
I had always heard they cranked out more ozone than they were worth. I, for one, am shocked. Just clean your damn house and if you have allergies that badly, keep the windows closed. Don't forget to change the filter on your furnace/AC frequently.
The idea is that it filters out dust, pollen and other things that cause peoples' allergies to act up. If you live in say, New York City, I can understand the want for such a thing.
One theory that has been gaining strength is the "hygiene hypothesis". This theory maintains that since children in more affluent countries are leading a cleaner and cleaner life (less exposure to dirt, extra use of disinfectants, etc), their immune systems have less exposure to parasites and other pathogens than children in other countries or in decades past. Their immune systems may, therefore, have many "loaded guns", cells which might have targeted, say, the intestinal worms that no longer cause trouble in affluent neighbourhoods. Having no reasonable target, these cells inadvertently become activated by environmental antigens that might only cause minor reactions in others. It is the symptoms of this exaggerated response that is seen as the allergic reaction.
Many common allergies such as asthma have seen huge increases in the years since the second world war, and many studies appear to show a correlation between this and the increasingly affluent and clean lifestyles in the West. This is supported by studies in less developed countries that do not enjoy western levels of cleanliness, and similarly do not show western levels of incidences of asthma and other allergies. During this same period, air quality, at one time considered the "obvious" cause of asthma, has shown a considerable improvement. This has led some researchers to conclude that it is our "too clean" upbringing that is to blame for the lack of immune system stimulation in early childhood.
So far the evidence to support this theory is limited. One supporting fact is that many Chinese will develop hay fever after moving into USA for three or more years. However, contradictory examples also exist.
One theory that has been gaining strength is the "hygiene hypothesis". This theory maintains that since children in more affluent countries are leading a cleaner and cleaner life (less exposure to dirt, extra use of disinfectants, etc), their immune systems have less exposure to parasites and other pathogens than children in other countries or in decades past. Their immune systems may, therefore, have many "loaded guns", cells which might have targeted, say, the intestinal worms that no longer cause trouble in affluent neighbourhoods. Having no reasonable target, these cells inadvertently become activated by environmental antigens that might only cause minor reactions in others. It is the symptoms of this exaggerated response that is seen as the allergic reaction.
Many common allergies such as asthma have seen huge increases in the years since the second world war, and many studies appear to show a correlation between this and the increasingly affluent and clean lifestyles in the West. This is supported by studies in less developed countries that do not enjoy western levels of cleanliness, and similarly do not show western levels of incidences of asthma and other allergies. During this same period, air quality, at one time considered the "obvious" cause of asthma, has shown a considerable improvement. This has led some researchers to conclude that it is our "too clean" upbringing that is to blame for the lack of immune system stimulation in early childhood.
So far the evidence to support this theory is limited. One supporting fact is that many Chinese will develop hay fever after moving into USA for three or more years. However, contradictory examples also exist.
More there, too.
thats why as a kid we played in the sandbox, play in mud, eat the mud, play in trees, get scratches and dont tell mom or dad, and be a kid. Or at least that was what i was doing.
i feel sorry for kids today, i bet they dont know what a playground is...
No shit. I enjoyed getting dirty as a kid. Shit, I remember in 4th grade I fell down at the playground and had a pebble imbedded in my knee. Lunch monitor pulled it out, put a Band-Aide on it without cleaning it. Never got infected. I can take that shit, damnit. Kids need to be exposed to this kind of thing.
Go to an elementary school. Dollars to doughnuts says that they have a sign or warning posted somewhere saying you can't bring in peanut/nut-based foods. Tons of kids these days are allergic to them, so they're outright banned from schools when the kids don't know the difference.
i was convinced that the best way to clean wounds was to rub a lot of dirt on them.
my sister always argues the point of eating dirt to strengthen out immune system, and i agree. they should sell dirt at Mc donalds or something. the "extra happy meal". My father actually is an allergist, and has studied the whole peanut allergy thing for a while. but since nuts arnt even in the same family as peanuts, i dont think its peanut and nut, most likely just peanut warning.. ( a legume..right?) so sad....
"The wind whispered,and the world began to change."
Fuji Nagase wrote:i was convinced that the best way to clean wounds was to rub a lot of dirt on them.
my sister always argues the point of eating dirt to strengthen out immune system, and i agree. they should sell dirt at Mc donalds or something. the "extra happy meal".
