Common disinfectant wipes expose people to dangerous chemicals, research reveals

[littlemissmartypants]

Source: The Guardian

Researchers say wipes contain chemical group called ‘quats’, which are linked to serious health problems

Tom Perkins
Thu 11 May 2023 06.00 EDT
Since the pandemic’s outset, the global use of disinfectants has gone through the roof. Clorox dramatically boosted production of its wipe packs to 1.5m a day by mid-2021, and an industry trade group said 83% of consumers surveyed around the same time reported they had used a disinfectant wipe in the last week.

But as schools reopened, a group of toxic chemical researchers grew concerned as they heard reports of kids regularly using disinfectant wipes on their classroom desks, or teachers running disinfectant foggers.

The researchers knew the disinfectants did little to protect consumers from Covid, and were instead exposing kids at alarming levels to what they say are a dangerous chemical group – quaternary ammonium compounds, also known as QACs, or “quats”.

Quats are common components in popular disinfectant wipes and sprays, especially those that claim to “kill 99.9% of germs”. But in a new peer-reviewed paper, the researchers assembled the conclusions from a fast-growing body of quat studies that point to several main issues: the chemicals are linked to serious health problems, they contribute to antimicrobial resistance, they pollute the environment and they are not particularly effective.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/11/concern-over-increase-in-disinfectant-wipes-linked-to-health-problems

[RussBLib]

1. Well of course they do!

Yah! Everything is deadly! Is that why my fingers shriveled up?!

Sorry, I'm panicking now to avoid the rush.

[mucifer]

2. we are supposed to use gloves when using them at work.

[Iwasthere]

3. Nothing new

Read your labels. I don't use any products with questionable ingredients. We also do not injest anything into our bodies that have questionable ingredients. Preferably 2 or 3 ingredients. It's not expensive anymore to eat Organic, chemical free. Maybe 10% to 15% more. Eat like your great grandma ate. Stave off cancer.

[BOSSHOG]

4. Imagine how badass that .1% of germs must be

If quats can’t kill him.

[Igel]

24. And, of course, that

0.1% would produce the next generation.

Natural selection, anyone?

[Maraya1969]

5. I use plain rubbing alcohol with sometimes a couple drops of environmentally friendly dish detergent

It is cheap and I don't worry about chemicals anymore. Plus alcohol kills just as good as those other toxic substances.

btw - I go to Portugal a lot and I have seen many places that have just plain alcohol instead of the hand sanitizers that we use.

[ananda]

8. I put rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle...

and used that as a hand and surfaces sanitizer
until after I got vaxed.

it worked fine.

[bdamomma]

25. White vinegar

is good too.

[Warpy]

6. Most people don't use them correctly, anyway

You're supposed to let the disinfectant stand for 4 minutes before you rinse the area and you have to rinse it if you don't want poison on your kitchen gear.

[dchill]

7. "...disinfectant foggers."

That's it. That's all I got.

[txwhitedove]

9. Make your own 5x7 inch reusable wipes from cotton knit,

new or old clean clothing. All purpose cleaner from vinegar, cooled boiled water and a few drops dish soap. I've soaked grapefruit peels in white vinegar for 2 weeks to make this cleaner last 3+ years. Much healthier, natural, cheaper and smells good. If wipes are for baby, there is a solution for that too. Pinterest is your friend. My list is under Eco Family.

[enid602]

10. sarcasm

Does this mean I shouldn’t use them on the baby?

[NNadir]

11. I recently worked on a study of percutaneous quaternary amine absorption.

Generally they were in the C-12, C-14, and C-16 BAC compounds and we measured both plasma levels and urine levels in the pilot study using LC/MS/MS analysis of biofluids from healthy volunteers.

We also identified some metabolites, which showed up rather rarely in urine.

The FDA is looking at the toxicology of this class of compounds, but I think it a little premature to characterize them as being definitively linked to "serious health problems." Although they are structurally very different, we have related compounds that are very important in the physiology of all living things: Acetyl choline is a "quat."

If you have looked at mass spec data from human plasma, you will immediately recognize that there is a human background for these compounds - we followed absorption with SILs - and yet we are all alive and many of us have yet to develop serious diseases.

As a scientist who has actually worked in this area, I find the rhetoric utilized by the journalist to be way, way, way, way over the top.

The original paper is in the ASAP section of a journal I read regularly, although right now because of travel, I am two or three issues behind. I have not read the paper yet, but when I get to the issue in which it is published I'll put it on the list of papers that have professional implications, which is not equivalent to saying I will necessarily agree with the paper.

For the record: Simply declaring a paper "peer reviewed" is not synonymous with declaring it "true," although journalists, almost all of whom clearly lack scientific educations, tend to represent them as such. I see "peer reviewed" papers all the time with which I emphatically disagree or which I find to be disingenuous. In judging all things, critical thinking is an important part of the process.

We have a wonderful website worthy of occasional perusal called "Retraction Watch," which covers honest retractions and retractions based on discovered fraud: Retraction Watch.

[Alice Kramden]

14. Thank you for your perspective

Much appreciated

[chia]

19. Thank you. Very helpful.

[littlemissmartypants]

21. Link to the peer reviewed study PDF

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.2c08244

American Chemical Society Publications

Quaternary Ammonium Compounds: A Chemical Class of Emerging Concern

William A. Arnold, Arlene Blum, Jennifer Branyan, Thomas A. Bruton, Courtney C. Carignan, Gino Cortopassi, Sandipan Datta, Jamie DeWitt, Anne-Cooper Doherty, Rolf U. Halden, Homero Harari, Erica M. Hartmann, Terry C. Hrubec, Shoba Iyer, Carol F. Kwiatkowski*, Jonas LaPier, Dingsheng Li, Li Li, Jorge G. Muñiz Ortiz, Amina Salamova, Ted Schettler, Ryan P. Seguin, Anna Soehl, Rebecca Sutton, Libin Xu, and Guomao Zheng
Cite this: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2023, XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXX

Publication Date:May 8, 2023

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c08244

© 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS:
https://pubs.acs.org/page/rightslinkno.jsp

[NNadir]

22. Yes, thank you. I already found it.

I go through this journal's title page for every issue to pick up papers of interest. I'm currently two issues behind. Having finished issue 16 last night.

This one would/will catch my interest, since it's a project on which I've worked professionally, although our part is completed; we submitted the data.

I try to avoid ASAP papers, since they screw up my filing system. I do have a significant library of papers on BAC collected during the lead up and performance of the work we performed to support the study.

[littlemissmartypants]

23. You're welcome, NNadir. Thanks for weighing in. It's a shame

So Many of us have been brainwashed by the "boobtube," aka the idiot box, to believe we need these products that are potentially hazardous.

We seem to have forgotten that soap and friction are excellent, inexpensive, and very effective tools we can use to start mitigation of at least some of the illnesses caused by a variety of germs. Otherwise, hand washing wouldn't be so highly recommended.

❤️

[orleans]

12. k&r nt

[burrowowl]

13. Kick

[eppur_se_muova]

15. I've been wondering about this ever since they were introduced into consumer products ...

I learned about these as a chemistry undergraduate because they were introduced into synthetic chemistry as phase-transfer catalysts. Then, suddenly, they appeared in almost every consumer product imaginable -- It seemed I couldn't read a label without finding a quaternary ammonium salt, but I hadn't heard of any study establishing their use in such products as safe. Given that they might help transport a number of harmful chemical species across cell membranes, this didn't strike me as such a good idea, and I wondered if the large numbers of frogs with bizarre anatomical defects suddenly showing up at about the same time might be a result. Apparently, the latter turned out to be due to the fungal infection that began killing off frog populations across the globe. But I still never saw any study establishing the use of quaternary ammonium salts as safe. Not it appears the opposite has been found, but it's strange that we're just now hearing about it.

Not all the Quaternium compounds are simple tetralkylammonium species, either. At least one -- Quaternium-15 -- is actually derived from hexamethylenetetramine, which is itself made from formaldehyde. Slow hydrolysis of the tetramine nucleus leads to evolution of formaldehyde, which functions as an antimicrobial preservative. These formaldehyde-releasing chemicals are often added to cosmetics, shampoos, etc. to keep them "safe", even though better alternatives are available.

[NullTuples]

16. disinfectant foggers- that's just a terrifying term on it's own

[C Moon]

17. I guess it's back to buying toilet paper.

[GB_RN]

18. Clorox Wipes, Brand Name...

Are big in hospitals. They’ve been used them in every hospital I’ve worked in, especially since tRump’s Plague broke out. Peroxide wipes are another. Both stink like hell. There’s another type that has rubbing alcohol as a base with some other chemicals involved, but I definitely prefer those.

[dembotoz]

20. disinfectant wipes have replaced paper towels as the weapon of choice in many household

you don't wanna know how many packs my wife gets at costco