creating better environments sHealthus issue 2013 - Fall tain Forbo Flooring Systems is the global market leader in commercial floor covering solutions. Marmoleum, our flagship brand is the global leader in the linoleum market, while Flotex is the industry leader in the rapidly growing flocked textile market. In addition to linoleum-based products, Forbo develops, manufactures and markets a diversity of high quality vinyl and textile floor coverings, as well as Coral & Nuway entrance system solutions. hCureealt for a hcareCrisis ; The coming challenge to our nation’s health, starting at the hospital doorstep 1. The Biocidal Products Regulation (EU 528/2012). For more information: http://echa.europa.eu/regulations/biocidal-products-regulation 2. “Chemicals and Our Health: Why Recent Science is a Call to Action”, a report published by the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition, for the full report go to www.SaferChemicals.org North American Headquarters 3. “The Future of Fabric – Health Care”, published by the Healthy Building Network, October 2007 in conjunction with Health Care Without Forbo Flooring Systems Harm’s Research Collaborative. 8 Maplewood Drive 4. http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-infectiousdiseases-specialpackage,0,2681727.special http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0207210272jul21,0,2177158.story. Humboldt Industrial Park 5. Sathyanarayana, S. (2008) Phthalates and children’s health. Current Problems In Adolescent Health Care, 38, 34-39. doi:10.1016/j.cppeds.2007.11.001 Hazleton, PA 18202 6. “Toxic Chemicals in Building Materials; An Overview for Health Care Organizations” Kaiser Permanent and the Healthy Building Network / T: 1-800-842-7839 Healthcare Without Harm, May, 2008 570-459-0771 7. Pharos Product Category Descriptions – Resilient Flooring http://www.pharosproject.net/product_category/show/id/3 F: 570-450-0258 8. America’s Children and the Environment, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2008. http://www.saferchemicals.org/resources/health.html 9. Holly L. Howe, et al., “Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer (1973 through 1998), Featuring Cancers with Recent Increasing Trends,” email: [email protected] Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 93, no. 11 (June 2001): 824–42. http://www.saferchemicals.org/resources/health.html www.forboflooringNA.com 10. Janet Gray, ed, State of the Evidence: The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment, (San Francisco: Breast Cancer Fund, 2008). www.floorcostcomparison.com 11. Tracey J. Woodruff , et al., “Trends in Environmentally Related Childhood Illnesses,” Pediatrics, 113, no. 4 (April 2004): 1133-1140. 12. Jeanne E. Moorman, et al., “National Surveillance for Asthma, United States 1980–2004,”Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Canada www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5608a1.htm (November 1, 2009). Forbo Flooring Systems 13. Anjani Chandra and Elizabeth Hervey Stephen, “Impaired Fecundity in the United States:1982-1995,” Family Planning Perspectives, 30, no 1, Dying for a cure (1998): 34-42. 111 Westmore Drive 14. Anjani Chandra, et al., “Fertility, Family Planning and Reproductive Health of US Women: Data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth,” Toronto, ON M9V 3Y6 Vital and Health Statistics, 23, no. 25 (2005). phone: 1-800-268-8108 (English) The Superbug’s 15. Kate Brett, “Fecundity in 2002 National Survey of Family Growth Women 15–24 Years of Age” (personal communication), Hyattsville, MD, 1-800-567-9268 (Francais) National Center for Health Statistics (2008) http://www.womensvoices.org/issues/reports/the-health-case-executive-summary/. second sting 16. Leonard J. Paulozzi, “International Trends in Rates of Hypospadias and Cryptorchidism,” Environmental Health Perspectives, 107, no. 4, fax: 1-877-893-4680 (1999): 297-302. email: [email protected] 17. National Institute of Mental Health, “NIMH’s Response to New Autism Prevalence Estimate,” www.forboflooringNA.com The Chemical Society http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/updates/2009/nimhs-response-to-new-autism-prevalence-estimate.shtml www.floorcostcomparison.com 18. Scientific American “The Baffling Link Between Autism and Vinyl Flooring”, Marla Cone, Environmental Health News 2009 A Tsunami of Consequences The Way Out: one industry More Information on this subject? If you would like to quickly access the sources cited in this issue of viewpoint SUSTAIN as well as nearly 50 other closely related resources, simply go to www.forboflooringna.com/resources or scan the QR code. You will find a complete library of studies and papers on the subject. 11/18/20K/MDW © 2013 Forbo Flooring Systems creating better environments Today: deadly infections. Tomorrow: toxic workplaces. Coming soon: a chronic Looming toxins that affect healthcare now, Hospital acquired infections (HAI’s) are In addition to enduring the use of epidemic. A growing wave of and threaten its future among the most common causes of aggressive disinfectants that are chronic diseases are already hitting Patients think of a health care facility as the first step on the road back accidental death in the United States. commonly used to fight HAIs, health hospitals, clinics and care centers One in twenty patients will contract a care professionals are forced to nationwide, caused by known to wellness. Health professionals are becoming increasingly aware of a HAI sometime during a hospital stay. function in an indoor environment chemical contaminants in indoor darker truth: toxic threats within the healthcare environment are becoming Four in every hundred will die...more filled with toxic chemicals that are environments that largely go a short cut to more serious illness, permanent harm and even death. The same than the number of Americans killed bound to impact patients and unidentified by designers, building risks apply to all types of care facilities, including acute care and specialty in car accidents, fires and drowning caregivers alike. The danger is owners and maintenance 2,3 hospitals, clinics, ambulatory surgical centers and long term care facilities. combined. imminent...so much so that the professionals. European Union put a set of restrictive new rules on the use of biocides in place in 2012.1 In response to these serious concerns, health care professionals Hospital acquired worldwide are infections (HAI’s) are becoming increasingly focused on creating among the most environments that common causes of fulfill the fundamental accidental death in tenet at the heart of every physician’s the United States. Dying for a Cure Hippocratic Oath: Primum Non Nocere – first, do no harm. 2 3 creating better environments New hazards, plus perennial perils The Second Sting: First, the good news. Healthcare Pesticides/Biocides workers are beginning to make progress against MRSA and While it’s tempting to turn to The SuperBug The Superbugs won’t be crawling C. difficile, the two best known products, fabrics and flooring treated Stings Twice away anytime soon, due to a resistant bacteria. Government with antimicrobial agents that prevent situation akin to a microscopic data from Public Health England bacterial growth, this solution creates Healthcare infections, and the nuclear arms race. Powerful new reported that better control of MRSA more problems than it solves. Unfortunately cure that creates new diseases antibacterial compounds are and C. difficile led to a nationwide the chemicals used to make these products developed to fight bacteria, which decrease in the prevalence of HAIs anti-microbial are commonly classified as mutate to resist them. Still newer from 8.2% in 2006 to 6.4% in 2011. pesticides/biocides. Powerful new antibacterial compounds are developed to fight bacteria, which mutate to resist them. SuperBugBreeding ground disinfectants are then created, The bad news comes on two A half century of experience with the causing the bacteria to mutate fronts. The most threatening is a environmental impact of pesticides teaches Healthcare professionals already again and escalate the warfare new wave of resistant bacteria us that indiscriminate and/or excessive know about SuperBugs. They are further. In addition to the toxicity now emerging, including pesticide use can threaten more than just painfully aware of new strains of this adds to the healthcare Carbapenem-Resistant pests. Because of the bio-accumulative SuperBug bacteria that are free environment, the skyrocketing cost Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) and nature of pesticides, scientists are to run wild in hospitals and long of infection control is an escalating multidrug resistant Acinetobacter. investigating the causal links between term care settings, thanks to their burden on already overtaxed health The new bacteria combine a high pesticides and the increased incidence immunity to standard care budgets. Research recently mortality rate with resistance to of several types of diseases, including: disinfectants. released by JAMA Internal Medicine nearly all contemporary antibiotics. • Rapid growth in the incidence of reported that HAIs cost $9.8 billion Paradoxically, infection control asthma and other respiratory diseases every year. This report has received professionals are also seeing a rise in • A sudden increase in allergies and an enormous amount of attention in the incidence of hospital-based chemical sensitivities an era where health care cost infection from more common • The proliferation of other chronic savings are constantly in the news. bacteria, from coliforms like health consequences, including salmonella and E. coli to treatment- cancer,