Monday, September 27, 2010

Study: Green Buildings Improve Employee Health

Cleanlink News September 9, 2010

A recent study found that employees who move from buildings with poor indoor environmental quality to more healthful "green" buildings may reap some benefits, including less absenteeism and higher productivity.

According to an article from the Los Angeles Times, the green building movement isn't just concerned with constructing buildings that are more energy efficient and environmentally responsible — they're supposed to improve indoor surroundings as well, making it more healthful and pleasant for those who work there, via lighting, ventilation, acoustics and ergonomic design.

Researchers from Michigan State University did two case studies evaluating the physical and mental health status of people who moved from traditional to green office buildings. One scenario involved 56 people and the other 207, and employees were asked through surveys about absenteeism from work in both types of buildings for asthma, allergies, depression and stress-related conditions. They were also asked about productivity in the two settings.
Both green buildings received high ratings from Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a green building certification organization.

Being absent from work for asthma, allergies, depression and stress decreased following the move into the green buildings; for example, hours absent from work due to asthma and allergies was on average 1.12 per month in conventional buildings and 0.49 in green buildings. The average number of work hours affected by illness per month also declined after the move. Productivity improved.

Using the numbers, researchers estimated that better health and higher productivity could translate into more work hours per year.

Researchers plan to do additional research at other sites as well as follow these employees to assess changes in health and productivity and to make sure that the results aren't due to the Hawthorne effect, a phenomenon in which people change the behavior that's being evaluated because they know they're being studied.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Bedbugs biting nationwide, but who's tracking?

Sat Sep 11,2010 - By Pat Hewitt, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - The creepy comeback of bedbugs in Canada has an Ontario politician calling for a national health strategy to track the tiny bloodsuckers.

They're crawling into homes, apartments, hospitals, hotels and student residences nationwide. They prefer human blood and their bites can leave itchy, red bumps. Reports from the pest control industry and hotel and housing organizations suggest infestations have risen dramatically in recent years, the Public Health Agency of Canada says. Still, the agency and more than a dozen municipal public health units and provincial health ministries contacted across the country say they don't track infestations. Bedbugs aren't a public health issue and don't have to be reported to health authorities, they say.

Ontario Liberal Michael Colle, who's organizing a bedbug summit on Sept. 29 at the Ontario legislature, disagrees. "It's almost debilitating. People tell me they can't sleep, it's very expensive and they don't know what to do, what works," said Colle.
While public health officials say there are no known cases of infectious disease transmitted by bedbugs, scratching the bitten areas can lead to infection. Eradicating the wingless, 6-mm long bugs can cost thousands of dollars. Within its one-year life span a female bedbug can lay 200 to 400 eggs — making them a real threat to homeowners and businesses alike.
"You can see what happens when there was this bedbug scare at the Toronto film festival," said Colle. A posting on Twitter about bedbugs at a theatre got entertainment websites buzzing, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Colle said it's tough to battle the bugs when nobody is tracking their march into the beds of sleeping Canadians.

"This is the problem. There's no data or hard scientific facts about the proliferation, the concentration," said Colle. "Hopefully the summit will get attention and resources paid for provincially, but also asking the federal government. They've got to be involved in getting a national health strategy to deal with this thing."
The U.S.-based website bedbugregistry.com logs complaints from users across North America, but there's no verification process provincially or Canada-wide, said Colle. Toronto is seeing a resurgence of bedbugs and has more than other jurisdictions, according to Toronto Public Health. It responded to more than 1,500 complaints or requests for service from the public in 2009. There were 1,076 complaints from January through July alone this year.

Ottawa's health unit has had 70 to 75 calls so far this year from people who've reported bedbugs at hotels or from tenants or landlords, compared to 60 in 2009 and 70 the year before. Montreal and other big cities in Quebec have seen a comeback in the past three to four years.
"What seems to be transpiring from the field is that there's more and more infestations," said Dr. Stephane Perron with Montreal Public Health. In 2007, 20 buildings of the 700 managed by Montreal's municipal housing corporation were infested with bedbugs. A year later, the number had jumped to 120 buildings. But bedbug infestations in private homes are dramatically under-reported because there's a stigma attached to having them. Most people, for example, didn't answer survey questions in Montreal about the issue, Perron said. Edmonton and Regina have seen more calls this year about bedbugs. Vancouver and Calgary officials say there have been some reports of bedbugs but nothing significant. Victoria has seen occasional problems with bedbugs in homeless shelters. Newfoundland had bedbugs in some rooms for rent.
Anyone can get bedbugs, Colle noted. "I always vividly recall a 90-year-old woman who essentially had gotten rid of her furniture, fumigated, bought new furniture then they came back again. She was at her wit's end," said Colle.

Thornhill, Ont.-based Purity Pest Control gets 50 to 60 calls a week for inspections with its sniffer dogs, a service that costs about $350, said owner Michael Goldman. Treatment for a four-bedroom house is about $1,500, which includes steaming and vacuuming. Even then, some bugs or their eggs may still lurk in walls, under baseboards or in mattresses, said Goldman. Some companies use thermal heating. Swedish researchers think they might have an answer. A recent study from that country found that immature bedbugs — known as nymphs — secrete an anti-aphrodisiac pheromone that deter male bedbugs from mating. Researchers suggest using that pheromone in an insecticide could stop bedbugs from reproducing. Many broad-spectrum, long-lasting pesticides that kill bedbugs have been banned and ones that remain are less effective, Goldman said.

Mattress encasement covers cost about $75 and do work, Goldman said, if you can get over the squeamishness of knowing what lies beneath you when you sleep. Curbside shoppers and garage sale groupies should beware. "I just came from an inspection... that the people bought a used couch and unbeknownst to them there were bedbugs in it," said Goldman. He suggests ripping holes in infested couches or mattresses left at the curb so no one drags them — and the creepy crawlers inside — home.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Canada braces for spread of medical-tourism bug

Two cases of resistant superbug confirmed in patients who had traveled to India

By Jill Mahoney - The Globe and Mail, August 12, 2010

At least two Canadians have become infected with a dangerous new superbug from India that is spreading around the world, partly due to medical tourism.
The superbug, which is resistant to almost all antibiotics, has Canadian public-health experts bracing for out outbreaks. “There will be others. It’s just a matter of time,” said Dylan Pillai, a medical microbiologist at the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion. “It’s just the nature of the beast.”
Researchers reported dozens of cases of British, Indian and Pakistani patients who got infections caused by bacteria harbouring an enzyme called New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, or NDM-1, in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases on Wednesday.
Of 29 Britons, more than half had recently traveled to India or Pakistan and 14 had been admitted to hospitals in the subcontinent, where the drug resistant enzyme originated, including for kidney transplants and cosmetic surgery.
Two cases have been confirmed among Canadians who spent time in India. In addition, the drug resistant infection has been found in patients from the United States, Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia.
The Lancet researchers called the superbug’s spread a “clear and frightening” potential “major global health problem,” nothing that drug companies are not producing new antibiotics for NDM-1 sufferers.
“At a global level, this is a real concern,” lead author Timothy Walsh, a professor of medical microbiology and antimicrobial resistance at Cardiff University in Wales, told Reuters.
“Because of medical tourism and international travel in general, resistance to these types of bacteria has the potential to spread around the world very, very quickly. And there is nothing in the [drug development] pipeline to tackle it.” With only a couple of effective antibiotics, NDM-1 is one of the most difficult superbugs to treat. There are many more medications available for other drug-resistant infections, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE).
“It’s quite concerning because there are very limited treatment options,” Dr. Pillai said. “We’re really in a tight spot here.”
In a commentary accompanying The Lancet study, Johann Pitout, a University of Calgary professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, urged screening patients who undergo medical procedures in India before they receive treatment in their home countries.
“The consequences will be serious if family doctors have to treat infections caused by the multi-resistant bacteria on a daily bases,” he wrote.
In an interview, Dr. Pitout, a medical microbiologist, was unaware of the new superbug. He said he “put two and two together” after reading medical reports out of Britain, where NDM-1 was first detected in 2008. He plans to publish a paper on the case.
As well, a Vancouver woman contracted NDM-1 in India, where she was hospitalized and treated without success, said Howard Njoo, director general of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Centre for Communicable Diseases and Infection Control. In February, the woman came to Vancouver, where doctors found an effective combination of antibiotics, he said.
“This case was, in a sense, not unusual because of the association and travel to India. It still underscores the fact that we haven’t had a case of this bug actually circulating in Canada,” he said.
Dr. Njoo said he was not aware of the details of the Alberta case.
NDM-1 is an enzyme that is produced by bacteria that renders most antibiotics inactive. It is commonly harboured in E.coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. People infected with NDM-1 producing bacteria often contract urinary tract infections, pneumonia or blood infections. “If you get it in the hospital, this could be certainly a tipping point, and if the doctors don’t have good antibiotics to resort to, it could be very, very dangerous,” Dr. Pillai said.
The spread of NDM-1 within health-care facilities can be curbed through strict infection-control measures, including patient isolation and hand washing.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Bedbug ‘pandemic’ predicted

By Marsha Lederman (Vancouver) and Adrian Morrow (Toronto)
The Globe and Mail, Friday July 30, 2010

Bedbugs are making a comeback around the world, prompting city officials and pest control companies to step up the fight against their spread.
An 81-per-cent increase in bedbugs call to the U.S. National Pest Management Association in the past 10 years prompted the group to conduct its first comprehensive global bedbug study. “The results … suggest that we are on the threshold of a bedbug pandemic, not just in the United States, but around the world,” said the NPMA’s Missy Henricksen.
This week, New York committed $500,000 to its infestation. The money will go to creating a website that will educate people on how to eradicate the bugs, employing inspectors for apartment buildings and training city staff in the latest eradication techniques. A city survey suggests one in 15 New Yorkers (About 400,000 people) have suffered an infestation in the past year, with the critters showing up everywhere from an Abercrombie & Fitch outlet to Bill Clinton’s office.
Canada is not immune – a study by Insight Pharmaceuticals ranked Toronto as the third-worst afflicted city in North America, and Vancouver eighth (Columbus, Ohio and New York took the No. 1 and No. 2 spots).
Previous studies have pinned the increase in infestations to the banning of DDT and the increase of international travel, but Sean Rollo, president of the Structural Pest Management Association of B.C., says the primary reason is a change in the way pest control operators (PCOs) deal with cockroaches. The cockroach treatments used pre-1990s also killed bedbugs, but since PCOs moved to a food-based bait for the roaches, the bedbugs, which only feast on blood, have thrived.
In Vancouver, an online bedbug registry clocks almost daily additions, but neither the city nor the public health department is tracking the spread. Vancouver Coastal Health says it’s not a health issue, as bedbugs have not been found to carry any infectious diseases.
Mr. Rollo attests that there has been a “dramatic increase” in Lower Mainland B.C. since the 1990s, adding they’ve been an issue in local hotels, hospitals, movie theatres, daycare centres, summer camps, libraries and airplanes. The problem is escalating in Vancouver, he says. “There’s no question about it … every time there’s an Olympics, there’s a boom of bed bugs,” noting a similar pattern emerged in Sydney and Bejing.
In Toronto, the tiny insects have been reported in schools, offices and public transit. In June, an Etobicoke hospital beat back a small outbreak and downtown hotels booked by G20 delegates hired dogs to scour their rooms for the bugs.