After autumn, the weather becomes drier and dryer. It is estimated that many people have taken out the humidifier and used it, so it will be very comfortable to keep the room humidified.
Many people who have used humidifiers may have discovered that after using the humidifier, it will leave some white powder on the floor of the room. I wonder how many people are "dissuaded" by this powder and never dare to use the humidifier again? Of course, some people have certainly not noticed this.
But in any case, there are indeed some risks in the use of humidifiers. Even a tragedy of more than 100,000 deaths were created in South Korea, with more than 6 million people affected and hundreds of thousands of people receiving treatment. The consequences of the incident are still in litigation and compensation.
Korean humidifier scandal
In April 2011, a hospital in Seoul, South Korea alone reported 28 cases of pregnant women hospitalized for unknown lung diseases within one month. These patients have some commonalities, and their lungs have fibrosis .
Although the patient's condition is similar and it still appears in such a concentrated manner, the doctor does not know what exactly caused the disease. At first, it was more of a belief that some kind of infectious disease had appeared.
When people started to investigate, they found that this was not an infectious disease at all. Similar patients had appeared as early as 2006, and similar patients were treated almost every year.
The investigators at that time may have also attracted attention, but such matters were not directly exposed. It was not until the four pregnant women and their fetus died due to this unknown lung disease that the incident was completely exposed. South Korea had to organize a special investigation team to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident.
Investigators quickly locked onto the humidifier because all patients have the habit of using the humidifier and are sick after using it.
However, the humidifier just evaporates the water, why does it reach the point of hurting people? After in-depth investigation, they also found that these patients basically have another common feature, that is, their families will use a humidifier bactericide.
soon investigators locked in the fungicide, which is a humidifier sterilization product produced by Oxy, a subsidiary of British sanitary products manufacturer Lijieshi Group in South Korea.
In fact, there is nothing unreasonable in the main ingredients in this fungicide product. It is the most common disinfection and sterilization chemical - polyhexamethyleneguanidine .
As a disinfectant and sterilizing substance, polyhexamethyleneguanidine can be described as "perfect". It can adsorb negatively charged bacteria and viruses well, wrap microorganisms so that they cannot breathe, and at the same time it will destroy the cellular mechanisms of these microorganisms, making them completely unable to survive and reproduce.
From the perspective of the disinfection nature of polyhexamethyleneguanidine, it has nothing to do with the type and form of microorganisms, which makes it an excellent disinfectant.
Therefore, the main ingredients of many of the disinfectant products we use now are actually polyhexamethyleneguanidine salts.
In a large number of experiments and practices, people have also come to a conclusion about this substance, that is, these substances are non-toxic to the human body, whether you accidentally eat it (the oral toxicity of mice is non-toxic), or the skin or mucous membranes are in contact with it .
However, it turns out that it cannot be used as a bactericide for humidifiers, because inhaling it is likely to be toxic and it can cause lung lesions to fibrosis.
How to turn non-toxic fungicides into deadly substances? The reason why the humidifier has an effect is actually very simple. It allows liquid water to evaporate into water molecules, making the local humidity in the room higher.
However, there are generally two ways for humidifiers to turn liquid water into water molecules. Either directly evaporate the water molecules or break the water molecules into micron-scale water droplets, which will evaporate quickly after being dispersed into the air.
The first method is actually similar to boiling water, but the "boiling water" of the humidifier has been applied to many technologies to enhance the effect of water evaporation, which is called evaporation humidifier .
is actually relatively safer for this type of humidifier that evaporates directly, but the equipment is also more expensive, occupy more space and consumes more power.
The humidifier we mentioned earlier that can make white powder is the second method. The principle is to use the high-frequency vibration of ultrasonic waves to vibrate the liquid water into small water droplets. Because these water droplets are too small, they will evaporate quickly after they come into contact with the air. This is called ultrasonic humidifier . This is basically the humidifier we usually see.
Since the ultrasonic humidifier first forms small water droplets and then evaporates, one of the characteristics of humidifiers like is that they can spray, and looks quite advanced.
However, small water droplets will carry impurities and microorganisms in the water. After using a humidifier, leaves a layer of white powder on the ground. In fact, it is the impurities in tap water - calcium bicarbonate and magnesium bicarbonate and other substances, which are the same as the substances left at the bottom of the kettle after boiling water.
Just imagine, if you inhale these impurities and microorganisms into the body, this is definitely not a good choice. Therefore, if is humidified using an ultrasonic humidifier, you must remember that it is best to use pure water .
In fact, polyhexamethylene guanidine salts are not easy to evaporate, and are stable and difficult to decompose. This is one of the reasons why it has become an excellent disinfectant, but like impurities in water such as calcium carbonate, it will be vibrated into small particles and enter the air.
These small particles will be inhaled into the lungs like water vapor. After entering the lungs, it will cause protein inactivation, and these inactivated proteins will accumulate in the lungs and eventually cause disease. How much impact is the
humidifier scandal?
The reason why this humidifier incident in South Korea is called a scandal is that when the incident was first exposed, the production company of the fungicides was trying to conceal the facts through various means, and even hired well-known university professors to make fake safety reports.
Initially, some media reported that the number of related deaths was only more than 100, and the total number of related victims was only a few hundred. The punishment for the company was very limited, and the most serious part was that the product was withdrawn.
However, since South Korea is located in the north, it will become extremely dry after autumn. The user base of humidifiers is very large. As we mentioned earlier, most humidifiers used by families are ultrasonic humidifiers. In addition, Oxy, a bactericide for humidifiers, sells 100,000 bottles per year.
The most important thing is that because the company exaggerated the function of bacterializers during its promotion, many consumers of mistakenly thought that they could add bacterializers to water and let them evaporate into the air, so that the entire room could be sterilized and disinfected.
Therefore, the impact of this event should be very large.
According to the long-term rights protection complaints from Korean people, in 2020, a research report reassessed the impact of the incident. The report showed that about 6.3 million Koreans were affected by fungicides, and 13,000 to 16,000 people died, of which the highest death rate were the elderly and children.
In addition, 670,000 people may have been ill due to the use of this fungicide, while at least 550,000 people have been treated, with the most complication being rhinitis, reaching 342,000.
last
This may be one of the most serious public health and safety issues in Korean history . Although some manufacturers of the incident ended up being punished by legal sanctions, not many people are currently receiving compensation, and those with permanent lung function problems caused by fungicides have nowhere to be discussed.
Humidifiers and fungicides are both very good inventions and discoveries, but who would have thought that putting the two together would lead to such a tragedy?
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