 Household cleaning products can be hazardous, landing hundreds of thousands of children in U.S. emergency rooms. And the product most commonly associated with injury was bleach, which can be toxic, even if used as directed. We've known that those with asthma who work with cleaning products day in and day out can suffer adverse respiratory effects, over worsening of symptoms, declining lung function, inflamed airways, but even cleaning workers without asthma can be affected. Even below so-called acceptable exposure levels, cleaners with or without reactive airways can suffer a substantial decrease in lung function. OK, but that's people who claim for a living. Although we've known that occupational use of bleach may have adverse respiratory health effects, but it was unknown whether just common domestic use of bleach in the household may put lungs at risk until now. Bleach use was significantly associated with nearly five times the odds of non-allergic adult-onset asthma, as well as ongoing lower respiratory symptoms such as chronic cough. The way bleach works is as such a strong pro-oxident that the thought is that it can lead to leaky lungs and allow allergens to penetrate. This phenomenon of cleaning product-induced asthma has been known for decades, more than three-quarters of the dozens of population studies looking into it have found increased risk of asthma or nasal inflammation. Ideally, safer cleaning products should be available. Unfortunately, this body of evidence has been largely ignored by the manufacturers and commercial cleaning companies, and most of workers put at risk are women. In fact, that may help explain some of the gender differences in asthma, the relatively high frequency of bleach use for home cleaning by women around the world, together with a strong association between bleach use and non-allergic asthma emphasizes the need for reconsidering the use of bleach for cleaning. There are natural, environmentally friendly cleaning products that may offer a safer alternative, safer perhaps, but are they as effective? We didn't know until now. The effectiveness of three home products in cleaning and disinfection of staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria that causes staph infections, and E. coli on home environmental surfaces. The first report ever of the performance of purportedly safer alternatives. In the home setting, some individuals will select conventional products such as bleach due to familiarity, it's a smell some associate with cleanliness. Others are seeking less hazardous and environmentally preferable green, organic, or natural disinfectants, which you can buy or make yourself. So-called DIY do-it-yourself recipes that typically involve ingredients like vinegar, club soda, and plant essential oils, such as tea tree oil, prized for its antimicrobial qualities. So researchers pitted head-to-head Clorox bleach versus a natural disinfectant based on thymol, which is from thyme essential oil, versus a DIY recipe, half club soda, half white vinegar, with a few drops of tea tree oil. You could probably buy the bleach for around three bucks, the natural stuff from like $7, but the DIY mix for less than a dollar. Yeah, but does it work? On the bottle, it says bleach can kill 99.9% of germs, which is the EPA standard for the disinfection of surfaces that don't come into contact with food, like the bathroom sink or something. They claim 99% of germs, but when put to the test, the bleach actually killed 99.999% of germs, completely wiping out the E. coli and staff germs, which even exceeds the EPA standard for food contact surfaces, like the kitchen counter. And so did the expensive natural stuff. Worked just as well as the bleach, but the club soda vinegar tea tree oil concoction flopped, allowing as many as a few percent of the staff bugs to thrive. Now maybe they didn't use enough of the tea tree oil, only adding about a drop per cup, but from a performance perspective, the environmentally preferable product is an effective alternative to conventional bleach, and I would say even better since bleach is well known as a respiratory irritant, and it's corrosive too, and may end up damaging surfaces. What I would find interesting is to test how effective a cheap DIY time oil solution would be.