ACAAI Meeting Yields Real World News...And The Saga of the Stinky Sink

Sandra, Marcela, Carol and I just got back from the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy Asthma & Immunology.

Sandra Fusco-Walker, AANMA's Director of Patient Advocacy and I attended many meetings relating to preserving and increasing patient access to the medications our physicians prescribe (don't you just hate it when you pick up a script at the pharmacy and it isn't what you and your doc discussed?), to diagnostic and monitoring testing, and of course access to our allergists (they go beyond the diagnosis and symptom treatment to address the problem at its core).

There are a lot of justified concerns among sister organizations that the current health care reform tornado sweeping through Congress will leave many of us breathing its dust. We encourage you to be in contact with your members of Congress. I just wrote my Senators and asked them to take the time necessary to do this job right. Our system isn't completely broken but it might wind up that way if we rush legislation.

Carol Jones, RN AE-C presented a poster on the impact of the CFC to HFA Transition on people contacting AANMA's Patient Support Center. She'll be sharing results in an upcoming issue of The MA Report newsletter (are you on the email list to receive it? If not, sign up at editor@aanma.org). She also worked at our booth along with Marcela Gieminiani, AANMA's Director of Programs and Services. Marcela also directs AANMA's Hispanic Outreach Publications and Services (HOPS) - a busy lady.

On a lighter note: While at the conference, Jim Burnett, President of Ecology Works, stopped by our booth with a sample bottle of Vital Oxide. Because he knows I'm a stickler for details, he had a boatload of scientific evidence at the ready to support the miriad of claims made on the Vital Oxide label and then some!

Vial Oxide Disinfects as it Cleans  Kills 99.9% of Bacteria MRSA, Norovirus, E. coli, Salmonella enterica, Staphylococcus aureus, Legionella pneumophila, Aspergillus niger.

My first reaction was, "this stuff has got to stink" and since I'm extremely sensitive to some scented or chemical sprays, I was reluctant to give it the whiff test. But I did and wow! I was so impressed I read further:

...provides mold and mildew preventio, broad-spectrum disinfection and odor elimination.

I thanked Jim and tucked the sample in my bag before heading off to my next meeting. Over the next few days, I used Vital Oxide to disinfect my hands instead of the hand sanitizer I'd packed (which dries my skin terribly). At the conference, in the hotel, at the airport.

It was middle of the day when I returned home, opened the door and caught a whiff of something foul. My husband swears I was a beagle in my former life because he could smell nothing.

Following the odor up the stairs across two rooms and into the kitchen I zeroed in on the culprit within seconds. The garbage disposal. Before unpacking my suitcase, I tackled that stinky monster, wrestled with every cleaning trick in the book until it was spotless. But the smell was still there.

Remembering the Vital Oxide sample was in my roller bag, I retrieved it for the ultimate test. Could it get rid of the smell? Following instructions, I sprayed every reachable component of the disposal and waited for it to dry. After unpacking my bags, I returned to find that NO smell remained. I didn't get another foul whiff from the sink again until four days later. I Vital Oxided it, waved my arms and commanded "stink be gone" as my husband grinned and shook his head. But it worked!

I will get to the bottom of the stinky sinky even if I have to call a plumber but I figure if this product can do what commerical disposal cleaners, lemons and rock salt, vinegar and baking soda, and ice cubes could not do alone, what could it do on other things? We'll just have to wait to find out because normally, our house doesn't stink.

But seriously, we saw a lot of great products and news at the American College of Allergy Asthma & Immunology meeting that we'll be sharing with you over the next few blogs or so.

A post script: I sent an email to Jim about the experience and he wrote back that he had the same stinky sink issue we have and he did the same thing. Then he said, "Its funny, we have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on tests proving we take out hospital-grade bacteria like norovirus, MRSA, and H1N1, but the fresh clean absence of odor is always what most people are first to notice. This quick odor removal is a result of the magnetic like attraction to sulfur and nitrogen bonds. Vital Oxide "disassembles" the malodors on a molecular level - no nose numbing cover up or heavy masking fragrance."

By way of disclosure: This blog is not a paid endorsment of Vital Oxide, Ecology Works, or National Allergy Supply Company , but I sure hope they will advertise in a future issue of Allergy & Asthma Today and support AANMA's patient education, advocacy and outreach efforts. Don't you? Drop a hint at: http://www.ecologyworks.com/.