Banning Air 'Purifiers'

Could see this one coming from a mile off! Interesting that Bart Croes is involved in this as well. Ozone can be nasty, and that's what these devices spew out.

I remember when I was at the University of Arizona, and, for the first time, I started using an ozone generator for one of my projects. The device spewed out ozone at levels likely considerably exceeding 2 ppm, far higher than these commercial air purifiers generate, and at least twenty times the hourly federal ozone standard.

I took a whiff of the ozone, and - hey, this stuff smelled pretty damn good (the nose usually interprets the presence of ozone as fresh-smelling, outside air)! So, I inhaled great gobfulls of the healthy-smelling stuff.

About twenty minutes later, I came down with the worst sore throat in history....

The California Air Resources Board on Thursday banned popular in-home ozone air purifiers, saying studies have found that they can worsen conditions such as asthma that marketers claim they help to prevent.

The regulation, which the board said is the first of its kind in the nation, will require testing and certification of all types of air purifiers. Any that emit more than a tiny amount of ozone will have to be pulled from the California market.

An estimated 2% of the state's households have one of the so-called ozone air purifiers, according to air board staff research, and the staff estimated that more than 500,000 people had been exposed to levels of ozone above federally recognized health standards as a result. More than 2 million California residents have some sort of air purifier, and other types can be safe and effective, the air board staff said.

..."God gave humans these air purifiers, and you should not take away that gift," said Debra Perkins of Corona, weeping as she told how she felt the product had improved her mother's breathing.

Perkins said later that she was speaking not because she sells the devices, but because she believed so strongly as a registered nurse that they had helped her and her family. She said she first became a distributor after seeing them displayed at the Los Angeles County Fair. She could not afford the $700 price, but was told she could get them at reduced cost if she sold them.

Allen Johnston of EcoQuest said his company was not allowed under Food and Drug Administration laws to make claims that the product cured illnesses or eliminated germs of any kind, and it doesn't.

But he said studies had shown that injecting some ozone into homes could reduce levels of germs.

"Ozone is both safe and effective, and widely endorsed by safety organizations," he said.

Such claims are false, said UC Irvine inhalation toxicologist Michael Kleinman. "Ozone is a toxic contaminant, and does cause significant adverse health impacts," he said.

...Anyone caught selling the devices after a two-year phase-in period could be subject to fines starting at $1,000 a day. The board staff said that "sturdy" enforcement would be needed to track down products largely sold on the Internet or via word of mouth, but that it could be done.

"We'll go shopping," said Bart Croes, chief of the board's research division.