HERBSPHERE
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Atishooo…A-tissue! Kleenex goes Anti-Viral When the next season for coughs, colds and sneezes arrives in the United States the Kimberly-Clark Corporation is expecting to have Kleenex Anti-Viral tissues in the shops and on the Supermarket stores’ shelves. It is expected to be stocked by October 2004. According to the manager of the Kleenex brand, Steve Erb, consumers in ‘focus groups’ loved it.1 The product is of interest as, like so many others, it may eventually come to the UK. It is an attempt to curb the spread of viruses. Although the tissue is of no actual benefit to those who have already caught a cold or the flu, it is appealing to the social conscience of those who do not wish to spread their germs around and infect others. Nose wipes are consumer-serious stuff, the company plans to expend no less than $30,000,000 (£16,180,349.28 GBP) on advertising, media and press promotion. The US market for facial tissues being worth $1.7 billion!2 The company has got approval from the Environmental Protection Agency to sell the product.3 It will be more expensive per sheet than Kleenex’s luxury tissues. It is reported that a cube-shaped box of 60 tissues will cost $1.39 (£0.75p.) and a 120-tissue box for $1.99 (£1.08p.) in the U.S.A. The middle layer of the new Anti-viral Kleenex 3-ply tissue is impregnated with an acidic anti-viral formula of citric acid and sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS). Results from controlled tests conducted by Kimberly-Clark and an outside laboratory showed that the acidic compound killed 99.9% of viruses. The idea of Anti-viral tissues is not brand new. Back in 1985 research into rhinovirus colds found that: “… colds may be transmitted by hand-to-hand contact followed by self-inoculation of nasal and/or conjunctival mucosa with virus contaminating the fingertips.” A controlled trial was effected “… to determine whether impregnation of nasal tissues with virucidal compounds could prevent rhinovirus from passing through the tissue and thus provide a means of preventing hand contamination during nose blowing. Paper tissues treated with a combination of citric acid, malic acid, and sodium lauryl sulfate were” (used). “The virucidal effect of treated tissues was demonstrated for multiple rhinovirus serotypes suspended in either cell culture medium or nasal mucus. Virus contained in mucus from infected volunteers was also inactivated.”4 They got a result! In 1988, there were two randomized controlled six month trials involving over two hundred families between 1983-86 in Charlottesville, using tissues impregnated with malic and citric acids and sodium lauryl sulfate in both trials, under the aegis of the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville. It was concluded that “… when rigorously used in a study protocol, virucidal tissues may offer a modest reduction of secondary colds in the home, but for reasons currently unknown, do not have a major effect on the overall rate of colds.” 5 We may presume that things research-wise must have moved on from then; or, by moving the ‘purpose’ goal-posts, virucidal tissue use is indeed more effective as a means of reducing secondary colds or spread.
COMMENT: In the past few years anti-bacterial domestic products have alighted onto the public hygiene landscape in a range of products from washing-up liquids and laundry detergents to hand gels and best-seller liquid soaps, covering both kitchen and bathroom territories. It is not only doctors, nurses and surgeons who now scrub-up between manual tasks. The threat of Superbugs such as MRSA has made the UK public very ‘hand hygiene’ conscious.
Although Anti-viral tissues make no claims to ‘cure’ the various strains of the common cold or ‘flu, anti-bacterial products have already raised scientific questions and doubts regarding constant use of them because of their potential to cause ordinary bacteria to mutate into resistant bacteria. In may 2004, The Guardian UK decided to ‘lift the lid’ off our exposure to chemicals in a series of three dedicated special supplements, the first called ‘Chemical World’.6 It suggested that ‘By the time you leave for work, you have exposed your body to more than a hundred different chemicals’, proceeding to tell the public what the chemicals are and what they may do to you. One example in ‘Chemistry Lesson’ on Shower gel stated the following: “Sodium laureth sulfate is added to shower gel as a cleanser, but it can irritate the skin and eyes at low concentration. Because it draws fatty molecules from the surface skin layers, it may make the skin feel tighter after usage.”7 The same chemical (SLS) was found in a baby shampoo as a detergent that is safe in very low doses if washed off the skin, but can ‘trigger’ eczema if in contact with skin or prolonged periods at high concentrations – and again, it was found in a baby body and hair wash.8&9 However, SLS also popped up in cosmetics, in a foundation which is not ‘washed off’ and has prolonged contact with the skin that according to the Journal Of The American College of Toxicology ‘… in some cosmetics “that irritant property is attenuated.”10 We have been using chemicals like SLS that is in practically every household and bathroom cleaning agent for many years, but it would seem that the average member of the public’s Immune Systems has been inundated with various chemical cocktails for so long they may be in revolt. The UK population born before WWII didn’t seem to be allergic to anything of note, not the various allergens that are part of post-war everyday life - they were not then in our environment or widespread use. It is the generations since that time when people were nurtured on naturally organic foodstuffs, with very few forms of surfactants11 available that appear to have developed weaker immune systems that accumulate all the allergies and conditions that are now so prevalent. Many of you may have been using tissues impregnated with ‘balm’ containing herbs such as Aloe vera (Aloe barbadensis) or containing allantoin, the synthetic chemical originally taken from the herb Comfrey (Symphytum officinale), and enriched with Vitamin E without ill-effect. However, those with a pre-disposition towards skin allergies might do well to ‘try out’ the new Anti-viral tissues when they arrive with an element of caution, because wet ‘runny colds’ produce red soreness of the nose that denotes damage to the skin and, although one might not expect citric acid to do more than sting a bit, some may find the SLS constituent less agreeable. References:
‘Interruption of transmission of rhinovirus cold among human volunteers using virucidal paper handkerchiefs.’ Dick EC, Hossain SU, Mink KA, Meschievitz CK, Schultz SB, Raynor WJ, Inhorn SL. J Infect. Dis. 1986 Feb;153(2):352-6. (No abstract)
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