RE: Similar sort of question...

August 28, 2004

I own a Sharper Image ion air cleaner; it's at least 3 years old. (Before

Consumer Reports had articles about them being complete junk). The problem

with " ion " air cleaners is that they are really " ozone " factories. Ozone is

bad for the lungs, especially for asthmatics. When I first got it, it didn't

bother my lungs, but it does now. I start to wheeze any time that I am

around any ozone machine that's running, including my parents' which is a

different brand. The Sharper Image machine doesn't have a fan, so it doesn't

cycle through air very fast and thus doesn't trap much dirt, etc. (It does

collect dirt and other junk, just not very quickly.) Consumer Reports

evaluated a bunch of air cleaners, and the Sharper Image one came in dead

last in cleaning the air. Sharper Image than sued Consumer Reports for

libel, but Sharper Image lost. Consumer Reports recommended a HEPA-filter

for removing pollutants from the air. Either the top-of-the-line Filtrete

filters for forced-air heaters/air conditioners (the filter things that

should be changed in every house every 3 months if I could get my husband to

actually change them instead of putting them in the closet and making me

think he changed them) or individual fan-type gizmos for different rooms. If

you have really bad asthma/allergies that don't respond to those measures,

they recommended a $1000+ whole-house air filter that hooks into the

heater/AC vents. We use the Filtrete filters and between Singulair and those

filters (and no carpet except on the stairs), I haven't had any serious

asthma/allergy problems for a long time.

(HEDS from my mom, asthma from my dad)

more about the Asthma and Allergy Foundation. *I* think that they get

kickbacks for endorsements, though they don't explicitly state that. They

just said that scientists have proven that X works, though they don't say

that it works well or better than something else. I could take a plain

filter and wave it around in the air for 15 minutes and I am sure it would

absorb some junk from the air that high-tech gizmos could measure; it just

wouldn't remove much from the air.

-----Original Message-----

.....so what's actually the answer with ionic air cleaners? I have read

not-very-reputable (because they're made by a rival) reports that they're

bad for

lungs. I wonder why, then, Sharper Image got an " award seal " from the Asthma

and

Allergy Foundation of America and the British Allergy Foundation? Are they

industry fronts? Anyone have any idea here? In Houston, air is an extremely

important issue, and I haven't been able to find reliable data...

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