This is a personal story with broader implications. The issue extends from my gym to your children’s schools to senior residences and hospitals, and beyond. We’re being routinely exposed to chemicals that may be dangerous.

Besides big pharma, there’s big sanitation. They literally cleaned up during COVID, and still do. Remember 2020, when you were afraid to unpack the groceries lest they carry COVID into your home? Were you one of those who developed sores from constant hand sanitizer use? Suddenly, there were new and repurposed strong chemical cleaners and sanitizers on the market promising to remove all pathogens from surfaces. Just as we learned years ago that the overuse of antibiotics caused major problems, new information suggests that these chemicals may cause serious health and environmental harm, as well as microbial resistance.

I exercise for pleasure, health, and generally to offset age’s effects. My gym is part of a national chain and uses one product exclusively for deep cleaning. We patrons are also asked to use the product to wipe down machines after we use them. There are spray bottles, along with paper towels, strategically located around the gym. At a guess, gallons are used daily.

Image: Spray cleaner by master1305; background from Pixlr.

Last November, I started getting painful, itchy blisters on my fingers and hands that made touching anything feel like I was handling the blade of a knife. I had no idea what caused it—until I had a lightbulb moment, copied the name of our cleaner, and looked it up online. I found out the main ingredients are two types of quaternary ammonium cations or Quaternary Ammonium Compounds (“QACs”). I researched the product and learned that it was developed so that workers wearing protective gear could clean hospital bedrails between patients.

My dermatologist diagnosed dyshidrotic eczema caused by chemical exposure. A prescription steroid cream helped briefly. It cleared up the lesions, and then they came back, worse than ever. The cream didn’t work the second time around.

I requested a meeting with the gym manager and the area manager, handing them the cleaner’s specs, and suggested they find a safer product. To their credit, they escalated my complaint. Sadly, my request was denied. Higher-ups said that the diluted product was safe, that they received it already diluted, and that I had nothing to worry about.

I argued that the constant spray applications dried on the surface of each machine, re-concentrating it. Then, our sweaty hands reactivated it in highly concentrated form. At the time, I was unaware that spray droplets in the air could also cause eye and respiratory distress. Now, as I research this, I wonder if my ongoing eye problems also come from exposure to this spray.

Currently, I wrap paper towels around anything I touch, with the management’s permission, and never use the spray. I still get eczema outbreaks every time I accidentally touch a wet, sprayed machine, but I’ve learned how to treat the problem organically with herbal remedies that quickly stop each painful outbreak. If you’re wondering why I don’t just quit the gym, I did weigh gym use versus dealing with eczema, and exercise won.

Last week, I watched a worker spraying the bases and footholds of machines with the stuff so heavily it was dripping everywhere, and droplets were visible in the air. She gradually got closer to my rower, so I stopped her. I talked to the manager, who said they “had to” heavily spray the foot area of every machine because of sweat and dirt. The spray’s volume helped “loosen up” the dirt, enabling better cleaning.

The very next day, I was reading through my Epoch Times Health email for the day and found an article on the dangers of QACs. The photo, of a gym worker spraying down machines while wearing full hazmat gear, not gym shorts and tees, caught my eye. The article explains that “aquatic organisms, often the silent barometers of environmental health, show signs of acute and chronic toxicity due to escalation of QAC concentrations.” 

The Epoch Times cited skin irritation, respiratory problems, and metabolic struggles, as well as possible developmental and reproductive toxicity from the products. In the comments, I found a link to an article about QACs from UMass Lowell’s Toxics Use Reduction Institute (“TURI”). TURI is an advisory board, and it recommends reclassifying QACs as toxic and hazardous.

Schools also use QAC products. As this training video shows, schools are explicitly instructed to use the spray only when no children are present. However, I have watched children lie with their cheeks on their desk and eat at a desk with wet, sticky fingers. My guess is that QACs may still be present when they do that.

I believe that it’s time to go back to basic soap and water. There are plenty of non-foaming, simple products out there, many suggested in the UMass link. We all need to speak up, demand change, and be aware of the hazards to our health. Yes, there’s a label on our gym’s spray bottles. But how many people have read it and learned what the product may be doing to them?