SELL BY MARTIN ZARROP

detergent that they were far more likely to have been the direct result of using the powders than indirectly through some allergic effect.

The doctors reported that 12 home-helps went sick with dermatitis and • eight were off work for a total of 45 weeks.

Sunlight

A "British Medical Journal' editorial commented that exposure to sunlight may have played some part in producing the symptoms.

However, it should be noted that, whatever the combination of factors, the leading manufacturers had already stated earlier in February that enzyme products were regarded as no more hazardous than other detergents!

Obviously there were others who thought otherwise and at the end of February the Swedish national co-operative movement (known as KF), who hold 27 per cent of the detergent market in Sweden, decided that their own enzyme powder Tend should no longer contain the offending substance.

The reasons given were familiar — dermatitis of the hands among consumers and lung disorders among workers manufacturing the product.

Dermatitis had occurred even when the temperature of the water was above that calculated to inactivate the enzyme — about 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

A spokesman said:

'Since the introduction of enzyme detergents, relatively few complaints have been received'.

However, Unilever's profits for the first nine months of the 1969-1970 financial year were down because the company was 'caught on the hop with enzyme detergents and forced to hit back with a costly promotional campaign' ('The Guardian', February 25, 1970).

After all this, we can, of course, still buy biological detergents in the shops and supermarkets.

Anyway, we might argue, if the stuff's so. good, it might be worthwhile disregarding the possibilities of any ill effects.

Report

It might therefore be worthwhile to see what 'Which', the consumer magazine, said about the two main enzyme powders in their report in September, 1969.

Apart from costing lld a pound more than the cheapest ordinary detergents at that time, 'our tests showed that, in general, ordinary washing powders removed stains we looked at just as well as enzyme detergents ...

•Perhaps the most useful thing to emerge from our test is that, whatever detergent you use, the best way of getting out difficult stains is to soak' The only exception seems to be what are politely referred to as 'understains'!

Truly, the almighty mysterious ways.

Thursday July 16, 1970 Left: Delegates vote for affiliati the TUC at the Easter confere the NUT at Eastbourne. THREE