To follow up on last Friday's blog, I looked back in our office records on Kawasaki Syndrome and the file is very thick. We first reported on it in The Cleaning Digest® in 1982, and there is a report about every two years thereafter. Early news stories blamed carpet "shampooing", but the following reports dispel that theory.
For the first report in 1982, I consulted one of the most prominent pediatrics specialists in Indianapolis. Dr. Wendell Brown told me, "I haven't seen the disease in my practice, but I have diagnosed it a few times at a pro bono clinic at Methodist Hospital. Those kids came from homes that probably didn't even have carpets, much less clean them. I don't believe there is any connection between Kawasaki Syndrome and carpet cleaning."
In a report in 1987, Dr. Peter Sherrod, a prominent Texas pediatrician said most doctors had discarded the theory that carpet cleaning has some bearing on Kawasaki Syndrome. The doctor said, "There is no correlation. People were trying to find a connection for awhile, but they haven't succeeded."
Just this summer, another noted pediatrician, Dr. Robert B. Pauszek,* told me that he had only diagnosed a few cases of Kawasaki Syndrome in more than thirty years in practice. He said, "I see absolutely no connection between the disease and carpet cleaning or the equipment and cleaning agents that professional cleaners use."
Whenever a rash is diagnosed as Kawasaki Syndrome, reporters do a quick computer search for their story and all the old articles that claim a connection to carpet pop up on their screens. "Bad information just gets recycled," said Dr. Brown. Imagine how much more bad information has been added and embellished since that interview in 1982.
*Note of disclosure: Bob Pauszek is a golf buddy.
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