Land of Leather and Argos
to name two, have been suspected in selling furniture that might effect the health of those using it. There are others selling
these sofas too.
Apparently "Fumarate" chemical sachets are being
put internally into the furniture (to preserve the leather) and these after a few weeks/months seep out with normal heat within
a room and attack people's skin. So far there has been 600 reported cases in England.
Detail of Events
On December the 20th 2007 we were given a new sofa. Our child Dakota had an already setup appointment in Crumlins Children's
hospital for her scolioses treatment on the 8th of January 2008. Between the 20th of December and that appointment she
began to show skin problems.
It should be pointed out that up to the
previous 20th of December, she or any of us, had not any skin problems at all at any stage - ever! Dakota in her previous
three young years had no problems prior to the 20th of December.
Dakota's skin on the 8th of January was brought to the attention of the staff
in Dublin. At this stage it was assessed that it was just part of her normal development that she get skin problems. It was
a mild problem at this stage and we were not to alarmed at this stage given the reassurance from the staff.
Dakota however began to get seriously worse over the coming two months however. It got
to the stage that she was waking at night crying, bleeding, red, sore and swollen. Needless to say by this stage we were attending
our local GP for treatment. After a while we noticed that the treatments ( 3+ times daily) however seemed to be having no
effect. We were frustrated.
We tried everything. We though that she was being effected/allergic by everything from the bed clothes, to the carpet in our
living room, to even the possibility of the washing powder we were using to clean her clothes. We tried cutting out too, all
possible foods that might be causing a body reaction such as hers, sugar, milk, etc.
Still nothing was making a difference.
A relative (to whom we will be forever eternally grateful) mentioned that she saw a repeat of a BBC programme
called "Watchdog" one night. In the programme the presenters explained that a number of sofas had a chemical in
them that was leaking out and effecting skins. To back up their case they mentioned that 600 cases had been reported so far
(Watchdog - Click here) This rang alarm bells for us because something then else clicked
with me. Joanne used to comment to me (and I used to pass it off without thinking - now much to my regret) that she was always
itchy whenever she was resting on her sofa chair. She had mentioned this a number of times but I didn't think twice about
it. I too had begun to develop skin problems, especially on my legs.
Anyway around the time of the Watchdog programme going on air Dakota problems had developed to such a very serious extent that
after one particular night of her waking, screaming, bleeding extensively from her arms, face and legs that we took her to
our GP (19th May) and then to the hospital the very next morning. She was in the hospital that day and most of the next. They
treated her for her face, body and legs infections and applied the same treatments that we had been doing previously. It was
that this exact time that we became aware of the sofa situation.
This is important. In the time that Dakota was away from the sofa - there was an absolute change in her skin all
over - remember - using the same treatments as before. Nothing changed except we were now sofa-less. Coincidence???
Needless to say, as soon as I
got out of hospital with Dakota, on that very same day, I with my mother went to the store that sold us the sofa and demanded
that it be removed from our home. We told them that we didn't care what they did with it, we just wanted it out of our
house if only for the sake of our kids. We made our case so clear and strongly to them the effect the sofa was having
on our family (we were so convinced by this stage it was the sofa). Within 3 hours a truck had been sent from Athlone
to collect it.
The manager of the store says that he knows nothing
about this problem, yet some of his staff had admitted that previously, a lady had been in before complaining of something
similar! We suspect also of another case of someone in Navan being similar effected and also Duleek.
The sofa now gone and replaced with a non-leather one, NOT from
the same store but from "Wogans" who were very sympathetic to our problem (thank you Mr Brian Lynch) and arranged
delivery of a cloth based sofa within 12 hours of us going to their shop.
Today is now the 24th of May. Its been a matter of days since Dakota has been away from the
now gone sofa and she is show more improvement in those three days than she has done in the previous three months! Coincidence???
Other
similar sofas might still be out there somewhere!
Dakota is now daily getting each creams, ointments etc applied (at least three times a day)
. The below picture show the items involved.
