GermFreeMD has introduced its Air & Surface Pro product to concentrate on pathogens and infectious disease control, in addition to environmental toxins.
By Tonya Johnson
When his father died of cancer, infectious disease control expert Carl “Buzz” Thompson III, founder and chief executive officer, GermFreeMD LLC, made it his personal mission to inform educators and doctors about the serious impact environmental toxins can have on the overall health of a human being.
Thompson’s primary start-up company, EnviroMed Sciences, originally began to provide toxicant protectant technologies to professionals working in the medical field, because “it’s a highly infectious space and very toxic,” he says, especially when doctors come together at continuing education conferences.
“It becomes a veritable petri dish for germs, because sick people go to the doctor and people at these conferences come together from all over, after treating those patients,” he adds.
In the past 5 years, EnviroMed Sciences has treated hundreds of medical event spaces—air and space, where doctors have gathered, to make the learning environment cleaner, safer, and healthier for everyone.
Tapping into NASA research
During his investigation into new and innovative solutions, Thompson became fascinated by the air and surface scrubbing capabilities that research scientists at NASA discovered in the use of hydrogen-peroxide molecules. That’s when he decided to launch his newest company, GermFreeMD, to introduce the Air & Surface Pro product that focuses on pathogens and infectious disease control, in addition to environmental toxins.
“When I saw what this NASA technology did and how it was a game changer, I became very active in the process,” says Thompson, who is also a marketing consultant to Aerus Electolux, which owns world-wide rights to this technology from NASA, with which GermFreeMD works. Based on that NASA research, he explains that engineers at Aerus found a way to exclusively and uniquely allow the molecules to have a half-life that extended into minutes, so they are no longer only effective inside of a machine unit, but can also be cast out into the environment. And that means anything the air comes into contact with has the ability to be sanitized and disinfected, says Thompson.
Entering the dental space
According to GermFreeMD, its Air & Surface Pro is designed to convert ambient moisture in the air into stable aerosolized hydro-peroxide molecules, to safely treat air and surfaces. It eliminates pathogens, allergens, bacteria, viruses, VOCs, and mold very quickly with no side-effects, and turns back into natural moisture in the air when finished. The product is effective in high and low humidity environments.
The company recently launched a national advertising campaign and has created a program specifically for dental professionals, and has approximately 1,000 applications in the general medical space. It has also teamed up with the organization, Dental Health Products Inc, to deploy hundreds of units of its portable cleaning technology. Thompson admits that many people previously hadn’t heard about the brand, but are becoming more familiar with it as an affordable plug-in-place solution.
Occupied space solution
“We understand now that when you’re working inside of somebody’s mouth, you’re really at the epicenter where infectious disease begins,” says Thompson about the dental community’s challenge. “The great news about the solution that we have is that we now have real-time occupied space solutions. That’s a really big deal because most things that can clean, disinfect, and sanitize an area, cannot be occupied.”
The Air & Surface Pro technology has undergone third-party, independent FDA certified lab testing. In addition, the unit has been tested against MS2, an RNA virus which is often used as a surrogate for the coronavirus, COVID-19 classification. Findings show that the Air & Surface Pro had a 99.99% kill rate in 15 minutes of exposure to the MS2 virus. In 30 minutes it was a 5 log kill rate at 99.999%, and in 60 minutes it was a 6 log kill rate of 99.9999%.
Recognizing that there are plenty of clean air systems on the market, Thompson points out that many of those air filtration, UV light, and air scrubbing systems only clean the trapped air on the inside of the unit. However, GermFreeMD’s Air & Surface Pro can clean and disinfect everything inside the entire office, including doorknobs, countertops, surgical equipment, treatment tables, and waiting room chairs. That’s the big breakthrough.
Public awareness campaign
Through the GermFreeMD Signage Awareness Program, which includes door decals and “safe area” signs to place near the Air & Surface Pro units, participating practitioners can also communicate to longtime and potential new patients that their practice is safe, protected and effectively sanitized.
The company website, germfreedentistry.com, provides dental professionals with information about how to implement the technology at their practice. To provide the greatest amount of real time saturation of the hydrogen-peroxide molecules, Thompson recommends running up to four units continuously in a 1,500-square-foot facility.
Clients who employ the unit will also qualify to enroll in the germfreedirectory.com publication, where consumers and potential patients can visit to learn more about infectious disease prevention and which business locations provide a safe environment. Thompson explains, “We thought that this would be a tremendous service to provide in order to create public awareness, for the greater good as well as to help support our practitioners.” OP
Tonya Johnson is associate editor of Orthodontic Products.
